Sarah Sze, "Day", 2003. Offset lithograph and silkscreen. Copyright: Sarah Sze. Image credit: Sarah Sze Studio

Contagious Territories

2024-2030

Funded by the Startersbeurs
(Leiden University Center for the Arts in Society)

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Reading group

As part of this project we host an informal reading group where we discuss texts connected to the theme of the project broadly understood. We get together roughly every other week to discuss theoretical as well as literary texts, our own writing as well as that of authors like Angela Mitropoulos, Anna Munster, Matteo Paquinelli, Ramon Amaro, and Lisa Blackman.

If you would like to join one of our reading group sessions, please reach out to contagious.territories@hum.leidenuniv.nl.

Upcoming session(s)

2 December 2025
Session 4: Creep

Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin (eds). Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen, Duke UP, 2025. 'Introduction' (pp. 1-26) and 'INTERLUDE Smart Desires' (pp. 161-172)

Past sessions

18 November 2025
Session 3: Gore

Valencia, Sayak. 2018. ‘The Cultural Construction of Capitalism.’ In Gore Capitalism, 63–138. Semiotext(e).

4 November 2025
Session 2: Twin

Esposito, Elena, Dominik Hofmann, and Costanza Coloni. 2024. ‘Can a Predicted Future Still be An Open Future? Algorithmic Forecasts and Actionability in Precision Medicine’. History and Theory 63 (1), 4–24.

Amoore, Louise. 2023. ‘Because the Twin Is Not A Copy: On the Politics of Digital Twins’, New Media & Society 27 (8), 4549–4564.

14 October 2025
Session 1: Shock

Halpern, Orit. 2022. ‘The Future will not be Calculated: Nets, Neoliberalism, and Reactionary Politics’, Critical Inquiry 48 (2), 334–359.

2024/2025

4 June 2025
[Closing session]

Munster, Anna. "Introduction: Deep Machines and Surfaces of Experience" DeepAesthetics: Computational Experience in a Time of Machine Learning. Duke University Press, 2025, pp. 1-39.

14 May 2025
Peer-review session

Lucas, Kristin. Refresh (2007)
Willemars, Ilios. "hospitality@thecourt: Kristin Lucas’ Refresh and the techno-poetics of online hosting."(Manuscript in preparation)

30 April 2025
Peer-review session

Lerner, Ben. "The Golden Vanity" The New Yorker, 2012.
Xia, Dong. "The Hatred of Actuality: Critical Insecurity in Ben Lerner’s 10:04", in Narrativising Information in Twenty-First-Century Fiction, pp. 110-143. (PhD Thesis)

16 April 2025
Session 4: Epidemic Numbers

Ghosh, Bishnupriya. "Introduction." The Virus Touch: Theorizing Epidemic Media, Duke University Press, 2023, pp. 1-34.
Mackenzie, Adrian. "Multiplying Numbers Differently: An Epidemiology of Contagious Convolution." Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, vol. 15, no. 2, 2014, pp. 189–207

9 April 2025
Session 3: Protectice Pictures

Meek, Allan. "The Immunity of Empire." Biopolitical Media: Catastrophe, Immunity, and Bare Life, Routledge, 2015, pp. 137-162.
Casetti, Francesco. "Strategies of Mitigation." Screening Fears: Protective Media, Zone Books, 2023, pp. 145- 164.

20 March 2025
Session 2: Capital Communities

Tanguay, Liane. "Imagined Immunities: Abjection, Contagion and the Neoliberal Debt Economy." Lateral, vol. 7, no. 1, 2018, pp. 1–22.
Vogl, Joseph. "Control Power." Capital and Ressentiment: A Short Theory of the Present. Polity Press, 2022, pp. 60-83.
Tellman, Ute. "Immunization, Sensibility, and the Ressentiments of Finance." Finance and Society, vol. 9, no. 2, 2023, pp. 1–20.

13 March 2025
Session 1: Governing Information

Colman, F. J. "Digital Biopolitics: The Image of Life." Resisting Biopolitics: Philosophical, Political, and Performative Strategies, edited by S. E. Wilmer and Audronė Žukauskaitė, Routledge, 2015, pp. 189–201.
Peters, Michael A. "Bio-Informational Capitalism." Thesis Eleven, vol. 110, no. 1, 2012, pp. 98–111.

2023/2024

14 May 2024

Amaro, Ramon. The Black Technical Object: On Machine Learning and the Aspiration of Black Being. MIT Press, 2023. "Introduction" and "Act II".

