17, 18 & 19 June 2019 | University of Groningen
Whether we watch films and TV series on Netflix, listen to music on Spotify, track our jogs on Runkeeper, or search for the best place to spend a weekend on Tripadvisor, our daily practices and experiences are mediated by algorithmic processes and interfaces. Moreover, we inhabit Smart Cities, carry around Smartphones, and live in Smart Homes. These technologies might make our lives more efficient and convenient, but they are also devices that gather data about ourselves and our relations to others, to be analyzed by (often) obscure procedures and parties. They bring about new digital divides between those who can access, read and use this data and those who cannot. Moreover, people require an extensive skill set and the literacy to navigate, interpret, resist, and appropriate this algorithmic culture.

Due to a number of graduations, the RMeS PhD Council is looking for new members. The Council meets twice a year and organizes one network event each year. The Council represents the PhD community in the RMeS Advisory Board and gets to evaluate and discuss the direction of the Research School for Media Studies.

February – March 2019 | Utrecht University
In the graduate seminar series The Right to the City & Urban Commons , students participate in three seminar sessions and a 2-day ‘pressure cooker’ workshop. The first seminar will focus on conceptualizing the notions of ‘the right to the city’ and the ‘urban commons’. What are today’s urban commons and how can people claim their right to the city in contemporary shifting urban conditions? The second session is dedicated to current urban common practices, and the imagining of new ones, from the perspective of media, art and performance projects. Several case studies will be discussed and analyzed. The third seminar prepares participants for the two-day pressure cooker workshop, where students will learn how to put their theoretical knowledge into practice through the use of a ‘critical making’ approach.

18 January 2019 | University of Amsterdam
This masterclass engages with this dual nature of interface as an encounter between designers and users in daily lives. Specifically, it explores such interfaces from the combined perspectives of media theory and post-phenomenological geography, as interfaces emit subtle influence over how users experience the rhythms of the world, shaped by the interest of those who design them.

25 January 2019 | KNAW – Het Trippenhuis
Masterclass with prof. Kim Schrøder (Roskilde University) and prof. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford)

VU University | Second Semester 18-19
This course examines different conceptualizations of the image in the context of historical transformations of the arts. This year’s edition will focus on critical theories of representation and visibility, including not only art and media theory but also in philosophy, feminist theory and postcolonial studies. Looking into representation both in the sense of depiction (Darstellung) and of political delegation (Vertretung), we will discuss the multiple valences, ambiguous past and uncertain future of this concept. Contemporary artistic and activist practices will be analysed in conjunction with the theoretical writings.