n.n. Notes and Nodes by Felix Stalder

Kultur der Digitalität, Digital Condition, 数字状况

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Deutschsprachige Ausgabe
Kultur der Digitalität. edition suhrkamp. Berlin: Suhrkamp. 2016 (6. Auflage, 2024)

English Translation
The Digital Condition. Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA: Polity Press. 2018

中文翻译
数字状况, published by the School of Sculpture and Public Art, China Academy of Art, 2023

Beyond Openness (Keynote), Panel: Sustaining Digital Commons (Digital Humanism Conference

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

https://dighum.wien/programme/#session-sustaining-digital-commons

Friday, June 26, 16:00 –17:30

Sustaining Digital Commons

The future of open knowledge stewardship

Chair: Katja Mayer (Senior Scientist at the Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI) and Sociologist at the University of Vienna)
with:
Sandra Barthel (Interdisciplinary Researcher and Policy Advisor)
Claudia Garád (President of Wikimedia Europe and Executive Director of Wikimedia Austria)
Felix Hlatky (Executive Director at Mastodon and Board Director at Mastodon, Inc.)
Felix Stalder (Professor at the Zurich University of the Arts)

Analyse und Generierung. Die Wahrheiten der Künstlichen Intelligenz (Keynote)

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Schreibt KI Geschichte?

Künstliche Intelligenz in der historisch-politischen Bildung

17. Juni 2026 · 09:30 Uhr - 18. Juni 2026 · 18:00 Uhr

Gedenk- und Bildungsstätte Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz, Am Großen Wannsee 56-58, 14109 Berlin

Eine Tagung der Gedenk- und Bildungsstätte Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz, in Zusammenarbeit mit dem DAAD Center for German Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem und kulturBdigital, Technologiestiftung Berlin Das Bild zeigt einen grünen Hintergrund mit unterschiedlichem Text in schwarzen und hellen Buchstaben. Der Text enthält Buchstabenfolgen und Wörter wie “SCHREIBT” und “KI”. Es scheint ein kreatives oder experimentelles Layout zu sein, das mit Typografie spielt.

Book lauch: RE/EMBODIED DATA. AMBUIGUITY OF KNOWING

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

SAVE THE DATE 16.6.2026, 19:00

book presentation, discussion, performance

DO YOU READ ME ?!
Auguststraße 28
10117 Berlin\

more about the book: https://adocs.de/en/buecher/theorie-praxis-open-accessebooks/reembodied-data

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Long Version

Tue 16.06.2026 19:00 – 21:00

“Do you read me ?!” (book shop)
Berlin Mitte
Auguststraße 28
10117 Berlin

We live in times of comprehensive datafication. Digital technologies allow ever more aspects of our lives and the planet to be measured and analyzed. This creates new ways of knowing and doing. All too often however, this development leads to a systematic devaluation of forms of knowing that cannot be quantified and processed digitally.

The Decline of the Digital Commons (Theory, Culture & Society)

Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

The notion of the digital commons emerged in the late 1990s and has been elaborated in the service of divergent political commitments in the following years. These have ranged from a renewal of liberal market capitalism, to a development of institutions for self-governing, to an articulation of post-capitalism.

Across many internal differences, these approaches have shared expectations that the digital commons, due to their character as advanced knowledge goods and potentially global scale, would significantly contribute to social transformations, expanding market and non-market participation, strengthening community, and generally improving social justice.

Subversive Festival, Zagreb

Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Petak/Friday 29.05.2026, 20:15

Panel diskusija / Panel discussion

Panelists: Hito Steyerl, Paolo Caffoni, Felix Stalder, Vanja Subotić
Moderated by: Boris Buden

Rapid development of digital technology, especially the breathtaking rise of AI, compels us to radically rethink Gramsci’s famous claim that all humans are intellectuals but not all humans have in society the function of intellectuals. He meant a historically specific division of labor in which the common intellect, alienated in the form of a social class, was used to create cultural hegemony so as to pacify the intrinsic contradictions of industrial capitalism, normalize its class rule and prevent the revolution – which alone was expected to return the intellect to its original owners, the human commons.