7 May 2024

Birchall, Claire. Radical Secrecy: The Ends of Transparency in Datafied America. University of Minnesota Press, 2021. Introduction and Chapter 4.

23 April 2024

Kornbluh, Anna. Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism. London: Verso, 2024. Introduction and Video. Antitheory [optional].

16 April 2024

Terranova, Tiziana. After the Internet: Digital Networks between Capital and the Common. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2022. Introduction and Chapter 3.

9 April 2024

Pasquinelli, Matteo. The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence, London: Verso, 2023. Introduction and Chapter One.

6 March 2024

Somaini, Antonio. "Algorithmic Images: Artificial Intelligence and Visual Culture." Grey Room 93, 2023, pp. 74-115.
Steyerl, Hito. This is the Future (2019).

14 February 2024

Stiegler, Bernard. "The Discrete Image." Echographies of Television, edited by Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002, pp.145-63.

7 February 2024
Artificial Intelligence

Heti, Sheila. "According to Alice." The New Yorker, November 2023.
Steyerl, Hito. "Common Sensing? Machine Learning, ‘Enchatment’ and Hegemony." New Left Review 144, 2023, pp. 1-12.

13 December 2023
Interface

Fedorova, Ksenia. Tactics of Interfacing. Encoding Affect in Art and Technology. MIT, 2020. - Introduction.
Pold, Søren, Andersen, Christian Ulrik, Metainterface: The Art of Platforms, Cities and Clouds. MIT, 2023 - Introduction, Chapter 1
Hookway, Branden, Interface, MIT, 2014 (optional)

6 December 2023
Information

Deleuze, Gilles. "What is the Creative Act?" Two Regimes of Madness, Texts and Interviews 1975-1995, edited by David Lapoujade, translated by Ames Hodges and Mike Taormina, 2003. pp. 312-324.
Tygstrup, Frederik. (2020). "Information and the Vicissitudes of Representation." Diffractions, vol. 2, 2020, pp. 13-23.

29 November 2023
Infrastructure (2/2)

Galloway, Alexander and Eugene Thacker. "Edges." The Exploit: A Theory of Networks. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007, pp. 103-148.

22 November 2023
Infrastructure (1/2)

Larkin, Brian. "The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure." Annual Review of Anthropology, vol 42, 2013, pp. 327-343.
Leigh Star, Susan. "This is Not a Boundary Object: Reflections on the Origin of a Concept." Science, Technology, & Human Values, vol. 35, no.5, 2010, pp. 601-617.

1 November 2023

Lyotard, Jean-Francois. Les Immateriaux. Paris, Centre Pompidou, 1985.

25 October 2023

Parisi, Luciana. Contagious Architecture: Computation, Aesthetics, and Space (Technologies of Lived Abstraction). Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013. (Preface and paragraphs 1.0 & 1.1 , pp. 1-36)

11 October 2023

Darren Wershler, Lori Emerson & Jussi Parikka. The Lab Book: Situated Practices in Media Studies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Presss, 2021. ("Introduction: Everything is a Lab," pp. 1-37).

4 October 2023

Geoghegan, Bernard Dionysius. Code: From Information Theory to French Theory. Durham: Duke University Press, 2023. (Introduction & chapter 2, pp. 55-84)

Bibliography

Amaro, Ramon. The Black Technical Object: On Machine Learning and the Aspiration of Black Being. MIT Press, 2023. "Introduction" and "Act II".

Amoore, Louise. 2023. ‘Because the Twin Is Not A Copy: On the Politics of Digital Twins’, New Media & Society 27 (8), 4549–4564.

Birchall, Claire. Radical Secrecy: The Ends of Transparency in Datafied America. University of Minnesota Press, 2021. Introduction and Chapter 4.

Casetti, Francesco. "Strategies of Mitigation." Screening Fears: Protective Media, Zone Books, 2023, pp. 145- 164.

Colman, F. J. "Digital Biopolitics: The Image of Life." Resisting Biopolitics: Philosophical, Political, and Performative Strategies, edited by S. E. Wilmer and Audronė Žukauskaitė, Routledge, 2015, pp. 189–201.

Darren Wershler, Lori Emerson & Jussi Parikka. The Lab Book: Situated Practices in Media Studies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Presss, 2021. ("Introduction: Everything is a Lab," pp. 1-37).

Deleuze, Gilles. "What is the Creative Act?" Two Regimes of Madness, Texts and Interviews 1975-1995, edited by David Lapoujade, translated by Ames Hodges and Mike Taormina, 2003. pp. 312-324.

