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Aquest assaig presenta una discussió i una anàlisi sobre el cas Cybersyn des d’una perspectiva d’arqueologia de mitjans, parant una atenció particular als desenvolupaments teòrics i metodològics plantejats pels acadèmics Friedrich Kittler i Wolfgang Ernst. En conseqüència, la discussió se centrarà en els aspectes no visuals del projecte en qüestió, deixant de banda les mirades «iconogràfiques» que fins ara han abordat aquest cas, sobretot des de les fotografies que documenten la seva sala d’operacions. De manera alternativa, proposo moure la nostra atenció cap a la xarxa de tèlex i el sistema de processament que van sostenir Cybersyn, per buscar, en els sistemes des símbols que hi van circular, la materialització del saber tècnic que caracteritza el cas i esbossar-ne així, potencialment, l’abast cultural.

L’objectiu d’aquest article és traçar la biografia i mostrar l’ús social d’uns petits objectes de paper maixé pertanyents a la tradició de Takamatsu-hariko (Japó) que es conserven al Museu Etnològic de Barcelona. A través del seu estudi veurem el paper representatiu i simbòlic que tenen dins l’univers(os) femení japonès i podrem accedir a llegendes, tradicions populars i antics costums relacionats amb l’imaginari femení.

Aquest article es proposa estudiar la repercussió que les xarxes de contactes i els cercles de músics tenen en la generació d’oportunitats de feina en el camp musical del jazz. La recerca s’emmarca en la perspectiva del concepte de camp artístic de Pierre Bourdieu (1984, 1987) i de les principals característiques que conformen els cercles col·laboratius segons Michael P. Farrell (2003). La metodologia és de caràcter qualitatiu i es basa en la realització (entre 2015 i 2016) d’entrevistes semiestructurades i en observació participant amb músics de l’escena jazz de la ciutat de Barcelona. A partir d’aquest treball de camp, es van analitzar les aportacions principals que les xarxes de contactes i els cercles col·laboratius dels músics de jazz ofereixen a l’hora de generar oportunitats de feina en el camp artístic musical. També es va estudiar de quina manera el treball col·lectiu i la conformació de grups musicals esdevenen una plataforma artístico-creativa fonamental tant per al desenvolupament de les carreres individuals dels músics com en el camp d’exploració conjunta del propi llenguatge musical.

Ser considerada una de les millors companyies dels Estats Units és un gran honor, però la bona reputació no eximeix aquestes empreses de trobar aspectes negatius a la Wikipedia, l'enciclopèdia en línia editada en col·laboració. Mitjançant una anàlisi de contingut de les companyies que tenen millor i pitjor reputació dels Estats Units, aquest estudi demostra que el contingut negatiu dels articles corporatius que es publiquen a la Wikipedia supera el contingut positiu independentment de la reputació de l'empresa. S'ha comprovat que tant les millors com les pitjors companyies contenen més continguts negatius que positius. És una qüestió important, ja que la Wikipedia no és només un dels llocs web més populars del món, sinó que s'ha convertit en un dels primers indrets per buscar informació corporativa. Tot i que s'han trobat més continguts relacionats amb la responsabilitat social corporativa en les entrades de les deu companyies amb millor reputació, aquests quedaven eclipsats per qüestions vinculades amb escàndols o assumptes legals. La conclusió és que els professionals de les relacions públiques haurien de supervisar i actualitzar periòdicament els seus articles corporatius a la Wikipedia independentment de la companyia per a la qual treballin.

Els mitjans locatius (locative media) continuen essent un marc útil per a comprendre com, gràcies a la percepció col·lectiva, els grups incrementaran notablement la seva capacitat de generar narratives alternatives de l'espai públic urbà. El cas de les cascades de la ciutat de Nova York, d'Olafur Eliasson, s'empra per a descriure aquest procés en relació amb una obra recent d'art públic a gran escala.

This paper deals with the sensory and culturally situated dimension of knowing, which I refer to as “aesthetics of knowledge”, and focuses on knowing and knowledge in two fields of the modern and contemporary cultural sphere: science and religion. Since its emergence during the 19th century, science has been sharing many elements of the aesthetics of knowledge with modern Western religion. These are shaped by common heritage from the Romantic period and, while often dismissed as superficial borrowings, they contribute to construct scientific meaning. Based on existing literature, this paper endeavours to show how a focus on shared aesthetics of knowledge in science and religion can provide new insights in science, media and art studies by complementing other approaches.

This paper studies the relationship between artistic intelligence and artificial intelligence (IA) in terms of their creative potential to produce works of art. Emphasizing the importance of randomness for creative processes, it will argue that, on a higher level, artificial intelligence is only capable of imitating creativity but not of really being creative, also because AI lacks the ability to critically reflect on its own experiences and insights. For the use of artificial intelligence as a tool for artists, the paper pleads for a critical handling that goes beyond the options that AI programs offer.