Support of scienceispoetry.net

Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is to support the great project: https://scienceispoetry.net

For more context, see: https://julianoliver.com/projects/science-is-poetry/

INTRODUCTION

Science is Poetry is a tactical media response to an era of runaway AI, whose webcrawlers are non-consensually scraping human-made content for use in training their models. Concerned creators can use the project to protect their content by linking to it somewhere in the landing page of their wiki, website or blog. AI crawlers then encountering the link will be pulled off-site and entrapped in a maze of babble, a new page generated for each page consumed, forever.

Composite Images. On the Transformation of Visual Truth Claims

Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is an older article (2021), but perhaps more topical than when it came out, as we continue to grapple with how to deal with generated images. This is why I am putting it up now. Here’s the nicely lay-outed version from the book.

tl’dr: Images, in particular the photographic images, have long ceased to serve as an index of reality. We need new methods of establishing visual truth claims that take seriously the artificiality of all images. Here, I examine and expand on the approach which moves away from claiming to represent reality ‘as it is’. Instead, rather, it aims at providing evidence for its factuality in constructing the real.

Interview: Kraftwerk vs. Moses Pelham: Was bedeutet das EuGH-Urteil für die digitale Kunst

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Kraftwerk vs. Moses Pelham: Was bedeutet das EuGH-Urteil für die digitale Kunst Gespräch mit Prof. Dr. Felix Stalder, Moderation: Martin Böttcher, Breitband, Samstag, 25.04.2026

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Nach fast 27 Jahren Prozessdauer wurde am 14. April 2026 vom Europäischen Gerichtshof endlich geklärt, dass Sampling bewilligungsfrei erlaubt sei, wenn damit ein neues, künstlerisches Werk geschaffen wird.

Rechtlich fällt dies unter die Kategorie des “Pastiche”, die neben Sampling auch Remixing, Mashups, oder Fan Fiction umfasst und im Art. 5 (Abs.3k) der Richtlinie 2001/29/EG, von 2019 und in §51a des deutschen UrhG von 2021 verankert ist.

Kultur der Digitalität. Die wachsende Dominanz der Algorithmizität

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ein kurzer Ausschnitt aus meinem Eintrag im Handbuch Philosophie der Digitalität, Stichwort “Kultur der Digitalität”.

“Versucht man, die „Kultur der Digitalität“ als historische Epoche über die letzten 50 Jahre als ganzes zu betrachten, lässt sich … eine deutliche Verschiebung von gemeinschaftlichen, zu referenziellen und aktuell zu algorithmischen Aspekten beobachten.

Zu Beginn – in unabhängigen Medienprojekten der 1970er- und 1980er-Jahre, wie in der frühen Netzkultur – standen gemeinschaftliche Aspekte im Vordergrund und die medialen Projekte wurden entsprechend ausgerichtet. Dies inspirierte große Hoffnungen, dass die „neuen Medien“ einen Schub der Demokratisierung mit sich bringen würden.

Re/Embodied Data and the Ambiguities of Knowing

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We live in a moment of comprehensive datafication, as ever more aspects of our lives and the planet are measured, analyzed, and shaped digitally. This opens new ways of knowing and doing, but all too often it also leads to a systematic devaluation of forms of knowing that cannot be quantified and processed digitally. Through a form of epistemic violence, new forms of ignorance and marginalization are enacted. Rather than favoring one over the other, the relationship between quantifiable and experiential, abstracted and embodied knowledges must be explored.

collapse:data.models.worlds. artists talks & discussion (Athens)

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Salvatore Vitale Death by GPS . Film Still

collapse:data.models.worlds.
artists talks & discussion

With the participation of Latent Community, Maria Mavropoulou, Felix Stalder
Moderated by Daphne Dragona, Katerina Gkoutziouli

Wednesday, 18 March, 19.00
PLYFA space, Room 7Γ

What changes in an era of possible environmental and computational collapse? How do technological solutions connect to the exhaustion of natural resources? Is it possible for infrastructural and ecological systems to sustain one another, and assist in restoring environmental and social balance?

New Site Design

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Christoph Büchel, MONTE DI PIETÀ, Fondazione Prada, 2024

New Design

I’ve redesigned my website, using a static site generator, Hugo, with the nice theme called Theme Deck, which I heavily adapted.

I’m using locally-hosted webfonts from Bunny.net, an open-source, privacy-first web font platform. And, for basic web analytics, the Hugo Umami Analytics Module, an open-source, privacy-focused web analytics tool.