Esposito, Elena, Dominik Hofmann, and Costanza Coloni. 2024. ‘Can a Predicted Future Still be An Open Future? Algorithmic Forecasts and Actionability in Precision Medicine’. History and Theory 63 (1), 4–24.

Fedorova, Ksenia. Tactics of Interfacing. Encoding Affect in Art and Technology. MIT, 2020. - Introduction.

Galloway, Alexander and Eugene Thacker. "Edges." The Exploit: A Theory of Networks. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007, pp. 103-148.

Geoghegan, Bernard Dionysius. Code: From Information Theory to French Theory. Durham: Duke University Press, 2023. (Introduction & chapter 2, pp. 55-84)

Ghosh, Bishnupriya. "Introduction." The Virus Touch: Theorizing Epidemic Media, Duke University Press, 2023, pp. 1-34.

Halpern, Orit. 2022. ‘The Future will not be Calculated: Nets, Neoliberalism, and Reactionary Politics’, Critical Inquiry 48 (2), 334–359.

Heti, Sheila. "According to Alice." The New Yorker, November 2023.

Hookway, Branden, Interface, MIT, 2014 (optional)

Kornbluh, Anna. Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism. London: Verso, 2024. Introduction and Video. Antitheory [optional].

Larkin, Brian. "The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure." Annual Review of Anthropology, vol 42, 2013, pp. 327-343.

Leigh Star, Susan. "This is Not a Boundary Object: Reflections on the Origin of a Concept." Science, Technology, & Human Values, vol. 35, no.5, 2010, pp. 601-617.

Lerner, Ben. "The Golden Vanity" The New Yorker, 2012.

Lucas, Kristin. Refresh (2007)

Lyotard, Jean-Francois. Les Immateriaux. Paris, Centre Pompidou, 1985.

Mackenzie, Adrian. "Multiplying Numbers Differently: An Epidemiology of Contagious Convolution." Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, vol. 15, no. 2, 2014, pp. 189–207

Meek, Allan. "The Immunity of Empire." Biopolitical Media: Catastrophe, Immunity, and Bare Life, Routledge, 2015, pp. 137-162.

Munster, Anna. "Introduction: Deep Machines and Surfaces of Experience" DeepAesthetics: Computational Experience in a Time of Machine Learning. Duke University Press, 2025, pp. 1-39.

Parisi, Luciana. Contagious Architecture: Computation, Aesthetics, and Space (Technologies of Lived Abstraction). Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013. (Preface and paragraphs 1.0 & 1.1 , pp. 1-36)

Pasquinelli, Matteo. The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence, London: Verso, 2023. Introduction and Chapter One.

Peters, Michael A. "Bio-Informational Capitalism." Thesis Eleven, vol. 110, no. 1, 2012, pp. 98–111.

Pold, Søren, Andersen, Christian Ulrik, Metainterface: The Art of Platforms, Cities and Clouds. MIT, 2023 - Introduction, Chapter 1

Somaini, Antonio. "Algorithmic Images: Artificial Intelligence and Visual Culture." Grey Room 93, 2023, pp. 74-115.

Steyerl, Hito. "Common Sensing? Machine Learning, ‘Enchatment’ and Hegemony." New Left Review 144, 2023, pp. 1-12.

Steyerl, Hito. This is the Future (2019)

Stiegler, Bernard. "The Discrete Image." Echographies of Television, edited by Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002, pp.145-63.

Tanguay, Liane. "Imagined Immunities: Abjection, Contagion and the Neoliberal Debt Economy." Lateral, vol. 7, no. 1, 2018, pp. 1–22.

Tellman, Ute. "Immunization, Sensibility, and the Ressentiments of Finance." Finance and Society, vol. 9, no. 2, 2023, pp. 1–20.

Terranova, Tiziana. After the Internet: Digital Networks between Capital and the Common. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2022. Introduction and Chapter 3.

Tygstrup, Frederik. (2020). "Information and the Vicissitudes of Representation." Diffractions, vol. 2, 2020, pp. 13-23.

Vogl, Joseph. "Control Power." Capital and Ressentiment: A Short Theory of the Present. Polity Press, 2022, pp. 60-83.

Willemars, Ilios. "hospitality@thecourt: Kristin Lucas’ Refresh and the techno-poetics of online hosting."(Manuscript in preparation)

Xia, Dong. "The Hatred of Actuality: Critical Insecurity in Ben Lerner’s 10:04", in Narrativising Information in Twenty-First-Century Fiction, pp. 110-143. (PhD Thesis)