In a climate of crisis and uncertainties in which technologies and the politics of the digital contribute to sociopolitical ambivalences and instability, the seminar sheds light on digital tools, media and ecologies as a contested arena where utopia and dystopia, dreams and nightmares, surveillance and witnessing, existence and erasure occur simultaneously. Yet, the internet is everywhere; it has no fixed entry point; it surrounds us (Russell, 2020), in so much as it crosses human and non-human bodies; it offers information, and it extracts from us (Wark, 2025).

As the pervasiveness of AI-generated images and content has challenged how we-users understand and experience reality, and the term “speculative violence” (Della Ratta, 2025) seems to translate “a form of anticipatory harm in which synthetic images pre-stage acts of destruction, erasure, and forced displacement before they even occur” (Ibid.), we-users as “expanded spectators” (Liosi, 2023) are constantly challenged. To understand and engage with the digital habitat in which the human and non-human live, we need to navigate the “almost unreal” (O’Donnel, Elnozahy, 2025) as an embedded and embodied condition.

Within this context, does it still make sense to ask what “fiction” is and means?

The seminar will explore activist practices across digital habitats. In that sense, we’ll observe and critically analyse how media such as video games, AI-generated images, 3D reconstructions, and VR, just to name a few, are used by artists to respond to different forms of colonial violence, spatial injustice, climate crisis, and fascisms that concern our current times.

During the seminar, we’ll watch films and videos, read essays, visit exhibitions and artists’ studios.

Students are encouraged to contribute with other examples that can enrich the collective discussion. Proposals for readings and other food for thought are not only welcomed, but very recommended.

Bibliography and case studies will be shared at the beginning of the seminar.

**

Wark, Mckenzie, “Epistemic Crisis,” in O'Donnell, T., & Elnozahy, M. Curator's essay: MUNCH Triennale – Almost Unreal. Munchmuseet, 2025.

Liosi, Marianna, “Digital commemorating and memorials: performing the urban and online sphere”, MAP – Media | Archive | Performance, (13), 2023.

O'Donnell, T., & Elnozahy, M. Curator's essay: MUNCH Triennale – Almost Unreal. Munchmuseet, 2025.

Russell, Legacy, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto. London: Verso, 2020.

Classes schedule:

Classes always take place on MONDAYS 2-5 pm IN PERSON, with some exceptions. Please, see and take note of the schedule below:

19 Oct, 2-5pm: ONLINE > Here is the Zoom link https://eu02web.zoom-x.de/j/61302110889?pwd=kyJ2a23ans7h47CbrXrQpaba52jUj5.1

26 Oct, 2-5pm: IN PERSON, in the Library Room (our seminar room)

2 Nov, 10am-1pm: ONLINE > Zoom link will follow

9 Nov, 2-5pm: ONLINE > Zoom link will follow

16 Nov, 2-5pm: ONLINE > Zoom link will follow

23 Nov, 2-5pm: ONLINE > Zoom link will follow

From 30 Nov onwards: IN PERSON, in the Library Room (our seminar room)

I'm looking forward to meeting you online on Monday 19th of October at 2 pm!!

Best

Marianna