Just for comparison, the old website looked like this. (slow link to archive.org)

Privacy Policy

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Rene Magritte, The Lovers II, 1928

Privacy

This site does not use 3rd party trackers.

It uses locally-hosted webfonts webfonts from Bunny.net, an open-source, privacy-first web font platform. Fully GDPR compliant.

For basic web analytics, it uses the Hugo Umami Analytics Module, an open-source, privacy-focused web analytics tool. Fully GDPR compliant.

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Contact

⁂ Mastodon DM: @festal@tldr.nettime.org

💬 Messenger: Signal

💌 Email: felix AT openflows com

Bio and more

Bio & more

collapse: data.models.worlds (Athens)

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Juan Obando, They/Them, 2023. Film Still. Courtesy of the artist.

collapse: data.models.worlds.

Group Exhibition

March 5 – April 2, 2026
Opening: Thursday, March 5, 2026, 19:00
Saigon: 39 Korytsas, 10447, Votanikos, Athens

Artists: Niki Danai Chania, Bethan Hughes, Vladan Joler/ Gordan Savičić/ Felix Stalder, Athina Koumparouli, Latent Community, Maria Mavropoulou, Juan Obando, Salvatore Vitale

Curated by Daphne Dragona, Katerina Gkoutziouli

The exhibition collapse: data.models.worlds. addresses the intensifying state of crisis shaping the contemporary world, examining the role of technology within it. Drawing on current debates around the possibilities and limitations of technological infrastructures, it explores their entanglement with social and ecological issues, from the past to the present.

on/off: heliophilic spaces

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Detail of the Infrastructure, Internet relay, with solar power, at ISSA, Vis, Croatia, April 2026

The digital is not “immaterial”; rather, it’s entangled with the planet in many ways. Our immediate interest lies in the world that opens up when we treat technological, social, and ecological factors equally. What artistic strategies can create such relations, and what kind of aesthetics can make such a world accessible? In a first step, we set up two servers within the solar protocol, a distributed network of servers that reconfigures itself in real-time based on the availability of sunlight. In a second step, we will explore the protocol as a space for artistic agency.

From Environments to Infrastructures of Survival: The Case of the Northern Bald Ibis.

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Since 2013, Northern Bald Ibises, large migratory birds, have been reintroduced into the European habitat, almost 400 years after their local extinction. What distinguishes this from other reintroduction projects is that the environment that is made available to animals live “in the wild” is not a geographically bounded site. Rather, it’s a transcontinental expanse. This necessitates a different understanding of the relationship between the work done by the reintroduction project and the environment it seeks to create.

Generative AI and the Future of the Digital Commons

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Generative AI and the Future of the Digital Commons: Five Open Questions and Knowledge Gaps

by; Arman Noroozian, Lorena Aldana, Marta Arisi, Hadi Asghari, Renata Avila, Pietro Giovanni Bizzaro, Ramya Chandrasekhar, Cristian Consonni, Deborah De Angelis, Francesca De Chiara, Maria del Rio-Chanona, Melanie Dulong de Rosnay, Maria Eriksson, Frederic Font, Emilia Gomez, Valérian Guillier, Lisa Gutermuth, David Hartmann, Lucie-Aimée Kaffee, Paul Keller, Felix Stalder, Joao Vinagre, Denny Vrandečić, Amanda Wasielewski

Kommunikation ohne Subjekt (Zürich)

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Digitalität und Komplexität — Keynote: Felix Stalder

Wenn wir mit einer «Generativen Künstlichen Intelligenz», etwa einem Chatbot, interagieren, erscheint uns die Form vertraut. Zwei Subjekte, die mittels Frage und Antwort miteinander kommunizieren. So erscheint vielen Nutzer:innen die KI als ein zweites Subjekt, eine Freund:in, Expert:in oder Therapeut:in.

In dieser Präsentation werde ich darlegen, dass dieser Eindruck eine Täuschung, eine Suggestion des Interface-Designs ist. Vielmehr findet hier eine Kommunikation ohne Subjekte statt. Die Nutzer:in wird in diesen Systemen als Dividuum, als rekombinierbarer Cluster partieller Eigenschaften entworfen, während die generative KI eine situative Aktualisierung eines kollektiven Möglichkeitsraums darstellt.