This paper responds to Breathe:2022, a multi-sited public artwork across London and the UK by mixed media artist Dryden Goodwin. Read as artivism, I argue that Breathe:20222 demarginalizes existing discourse on air pollution by intervening in public space and framing air pollution as an embodied and intersectional experience. This paper contextualizes Breathe:2022 in relation to a contemporary politics of atmospheric governance following the tragic case of Ella Kissi-Debrah. I hold that Goodwin’s artistic portrayal of breathing shows a processual condition of exposure that resituates knowledge of air in the breathing body. In doing so, the work suggests a possible paradigm shift in narratives of air pollution whereby phenomenological understandings of breathing and breathlessness might enhance, corroborate, put into perspective or hold to account scientific measurements of air quality. To orientate this approach, I put forward the notion of “breathing interfaces” as material and affective zones (buildings, bodies and digital media) where qualities of air become palpable and where bodies and worlds become together. Circling back to Breathe for Ella in the conclusion, I reflect forces of hope and uncertainty regarding the legacy of Goodwin’s artivism and its related campaigns.

This paper examines the impact that the concept of environmental personhood has had on art and culture, and suggests that projects such as The Embassy of the North Sea hint at the possibility of environmental statehood. First, it reviews how the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017 – which granted juridical personhood to the Whanganui River in New Zealand – inspired the creation of new works such as Weathering, Embedding: Ochopee Trail, terra0, A Voice for the Eel, and F/EEL. Next, a heuristic model called the agency-personhood continuum (APC) is used to identify the aesthetic tropes of environmental personhood. Analysis indicates that artworks that represent environmental personhood often utilize strategies of amplification, translation, performance, time compression, and metonymy. Finally, this paper seeks to encourage new discussions by suggesting that The Embassy of the North Sea and “Theatre of Negotiations” anticipate the concept of environmental statehood, which has the potential to provide greater protections for natural entities that span multiple countries – such as the Amazon River, the Andes, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean. Theoretically, environmental statehood could also provide greater representation in supra-governmental assemblies such as the UN General Assembly. Ultimately, this article suggests that the culture-law feedback loop for environmental personhood presents a new ontological paradigm that provides greater recognition of the agency, identity, and sovereignty of natural entities.

More-than-human networks and the impact of material non-human entities have come into focus, in both social and computer sciences, since the late twentieth century. In social sciences, a plethora of conceptualizations emerged to describe complex, dynamic, heterogeneous and non-hierarchical structures of material and non-material, human and non-human, congruent and conflicting entities. In computer science, the birth of the Internet and the subsequent emergence of the World Wide Web drew scientists’ attention to networks, as well. Later, the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) contributed to a shift in the prevailing perception of the Internet, from an immaterial entity to a network of interconnected material objects. Critical media artists explore the agency of non-human entities and the hybrid networks they articulate with heterogeneous agents. Some of them employ interconnected material objects to initiate tactical interventions at the intersection of art and activism. In this paper, we study tactical media artworks that incorporate material and technologically augmented everyday objects. We treat material objects as threefold entities – social, artistic and technological – and focus on the heterogeneous dynamic networks articulated around them. We investigate the actions and interactions of the entities involved, which result in a transformation of the emerging network. We show that these actions and interactions establish small-scale spatiotemporal spheres in which power relations are redistributed. The paper begins with a review of selected social and philosophical theories that introduced new terms, topologies and concepts for describing more-than-human networks. It then moves on to the advancement of networked technologies, focusing on the Internet’s materiality and the Internet of Things. Finally, it examines more-than-human networks, their transformations and the role of material objects in tactical media artworks through the analysis of two selected case studies.

This paper argues for a sociological and relational concern of “gratitude” in Simmel’s thought as a key feature of human interaction as well as a key “emotive disposition” (Stimmung) to engage with the challenges of modern society. Georg Simmel is undoubtedly one of the most crucial theorists and a pillar in the social sciences, and his theoretical contribution also stands as the foundation of relational sociology stricto sensu. He taught that interactions supporting social processes must be investigated as forms of relations. A relation is a precise mode of being connected to others; it is a tie emerging from reciprocal action and acquires its consistency by generating causal effects on involved actors. Among his main insights within the sociological tradition, Simmel’s excellent concepts and arguments engage emotions as a sociological matter, that is, under a relational aspect. Not only do emotions have sociological relevance (that is, they are a worthy subject for sociologists), but they also characterize the precise manner of interaction among individuals. Emotions are the relational effect of being associated in an increasingly differentiated society, which apparently only neutralizes individuals’ emotive sides, or else instrumentally drives or “colonizes” them. Simmel explored gratitude as a particular emotion that is a form of relation and interaction: it has an eccentric position among the other emotions that he investigated in his many essays. Gratitude represents a non-symmetrical or economic (exchangeable) “transactive” emotion: it puts the giver and receiver in a peculiar socio-emotional form of reciprocity. By considering relations, emotions, and gratitude through rigorous textual exploration, this paper tackles Simmel’s view and challenges a globalized world and hybridized digital society. Finally, gratitude could be regarded as a demarcation criterion for identifying and distinguishing social interaction forms from other kinds of non-social processes or transactions.

This paper depicts imagination in the horizon of the posthumous condition as a number of “affective workouts” – emotionally demanding exercises of reaching out and relating that require routines, training, staging and a fearless will to connect. The conceptual inspiration comes from Günther Anders’ postwar writings on our blindness in the face of the apocalyptic threat of the nuclear bomb and his propositions of moral stretching exercises to train our imagination. By bringing some of his ideas from the atomic age to our current ecological crisis, this paper allows his end times to speak to ours, and ask: what does it mean to imagine (with) the apocalypse as a way of forestalling it?

