Narrative Nuance
The New Kings Don't Die : AI, Technology, and Transcendence
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tanner Yocom
This paper examines the cultural construction of artificial intelligence (AI) as purely logical. Set against the frameworks of rationality, modernity, and technology's mythmaking, it critiques AI's portrayal as an objective intelligence, reinforcing Enlightenment ideals while obscuring the material influences on its development. Employing media theory, science and technology studies (STS), and posthumanist critiques, the paper explores how AI's spectacle fosters perceptions of machine rationality, despite its ties to human biases and capitalist motives. Drawing upon Guy Debord’s theory of the spectacle, this paper contends that the notion of AI as mere logic embodies a medieval epistemology in which knowledge is mediated through images rather than direct material engagement. During the Middle Ages, transcendent elements—such as divine authority and metaphysical truth—significantly influenced epistemic life. AI operates in a comparable manner, providing objective intelligence that transcends human fallibility while serving the interests of technocapitalist power. This digital transcendence reverberates with medieval structures of control, where epistemic authority was concentrated within the hands of a select few. Certain theorists designate this transformation as "technofeudalism;" however, this paper argues that feudalism has not genuinely resumed. Instead, technofeudalism arises as a novel ideology—an interpretation that conceals the persistence of capitalism while modifying perceptions of labor and digital authority. The spectacle of AI endorses this ideology, not by reinstating feudal relationships but by establishing new epistemic hierarchies masked as rationality and progress. This study rigorously examines the role of AI in reinforcing these ideological constructs.
People Take Over Places for Democracy - Protest Movements from 2011 to 2022: A Teaching Research Project with Students of Cultural Studies
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ursula Kirschner, Nayara Benatti
This paper examines major protest movements from 2011 to 2022, focusing on their occupation and transformation of public spaces within contemporary society. As part of a university research project in collaboration with the Program in Cultural Studies, the study traces the Hambach Forest protests, 15-M Movement, Umbrella Movement, Occupy Wall Street, Gezi Park protests, and June Journeys. Using a timeline-based approach and analyzing social media narratives, the project identifies hybrid activism forms that challenge traditional notions of public space and democratic participation. The analysis is structured around four dimensions: physical-material substrates, action and interaction structures, regulatory systems, and symbolic systems. While rooted in local contexts, these movements share global themes, particularly the convergence of street protests and digital activism to contest public policies, capitalist expansion, and democratic erosion. Social media platforms, especially Twitter, played a vital role in shaping these movements' visibility and mobilization. Ultimately, these protests created new interfaces between public/private and physical/digital realms, establishing distinct protest territorialities, narratives, and political discourses.
To Open Eyes: Photography at Black Mountain College
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Siu Challons-Lipton
Between 1933 and 1957, Black Mountain College reimagined photography not as a mechanical reproduction of the world but as an active, perceptual, and transformative artistic practice. Rejecting commercial slogans like Eastman Kodak’s “you press the button, we do the rest,” the college embraced photography as a tool for cultivating awareness and personal vision. Under the influential direction of Josef Albers (1933–1949), the arts program formed the backbone of the curriculum. Albers championed photography for its ability to reframe seeing—both with the eye and through the lens. For Albers and his students, the act of photographing was a means of engaging more deeply with the visible world, and the camera became an instrument of learning rather than simple documentation. In 1949, Hazel-Frieda Larsen became the college’s first full-time photography instructor, emphasizing intuitive training in light and perception over technical instrumentation like light meters. Photography at Black Mountain was not confined to a specialized domain but permeated the interdisciplinary culture of the college. It attracted and influenced a broad spectrum of students and faculty—such as Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, and Albers himself—who integrated photographic thinking into their broader practices. Visiting photographers including Harry Callahan, Barbara Morgan, Beaumont Newhall, Arthur Siegel, and Aaron Siskind further enriched this experimental environment. Ultimately, photography at Black Mountain College exemplified the school’s broader commitment to holistic education, in which artistic practice served to awaken individual perception and foster unexpected modes of self-development across disciplines.
