Kelly Pendergrast is writer, researcher, and sometimes art worker based in the Bay Area. Her writing is a negotiation between the material world — objects, landscapes, built things — as experienced in place and time, and the abstraction engendered by screens, images, digital technology, and financialized networks. Alongside her writing, Kelly is the co-founder of Antistatic, a consultancy that focuses on complex issues around technology and the environment.
She is the co-editor of More Zeros and Ones, a new book on digital technology, equity, and maintenance, and was a 2021 winner of the American Craft Council's Lois Moran Award for Craft Writing. She writes frequently for Real Life magazine, and her work has also appeared in places including e-flux, Provence, Business Insider, and as catalog texts for Schauspielhaus Zürich and The Engine Room. Her essay “Cozy Tech” was a winner of the American Craft Council’s 2021 Lois Moran Award for Craft Writing.
While at MacDowell, she completed the proposal and sample chapter for her first full-length nonfiction book project, with the draft title of Bad Things. She also worked on a newly commissioned essay about the aesthetics of storage and the logistical imagination, from Khloé Kardashian's pantry to TikTok pantry stock videos.