Epidemics are considered paradigmatic states of emergency and humanitarian scenarios. Thus, humanitarian conceptualizations are negotiable through the very practices appearing in this type of emergency. This paper aims to investigate this process in relation to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, an event that is considered a global threat and an intolerable humanitarian situation. We analyze how the definition of what can be understood (or not) as humanity was constructed through visual representations produced by social media. We will also discuss how the definition of humanity was negotiated through dimensions such as the spectrum of visibility, the distribution of agencies, the affections intended to provoke, and the imaginaries defined. This paper is based on an empirical semiotic analysis of hundreds of images from the 2014 Ebola epidemic and 15 focus groups and individual interviews, performed over a span of one year, discussing images from social media.

This paper deals with the complex relationship between human beings, technical objects and the natural environment within a transdisciplinary framework at the intersection of human-computer interaction, philosophy, and materiality. It begins by examining the role of tactile coding systems in Andean fiber support, then draws upon diverse disciplines including art, computer science, philosophy of technology and media archaeology. Through the analysis of historical artifacts, contemporary artistic practices and philosophical frameworks, it aims to explore dynamic methodologies beyond the Western canon. The goal is to question entrenched power structures in a framework that foregrounds interconnectedness as a relational ontology inspired by Andean worldviews, embracing syncretic approaches so to reformulate technological narratives.

In this paper I rehearse a method for studying media that is engaged by what I am calling a transient methodology. This work with “transients“ emerges as much as an analytical tool as it does as a material engagement, in direct connection with my encounter with a GDR-era synthesizer prototype, the Subharchord I/II, and its use of a specific audio filter design which is found again only forty years later as a building block for most state-of-the-art speech recognition algorithms. I am particularly interested in one such algorithm, namely the so-called “Dialect Recognition Software”, a proprietary machine learning solution in use since 2017 by the German Office for Migration and Refugees in cases of undocumented asylum seekers in the country. By bringing these two stories closer and mobilizing them through the work of transients – a concept that works in sound as much as it does in movement – I seek to activate an experimental, speculative media archaeology that focuses on the haptics of listening. Transient methodologies, I argue, offer the potential to critically listen to these two technologies together while at the same time slowing them down for critical inquiry and analysis.

Screenology, or Media Archaeology of the Screen, has occupied me for over twenty years. I am more and more convinced that its investigations must be taken far back in time and also beyond the Western world. Media screens can be understood as dedicated artifacts that are distinct from the forms and contents that keep appearing on them. In brief, they are interfaces that connect the close and the remote, the present and the absent, the material and the discursive. To understand their genealogy from extended spatiotemporal perspectives, it is important to pay attention to “screen-like” things that may not even have been called “screens”, “écrans” or “Leinwands” by their creators and users. One example of such screen-like objects that commands attention are the “screens” produced in East-Asian cultures like Japan and China since times immemorial. They have specific histories, interconnections, forms, iconographies and uses. Although such objects do not seem to match the later Western idea of media screens (their decorations and the pictures they carry are permanent), they deserve attention from a screenological perspective not only as what they are, but also because they became integrated into the cultural, political and economic processes that brought different parts of the world together. We can talk about “traffic in screens”, which has become an extensive phenomenon. Oriental “screens” were transported to different parts of the world, including Europe and Latin America. They became submitted to cultural trends and were given signification by the receiving cultures. Obvious examples are the Western trends Chinoiserie and Japonisme, which saw these “screens” in very different ways compared with those who had conceived and produced them. Western “Orientalist” (E. Said) interpretations influenced how these objects were seen in the environments where they had been produced. In this paper, I will suggest that making sense of such cross-cultural exchanges will add important insights to our efforts to understand the formative developments of media screens from perspectives that go beyond Western views and ideological formations.

This essay and manifesto define speculative photography from a historical perspective and through practical poetics, as photography that integrates fantastic and experimental elements in both its subjects and processes. Such photography is even more urgent at a time when generative artificial intelligence (AI) and computational photography are driving photography to an impasse of fabricated yet all-pervasive realism. The text defines speculative photography in its semiotic and information-theory aspects, outlines a taxonomy of speculative qualities in photography alongside examples of photographers and photographic communities practicing them, and pays particular attention to contemporary subcultures of early-2000s digital camera (digicam) reuse and internet pop-cultural redefinitions of “aesthetics”. While theories and definitions of speculative photography have existed since the 1970s, they are scattered and cover only select aspects of the broader concept proposed here. This paper argues that speculative photography rejects empiricism and notions of truth while practicing an art of the “medium” in its most literal – physical, artistic and spiritual – meanings.

