Seumboy VRAINOM :€
Seumboy Vrainom :€ is a “Hors-Sol” activist. Not uprooted, but rather “out-of-soil”—a pure heir of French colonial history. He grew up in Le Luth, a housing project in the Paris suburbs, on the 13th floor of a tower, floating in the virtual. Facing difficulties in reconnecting with the land, he naturally turned to the digital space.
“At a time when the local and ecology dominate political rhetoric, what space is left for the ‘Hors-Sol’?”
This is the question I attempt to answer throughout my journey—by investing in the space where my roots lie: the digital realm.
I use the term “Hors-Sol activist” both as a provocation and as the affirmation of a political stance.
Caught between technological singularity and the collapse of thermo-industrial society, he advocates for a decolonial ecology.
In April 2020, I launched the channel Histoires Crépues, which allows me to carry out activism through the digital space.
I present myself as an heir of French colonial history seeking to make that history accessible.
Without trying to judge or erase—on the CONTRARY—the goal is to make colonial history anecdotes accessible so that everyone can take ownership of this history.
Sparking curiosity is the first step in any work of popular education.
With humor, Histoires Crépues offers a constructive and well-sourced pedagogy.
Against the Algorithm: Crafting a Digital Counterculture
Against the Algorithm: Crafting a Digital Counterculture
Seumboy Vrainom :€ is a digital artist whose work explores how technology can be invested with political and spiritual meaning. His artistic journey began as an attempt to carve out a counterculture within the digital space—rethinking not only how we use online platforms, but also what it means to resist their dominant logics.
Today, his practice has turned toward a critical engagement with generative AI, especially tools like MidJourney. While fascinated by their creative potential, he questions how such technologies reproduce existing power structures, and whether they can ever truly serve emancipatory purposes.
This reflection often stands in tension with his activist work on Histoires Crépues, one of the leading media dedicated to making the history of French colonialism accessible, with over 900,000 subscribers. Between the demands of mass communication and the intimate, critical exploration of digital tools, Seumboy constantly negotiates contradictions.
Through his research journal on Instagram, entitled “Je n’ai pas dit mon dernier mot” (“I Haven’t Said My Last Word”), he seeks to share these dilemmas openly, documenting the possibilities and the limits of digital countercultures in the age of algorithms.
