I am a writer, philosopher, historical researcher, and fiction writer. I am interested in questions of modernity, society, and the contemporary visual regime of digital life; philosophically, I am interested in Marxism and the philosophy of art. The basis of my critical practise is an ongoing encounter with contemporary culture, the exploratory edge of my philosophical worldview. My literary process offers my own aesthetic representation of the present. My practise as an artist is influenced by generic conventions, and the potential of narrative to provoke emotional reflection in the reader. My writing attempts to express what is at stake in the structuring concerns common to the present. Narrative techniques are the organizing principle of my practise, all of which constitutes a totality that moves dialectically between rhetorical and narrative modes.

This page is all about me. It contains links to my social media around the internet; profiles and typological data (forthcoming); methodology; known biases; likes and dislikes; as well as information on the material elements of my practise and my research.

Personal

Work

I spent my 20s working in restaurants. It’s a living, just another trade (even when you’re working in fancy restaurants).

Links

These are the social media that I am active on, ranked in terms of use. I can be reached through direct message on any of these platforms; if you prefer, you can also email me.

I have had many usernames over the years. My current one is theinvertedform, a phrase that emerged to me out of my first reading of Capital. Somewhere in the section on commodity fetishism, the words “inverted form” appear in some close proximity. It wasn’t until years later, when reading The Phenomenology of Spirit, that I came across the related phrase “the inverted world.” Marx’s phrase “the inverted form” is a reference to that concept taken from Hegel. I may use “The Inverted World” as a title for something, someday (podcast?).

I like “theinvertedform,” especially as it’s typeset. It’s a bit emo, a bit 2000s-era punk; “the inverted world” even more so.

The URL for this website is simply my initials (Uriah Marc Todoroff). I don’t quite recall if I chose the .world TLD as a reference to the concept from Hegel, but the timeline definitely matches up. For branding purposes, I have attempted to simplify and streamline: umt.world/umtworld is my cross-platform identifier; theinvertedform is my username.

Material Cultures

Technical setup

Thinkpad X1 Carbon (5th gen). This is my main computer. I have a desktop that I use as a media server and as a backup. The laptop is starting to show its age. I yearn for a fully-modded Thinkpad X220.
Gentoo Linux since roughly Summer 2020. Arch Linux for years before then. A brief spell of using Windows on a laptop, preceded by not having one. I first started experimenting with Linux around the age of 16, using Slackware and Ubuntu for a number of years.
Vim. Against my best intentions, this editor has become a significant part of my identity and a crucial part of how I understand new media from a research–creation perspective.
I have a generic 60% mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Brown switches. I like it and I like the tactility, but I hope to one day upgrade to either a vintage IBM Model M, or its continuation, the Mini-M.
I run a fork of the dwm window manager, alongside a fork of the simple/suckless terminal

Note-taking

Studying is particular, and I am by no means claiming to be an expert. I like the system I have developed: it’s quite simple, and makes sense to me. I try to remove as many arbitrary obstacles as possible. Basically, that means keeping lecture notes on loose-leaf, three-ring punch paper—the most common type of paper, in my experience. Notes use a simple indentation system, where I write the main point or concept, and track an argument through levels of indentation.

Recently, in my final semester, I learned about the concept of Zettelkasten, or the systematic use of index cards as a technique for organizing notes. I learned about it from my research into Walter Benjamin’s practises. More information on this is forthcoming when I gain more experience on the matter.

Education

Laura Secord Elementary (Toronto, circa 1993–1998, 1999)
General Crerar Primary (Toronto, circa 2001)
MIND High School (Montréal, circa 2004–2005; 2007)
Options II (Montréal, circa 2006–2007)
David & Mary Thompson Collegiate Institute (Toronto, circa 2007–2008)
Concordia University (Montréal, 2016–2019; 2021-2023)

Profile

I default to introverted, but am secretly gregarious. I am emotionally unstable, highly sensitive—but implacable.

Appearance

How can you know me, without knowing what I look like? Here is a description of my style, how I comport myself; I will also collect photographs to construct a chronological visual narrative.

Astrological chart

Scorpio, rising Sagittarius. Full chart and reading forthcoming. Mars dominates my chart, but I have always preferred Pluto as a personal icon. I like astrology as a symbolic language, and a future project will be to analyze statistical correlations in certain readings. I like the materialism of astrological metaphysics…of course, I should admit as well that it has always been a useful tool for processing emotions. I have not studied astrophysics, I know barely anything about the history of astrology, and I am not even familiar with the signs, except for in a superficial way. Although my knowledge is superficial, my interest is genuine.

Personality

Data forthcoming. I took the MBTI once when I was 18, and remember that I was an INTJ. We’ll see how I compare these days.

Morals

Some keywords for you:

Cosmology: Epicurean atomism
Metaphysics: materialist
Ontology: force
Ethics: virtue ethics
Politics: Maoist

Contact

I love feedback, and you are welcome to get in touch. You can try sending me a direct message on any of the social media profiles linked above; otherwise, you are welcome to contact me directly by email.