The censorship of artists on social media impacts their freedom of expression and their ability to monetize and engage with their audiences. Furthermore, this fosters a process of cultural standardization. Several legal arguments have been raised against art censorship in social media platforms, mainly based on public law, however, they are not effective in all jurisdictions, as demonstrated by U.S. case law. The purpose of this paper is to shift the spotlight and provide solutions from a private law perspective, specifically from contract law. The main argument here is that courts should abandon their traditional bilateral/vertical approach and embrace a more nuanced one that better reflects the complexity of the relationships taking place in social media. This would give those affected access to concrete contractual remedies and allow for greater control over the content moderation process.

The challenges introduced by AI for the EU anti-discrimination legal framework have been a widely discussed topic among the doctrine. In the light of the 20th anniversary of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Commission released a regulatory proposal to tackle AI. This paper seeks to determine whether the proposal successfully addresses the existent pitfalls of the EU framework. First, this paper explores the functioning of AI systems that employ machine learning techniques and determines how discrimination takes place. Second, the article examines intellectual property rights as one of the main barriers for accountability and redressal of violations committed by an AI system. Third, the state of the discussion concerning the pitfalls of the existent EU approach towards non-discrimination is addressed. The available academic literature suggests that discriminatory outputs produced by an AI will amount to indirect discrimination in most scenarios. In this sense, cases of indirect proxy discrimination will likely pass the proportionality test, therefore justifying the discriminatory output. The last section of this article studies the Commission’s regulatory proposal. Although the document seems to effectively tackle discrimination caused by biased training data sets, this paper concludes that intellectual property rights and proxy discrimination still constitute significant barriers for the enforcement of anti-discrimination law.

François Dépelteau is a major figure in the contemporary rise of relational scholarship. His untimely passing casts a shadow over the relational research community, particularly those with close ties to the Canadian sociological association research cluster. This paper seeks to honour the contribution and legacy of François through a relational analysis of a relational research community. Mobilising Eacott’s relational approach, this paper turns relational scholarship upon itself to argue that the relational research community is organised around two fundamental questions – the explanatory and the empirical. François was not only embedded in, but embodied, this relationality. His approach to scholarship serves as an invitation, an invitation to think with, through and where necessary against relations in the pursuit of offering generative insights. François generated the conditions for many previously disparate researchers to come together and the challenge has now shifted to us – the relational research community – to honour him and continue this research agenda.

The aim of the paper is to analyze the zero-hour contract in the context of platform work; specifically, the risks and opportunities of this type of provision of services. In the context of the sharing economy and gig-economy, there have emerged multiple App-based companies that have significantly altered the way in which services are provided. Companies like Uber, Lift, Taskrabbit, Deriveroo, Glovo or Amazon Mechanical Turk have introduced new forms of work that have altered the boundaries of Labor Law. The model of these companies is the division of their production into microtasks, the externalization of their entire production to a wide number of independent contractors through an App or webpage and the hiring of each service on-demand. As a result, new technologies have allowed these companies to avoid hiring workers and to provide their services entirely through self-employed workers. This hiring on-demand implies the use, de facto, of the zero-hour contract, as platform workers are not subject to a specific working time regime, having absolute liberty to determine, not only their schedule, but also their working time and, even, their willingness to work. In this context, the aim of the paper is to analyze the zero-hour scheme in the context of platform work. The final objective of the paper is to determine, from a lege ferenda perspective, if jurisdictions should introduce this type of contract to promote the business model used by digital platforms or, on the contrary, if they should ban it.

This paper aims at expanding on François Dépelteau's conception of social relation as dynamic processes. I argue that the basic concept of process is in need of further developments. We tend to understand processes as teleological, but I contend that self-referential processes are a more interesting model for relational sociology. Using Niklas Luhmann's theory, we can conceive self-referential processes as systems that self-organise by transforming disorder into order. For this to be possible, systems must harbour within themselves. The paper then explores the various reasons that explain this special feature.

In 1969 Werner Heisenberg presented a paper at a symposium initiated by the Karajan Foundation in Salzburg. The theme of this symposium was the ‘significance of modern scientific knowledge—in medicine, physiology, and physics—for art, music, pedagogy and aesthetic practice.’ Heisenberg’s paper was titled “The Tendency to Abstraction in Modern Art and Science.”1. Heisenberg dissembled, preferring to avoid an approach from a technical point of view, in favour of a consideration of principle, or of a “philosophy of culture”, in order to ask whether certain tendencies in modern art, at times strange or incomprehensible, might have some parallel in the form of similar phenomena in modern science. Heisenberg was not concerned with specific forms or techniques of contemporary aesthetic or scientific practice, but with what he described as their “overall shape”. It is an interesting position, not because it afforded Heisenberg a necessarily new or privileged insight, but because unlike most discussions of the relations between art and science it did not proceed in a hegemonic manner wherein one discipline annexes and establishes sovereignty over another. In Heisenberg’s query scientific procedures did not circumscribe or annex art (as mere illustration, exemplar or ornament) and aesthetic practices did not circumscribe and annex scientific data (as argument, justification, evidence or authority). Neither was he overly concerned with an equanimity or symmetry in the relationships of these various disciplines; he was interested in certain affinities, the possibility of common grounds, in science and art as they are practised. . . .the step towards greater generality is always itself a step into abstraction—or more precisely, into the next highest level of abstraction; for the most general unites the wealth of diverse individual things or processes under a unitary point of view, which means at the same time that it disregards other features considered to be unimportant. In other words, it abstracts from them.2 It is in this context that I will situate my remarks on certain affinities and differences between scientific and aesthetic practices, by considering the possibility of their common ground in terms of abstraction, technics, and capture, (i.e., what it is that is purported to be captured, secured or preserved, in order to be represented).

