Ed Fornieles on Identity in the Internet Age

Artist Ed Fornieles joins Verse Talk to discuss Borrowed Lives: Anon 2026, a body of work exploring how the internet shapes identity.
The conversation ranges from Tumblr and 4chan to memes, online belonging, gamer culture, masculinity, AI, and what it means to grow up in a world where images never stop arriving.
Along the way, Ed discusses his wider practice, why online communities matter, and how visual culture quietly changes the way we think about ourselves.
00:00 Introduction
03:45 Introducing Ed Fornieles & Borrowed Lives: Anon
05:45 How Tumblr inspired the project
08:35 4chan, anonymity and internet culture
12:00 Cell: recreating online communities in real life
20:25 "The memes meme you"
22:55 Why Borrowed Lives isn't a traditional narrative
25:10 Growing up through images
29:45 Building Anon: research, internet rabbit holes & image collecting
34:40 Inside the artworks: grids, chapters and visual storytelling
37:20 Why it's called Borrowed Lives
39:45 Are online communities inherently dangerous?
44:35 Masculinity, belonging and growing up online
49:45 How the artworks are actually made
53:00 Pepe, Wojak and the evolution of internet identity
56:10 Future characters, AI and where the project goes next
58:50 Raising teenagers in the internet age
1:02:15 Final thoughts