One of the most difficult tasks today is trying to grasp the presence of computing. The almost ubiquitous and diverse forms of networked computers (in all their stationary, mobile, embedded, and autonomous modes) create a nearly overwhelming complexity. To speak of what is here evading and present at the same time, the paper proposes to reconsider the concept of interface, its historical roots, and its heuristic advantages for an analysis and critique of the current and especially everyday spread of computerization. The question of interfaces leads to isolable conditions and processes of conduction, as well as to the complexity of the cooperation formed by them. It opens both an investigative horizon and a mode of analysis, which always asks for further interface levels involved in the phenomenon I am currently investigating. As an example, the paper turns to the displacement of the file with the launch of the iPhone in 2007 and its comeback in 2017 with the “Files” apps. Both developments are profoundly related to the establishment of computers as permanently networked machines, whereby their functionality, depresentations, and ideology come into focus.

This paper describes a research-based art project that seeks to identify several strategies used to delay industry regulation and manipulate public opinion during the 1980s and compare them to the strategies used by online advertising platforms such as Google and Facebook which are facing regulation today. This paper will show how these strategies have been woven into the story of a game called What remains, a darkly humorous, authentic Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game aiming to create an experience of fighting misinformation, showing the player ways to push back and regain agency by joining forces with others and actively questioning the nature of different news media. Throughout the nineteen eighties, several strategies were tried and tested to manipulate public opinion in order to avoid regulation that was threatening industries such as oil and tobacco. Three strategies will be discussed with examples from the 1980s as well as from today’s Tech Industry, which is facing potential regulation after the 2016 US elections and the Brexit referendum made it clear that there was a massive lack of accountability on the part of online advertising platforms. The November 2017 congressional hearings of Facebook, Twitter and Google, as well as the hearings of Marc Zuckerberg in the US and the EU in early 2018 are the main sources of information analyzed. This paper describes an art project that shows some of the most successful pre-internet disinformation campaigns and highlights how the online advertisement industry is utilizing them to stave off regulations threatening their business model, even if their business model is threatening democracy.

In this paper, reflecting the twin interests of François Dépelteau, I draw together the themes of ‘relationality’ and ‘process’. Having argued that the concept of ‘relations’ is central to sociology (and a fortiori ‘relational’ sociology), I discuss some of the problems associated with the concept. In this context I propose a processual conception. A social relation, I argue, is the ‘state of play’ in an interaction history between two actors and, as such, is always ‘in process’. Relations do not exist in isolation, however. They concatenate in complex networks, which are themselves always ‘in process’. The later sections of the paper discuss such networks and the mechanisms which drive their evolution across time.

La desconnexió digital ha estat regulada en la recent Llei orgànica 3/2018, de 5 de desembre, de protecció de dades personals i garantia dels drets digitals, com un dret reconegut legalment dels treballadors en honor de garantir el respecte del temps de descans. No obstant això, el seu contingut no ha estat definit pel legislador i trasllada aquesta responsabilitat als agents socials i els ocupadors, que, per mitjà de la negociació col·lectiva i l’elaboració de polítiques empresarials internes, estan cridats a exercir un paper fonamental en la configuració i exigència d’aquest nou dret. Davant aquest escenari, aquest article aborda si la qualificació com a dret ofereix una solució ajustada al propòsit que es persegueix amb la desconnexió digital, afegint a més una anàlisi crítica del paper que exerceixen la negociació col·lectiva i la representació dels treballadors i els empresaris, i també les seves implicacions jurídiques, en la regulació de la desconnexió digital.

The emergence of media artivism over the last decades constitutes a new and relevant field of study for researchers of digital culture and social change, digital art historians and media archaeologists. Since the inception of the new millennium and the spread of electronic culture, media artivism has grown into a field of its own with distinctive organizations, artists, curators and critics devoted to engaged practices that are close to political antagonism and far from the concerns of the elitist art world. Considering the worsening environmental and political crisis around the globe, the spread and conscious use of new technologies becomes essential to update the concept of artivism, intended as a kind of action-taking art devoted to social issues. By establishing an epistemological framework along the lines of media archaeology and digital art history, the research highlights the role of media artivism in the context of recent historical and societal developments, as well as its potentially leading role for behavioral and social change. From pioneering experiences to current practices, the paper explores how a growing number of practitioners are tackling societal concerns through digital strategies and thus drawing attention to several critical topics, such as: gender issues, environmental delinquency, racial discrimination, social injustices, political corruption, abuse of power, invasive technologies and surveillance abuse. In the course of the analysis, a relevant role is given to practices based on hacktivism, public engagement and intercreative procedures that aim at highlighting, disclosing, or spreading the state of affairs which are still uncovered in traditional media and thus expanding the role of investigative art/journalism in the Postdigital Age. The case studies presented show how media artivism emerges as an autonomous field shaped by practitioners acting on the premise of a vocation on the fringe between society and the art world.

This paper examines the current challenges in copyright enforcement online in a case from Germany, concerning the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.Project Gutenberg was found liable for a breach of German copyright law and access to certain items was blocked by Germany. Gutenberg believes that the German court has no jurisdiction over the matter, but will comply until the issue is resolved on appeal.The paper illustrates possible alternatives for jurisdiction and applicable law in the EU. Current choice-of-court and choice-of-law rules are argued to be unsuitable for copyright claims for the online environment. Further, the paper focuses on the latest case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concerning the liability of intermediaries and the safe harbour regime. “Hosting” safe harbour is supposed to be rejected when a platform is directly liable for copyright infringement jointly with its users.Furthermore, the paper will describe how the same conclusions would also apply to the Google Books Library Project. Both cases illustrate the current problems of territorial copyright laws in the online environment.The challenges in enforcing copyright online encourage copyright holders to seek protection within just one jurisdiction so that one single law can be applied. This weighs heavily when deciding upon a litigation strategy for copyright claims. The lessons learnt in this field show how cross-border enforcement of copyright online is tremendously unpredictable for defendants and unaffordable for copyright holders, and thus, benefits nobody.

Al contrari del que se sol pensar, la raça no és la matriu en què es gesta el racisme, sinó que és el racisme el que inventa la raça, la seva condició de possibilitat. Només així es pot entendre la manera en què aquest fenomen ha apel·lat a diferents ordres de la nostra realitat per a generar el conjunt de normes, idees i emocions que constantment ens travessen com a societat. En aquest article intentaré avaluar la incidència del racisme a Espanya analitzant l'impacte recent de la immigració il·legal a les seves xarxes socials i mitjans de comunicació. Partint del reconeixement del paper que ha tingut la colonialitat al llarg de la seva història, així com de la pertorbadora necessitat que aquesta ha imposat per excloure la seva alteritat racialitzada, intentaré demostrar el paper que ha tingut el país com a frontera de color, com a límit que separa les poblacions del continent africà i europeu. El meu objectiu és assenyalar, per mitjà de la teoria psicoanalítica, el caràcter contingent del racisme com a mecanisme adscrit a la seva identitat nacional, a més de constatar el seu fracàs com a afluent i com a límit de la seva condició simbòlica i libidinal.

Libraries have traditionally played a central role in collecting and organizing material and giving wide access to culture and knowledge. Does the existing copyright framework provide enough space for online digital libraries to claim an equivalent central role in the online space? This article explores the legal challenges for online digital libraries’ collection building. The materials that comprise the content of a library fall broadly under three categories with respect to their copyright status: copyrighted works, works with ambivalent copyright status (such as orphan and out-of-print works) and public domain works. In the paper, I try to answer a number of legal questions related to these three categories of works, inter alia licensing and e-lending as well as digital exhaustion, and also defend the value of creating and sustaining robust digital libraries online. The paper will conclude on how the theory of the commons can improve the existing legal framework and strengthen the libraries’ position in order to sustain valuable knowledge commons supporting the ever-growing network ecosystem. Thus, I emphasize the value of maintaining a growing public domain that can be organized and digitally accessible online.

Over the last three decades, the rise of new conceptualizations around the human body in connection with technology and machines has led to the development of new art practices in parallel with technological advances in the fields of biology, medicine and computing. This paper examines the human body in art contexts where biotechnology plays a relevant role in the generation of new conceptualizations around the human body topic. Thus, re-contextualized in social and cultural spheres and technical terms, the body will become redesigned, revamped, or augmented through the use of technological advances ranging from plastic surgery to robotic prosthetics. The human body is our vehicle of direct interaction with the environment. Its modification, alteration or expansion implies a redefinition of the existing limits between our corporality and the environment itself. Not only in the physical sense, but metaphysical and social. Hence, the introduced artists and strategies blur these limits and establish new relations through the body as a physical and social entity. In the search of new boundaries far beyond socio-cultural and natural limitations, they will reach new social, perceptual and conceptual statuses, far beyond aesthetic practices, focusing on the generation of political and social debates.

This paper examines the liveness of the performative acts of technologically simulated or synthesized agents in interaction with humans. It questions the ability of artificial performers to construct a sense of live presence on stage and in other daily performative scenarios and evaluates our perception of liveness in those contexts. In this critical and comparative analysis, I study the live quality of Hatsune Miku’s live musical performances – a computer-generated cyber celebrity with a three-dimensional holographic body and an artificially synthesized singing voice – and the stimulating interactions of PARO, the seal – an adorable therapeutic cuddle-robot utilized as an emotional companion in nursing homes and hospitals. Using performance and media theories, I examine the audience/users’ affective responses and engagement quality with the holographic singer and the robotic pet, directly leading to the acceptance or rejection of the claim to the liveness of these techno-actors. This research also evaluates the impact of the application of cuteness (or kawaii) in designing non-human agents versus the emergence of creepiness in interactions with their incorporeal bodies on our emotive response. The objective is to study the difference between the liveness and aliveness of non-human, non-living performing agents and the impact of evoking the sense of “cute” versus “creepy” on warping the Uncanny Valley Curve.

Aquest article planteja alguns dels problemes fonamentals que sustenten el debat i la investigació recents sobre les narratives transmèdia i/o el transmedia storytelling. Aquestes qüestions han estat plantejades, en tant que preguntes o reptes per a les disciplines implicades en aquest debat (estudis comparats de mitjans, narratologia transmèdia, game studies, estudis culturals i literatura comparada): des de les claus de la possible novetat del transmedia storytelling o de les narratives transmèdia, passant pel nou paper de les audiències, la pèrdua de pes del factor narratiu en favor de la construcció de mons (storyworlds) i personatges transmèdia; la influència dels videojocs, el dèficit d'atenció i comprensió al paper de les adaptacions en el TS; l'efecte «demediador» o de pèrdua d'especificitat mediàtica en la teoria del TS; la importància de la creació col·laborativa i el seu estímul per a nous projectes d'investigació (academicoempresarials) i de docència que responguin a aquestes noves dinàmiques industrials i hàbits socioculturals. Aquestes qüestions, entre d'altres, s'han articulat en entrevistes realitzades per Domingo Sánchez-Mesa a tres personalitats destacades de la investigació acadèmica i de la creació professional en l'àmbit dels nous mitjans: Espen Aarseth, Robert Pratten i Carlos A. Scolari. El diàleg creuat a tres bandes i connectat, al seu torn, amb altres textos d'aquest volum, ha generat un discurs polifònic que pretén ajustar-se a la radiografia crítica del propi objecte d'estudi.

Over the past decade, concern has grown regarding the risks generated by the use of artificial intelligence systems. One of the main problems associated with the use of these systems is the harm they have been proven to cause to the fundamental right to equality and non-discrimination. In this context, it is vital that we examine existing and proposed regulatory instruments that aim to address this particular issue, especially taking into consideration the difficulties of applying the abstract nature that typically characterises legal instruments and, in particular, the equality and non-discrimination legal framework, to the specific instructions that are needed when coding an artificial intelligence instrument that aims to be non-discriminatory. This paper focuses on examining how article 10 of the new EU Artificial Intelligence Act proposal may be the starting point for a new form of regulation that adapts to the needs of algorithmic systems.

Affective computing is an interdisciplinary field that studies computational methods that relate to or influence emotion. These methods have been applied to interactive media artworks, but they have focused on affect detection rather than affect generation. For affect generation, computationally creative methods need to be explored that have recently been driven by the use of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), a deep learning method. The experiment presented in this paper, Forging Emotions, explores the use of visual emotion datasets and the working processes of GANs for visual affect generation, that is, for generating images that can convey or trigger specified emotions. This experiment concludes that the methodology used so far by computer science researchers to build image datasets for describing high-level concepts such as emotions is insufficient and proposes utilizing emotional networks of associations according to psychology research. Forging Emotions also concludes that to generate affect visually, merely corresponding to basic psychology findings, such as bright or dark colours, does not seem adequate. Therefore, research efforts should aim to understand the structure of trained GANs and compositional GANs in order to produce genuinely novel compositions that can convey or trigger emotions through the subject matter of generated images.

While the study of new media art is diverse and encompasses a wide range of art practices, curatorial and art historical concerns, as well as philosophical questions regarding the coexistence of art and technology, research and training on the practical aspects of curating new media art and in particular its interactive manifestations is sparse, and what does exist often becomes obsolete within a decade. Having identified this gap in knowledge, The Manual for the Curation and Display of Interactive New Media Art is a creative commons living document aimed at assisting curators and exhibition designers, particularly non-specialist curators seeking to engage with interactive new media art. This paper will explain the design philosophy of the manual as well as the methodologies

New Media Art reflects the dramatic creative and cultural shifts in science and technology of the past century. With these shifts, the multitude of forms of art-making have expanded to include a wide range of ideas and techniques. Following several decades of new contributions, this plurality of expression has resisted monolithic or curatorial approaches to organization along the lines of media. This paper defines knowledge cultures as flexible, overlapping, non-exclusive, ideological sub-groups and seeks to identify such groups within the practice and theory of New Media Art. While practising groups may be associated with specific media such as games, 3D printing, or artificial intelligence, we seek to identify knowledge groups by their explicit, hidden or shared ideological principles.

This article suggests a new approach to developing instruments for futurecasting, presenting the methodology for creating a digital map of trends based on the discipline of design. To achieve this goal, the article proposes a set of processes that lead to establishing the elements, components, and interactions of a trend visualization system. The result of the application of the described set of processes is the creation of an automatic interactive visual map of trends, which helps users to interpret and predict changes in society, and thus becomes a tool offering solutions to complex problems and generating opportunities for innovation. In addition, this paper presents the tangible results of the described methodology, detailing a specific case: the digital map of trends known as Deflexor.

Life in the era of biotechnology opens up opportunities but also poses challenges related to our values ​​and questions regarding the way we want to see coexistence on our planet, which is inhabited by many species. The parasite is our case study and an interesting concept that we inherit from biology but which is also addressed in humanism and philosophy. As humans, we commonly understand the concept of a parasite as a negative one that suggests someone or something which benefits at our expense. However, French philosopher Michel Serres had a different view of the parasite. According to him, the parasite is based on relationships between different entities, and there is often noise in these relationships. Serres refers to biologist Henri Atlan, who has argued that said noise forces the system to reorganize itself in a way that incorporates the noise into the complex system. The idea of ​​noise as an integrated part of the system is quite far from today’s thought processes with the development of bio/technology that typically aims to be noiseless and error-free and have aesthetically attractive results. Therefore, although parasites are often associated with terms such as inhospitable, undesirable, and disgusting and are seen to be located outside of art and technology, in this paper, we argue that the concept of something parasitical is tightly intertwined with our contemporary biotechnical lives. The article relates Serres’ parasitic thinking to an artistic mediation of the biological parasite: the tick.

Aquest article reflexiona sobre el paper central de l'arxiu en la nostra cultura i mostra com les tensions entre privatització i domini públic a internet manifesten unes noves dinàmiques que obliguen a replantejar el paper dels museus i dels centres d'art. Aquest replantejament de la funció del museu en la nostra societat, motivat en part per la crisi de les metanarracions que el sostenien, també implica establir una nova relació amb la col·lecció, la qual, com que es veu impulsada a mostrar la singularitat dels objectes i de les pràctiques artístiques -amb la seva consegüent desmaterialització i desobjectualització començada des del final dels anys seixanta amb les avantguardes-, es converteix en arxiu pel qual es pot transitar i en el qual els usuaris poden construir múltiples narratives.

Ressenya del seminari organitzat des dels Estudis de Dret i Ciència Política de la UOC pel Dr. Marc Tarrés. La activitat es va realitzar amb el patrocini de l'Escola d'Administració Pública de Catalunya i va tenir lloc al Saló de Graus de la Universitat de Barcelona (UB), els dies 19 i 20 de novembre de 2008. El seminari va comptar amb la presència de reconeguts especialistes procedents dels àmbits acadèmic i judicial, que van exposar davant una concurrència nodrida el paper dels poders públics davant situacions de risc. Els ponents van ser el Dr. José Esteve Pardo, catedràtic de Dret Administratiu de la UB; el Dr. Juan Antonio Carrillo Donaire, professor titular de Dret administratiu de la Universitat de Sevilla; el Dr. Gabriel Doménech, professor de Dret Administratiu del CEU - San Pablo de València; l'Il·lm. Sr. Manuel Táboas Bentanachs, magistrat de la Sala Contenciosa Administrativa del TSJ de Catalunya, i el Dr. Francesc Rodríguez Pontón, professor titular de Dret administratiu de la UB. En el transcurs de dues jornades es van abordar especialment els casos relacionats amb la seguretat dels aliments, la biotecnologia i la protecció mediambiental. En tots aquests sectors es va analitzar l'operativitat del principi de precaució, la responsabilitat de les administracions públiques, el paper del procediment administratiu i l'autoregulació.

El terreny de l'activisme en els mitjans de comunicació avui s'associa a internet; s'ha construït sobretot per mitjà de xarxes o plataformes en línia i, a poc a poc, va transformant la manera d'imaginar, experimentar i organitzar l'acció política. Aquest article explora els efectes que tenen les creences i frustracions relacionades amb internet sobre les formes contemporànies d'acció política. Partint del context etnogràfic en què se situen les campanyes de solidaritat internacional i els sindicats britànics, el treball proposa que la relació que mantenen els activistes amb les tecnologies d'internet és complexa i s'insereix en una doble tensió entre l'apoderament i la frustració. Tal com sosté l'article, és mitjançant una exploració etnogràfica d'aquesta tensió que els especialistes poden arribar a entendre més bé els conflictes permanents i les negociacions socials creats arran de les transformacions tecnològico-històriques dels últims quinze anys. The terrain of media activism today has become an internet connected one; one that is primarily constructed through online networks or platforms; one that is gradually transforming the way in which political action is imagined, experienced and organised. The following article explores the effects of internet related beliefs and frustrations on contemporary forms of political action. Drawing from the ethnographic context of international solidarity campaigns and the trade unions in Britain, the paper argues that activists' relationship to internet technologies is a complex one, which is embedded in a double tension of empowerment and frustration. It is by ethnographically exploring this tension, the paper contends, that scholars can gain important insights on the ongoing social conflicts and negotiations created by the techno-historical transformations of the last fifteen years. El terreno del activismo en los medios de comunicación hoy se asocia a internet; se ha construido sobre todo por medio de redes o plataformas en línea y, poco a poco, va transformando la forma de imaginar, experimentar y organizar la acción política. Este artículo explora los efectos que tienen las creencias y frustraciones relacionadas con internet sobre las formas contemporáneas de acción política. Partiendo del contexto etnográfico en el que se sitúan las campañas de solidaridad internacional y los sindicatos británicos, el trabajo propone que la relación que mantienen los activistas con las tecnologías de internet es compleja y se inserta en una doble tensión entre empoderamiento y frustración. Tal como sostiene el artículo, es mediante una exploración etnográfica de esta tensión que los especialistas pueden llegar a entender mejor los conflictos permanentes y las negociaciones sociales creados a raíz de las transformaciones tecnológico-históricas de los últimos quince años.