Roland Meyer

Letzte Woche war ich zum ersten Mal auf der @re_publica – ein in jeder Hinsicht eindrückliches Erlebnis. Noch nie stand ich auf einer so grossen Bühne vor einem so grossen Publikum. Vermutlich hat man mir meine Aufregung angemerkt. Aber es war toll, so viel und so positive Resonanz zu erfahren. Ganz herzlichen Dank an alle, die da waren! #rp25 Der Talk ist jetzt auch online verfügbar (Link in Bio) Foto: Anne Barth/re:publica, /photos/re-publica/54546878756/in/album-72177720326384691

02–04 October 2025, Zurich International Conference «React & Respond. Image Cultures under Platform Capitalism» @uzh.ch @zhdkcampus @digitalculturesandarts Contemporary networked image cultures cannot be understood outside of platform capitalism. Today, the production, distribution and reception of visual media is largely managed and controlled by the algorithmic infrastructures, corporate policies and business models of digital platforms. At the heart of platform architectures is the quantification, evaluation and monetization of reactions – whatever we encounter online is designed to trigger our reactions, and our reaction patterns in turn drive the visual economies of platform capitalism. With algorithmically curated feeds and personalized content, what we get to see online and how we react to it is inextricably linked in ways we can often only speculate about. Bringing together scholars and artists from a range of fields and backgrounds, the international conference «React & Respond» aims to map and analyze these contemporary economies of networked image cultures and their aesthetic, ideological and political implications. Following an opening night with a screening at Kino Xenix on Thursday, October 2nd, the conference will continue on Friday, October 3rd, at Cabaret Voltaire and conclude on Saturday, October 4th, at the Fotomuseum Winterthur. @kinoxenixbar @cabaretvoltaire.ch @foto_museum @zentrumkuensteundkulturtheorie The conference is open to all interested guests. As places are limited, we kindly ask you to register. More information in our bio and at digitalculturesandarts.ch/react-respond With: Adio Dinika, Annekathrin Kohout, Ariana Dongus, Felix Stalder, Marco De Mutiis, Marie-France Rafael, Nicolas Gourault, Noura Tafeche, Occitane Lacurie, Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal, Sara Bezovšek, Simon Strick, Tiziana Terranova, Valentina Tanni Organized by @bildoperationen and @lars.pinkwart

Impressions from the conference «React & Respond. Image Cultures under Platform Capitalism» which took place last week across three locations @kinoxenixbar @cabaretvoltaire.ch @foto_museum Thank you to everyone for joining us and especially to Adio Dinika @dataworkersinquiry @arianadongus Felix Stalder Kathrin Trattner @mariefrafael @nicolasgourault @nouratafeche @occicci @ranjodhd @sara_bezovsek @dieausnahmeund @terratizia @valentinatanni for their inspiring contributions! Organized by @bildoperationen @lars.pinkwart @digitalculturesandarts between @zhdkcampus & @uzh.ch In cooperation with @marcodemutiis @foto_museum @kinoxenixbar and @zentrumkuensteundkulturtheorie Photos: @lars.pinkwart

Platforms are all about formats. I tried out a new one for these theses on #Slop.

In der neuen WOZ-Kolumne «Slopaganda» rückt Bild- und Medienwissenschaftler Roland Meyer KI-generierte Propaganda in den Fokus. Heute erscheint der erste Teil: «Was ist Slopaganda?»

On February 16, I joined a roundtable on the «Critique of AI», hosted by the @criticaltheoryinberlin at Humboldt University. It was a great pleasure and an honor to be part of this conversation with my amazing colleagues Matteo Pasquinelli @matteo.pasquinelli , Anna-Verena Nosthoff @anna__in_hyperreality , Rainer Mühlhoff, and Jacob Blumenfeld, and I learned a lot. If you are curious, you can now watch the recording of this evening on YouTube (Link in Bio)

I recently stumbled upon this AI-generated clip. It's a typical #genAI product: a mashup of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, a remix drawn from the cultural archive and a recombination of familiar patterns, a bit like fan fiction. From a technical standpoint, it’s what you'd call impressive. I, however, was not impressed. The last time I was impressed by an AI generated image is years ago. Meanwhile, I am mostly annoyed. And I don’t think I am the only one. Special effects used to be special. Photographic realism was the standard mode of audiovisual representation, and effects were used to heighten, transform and transcend a recorded (albeit mostly more or less staged) reality. With genAI, «Light and Magic» becomes truly industrialized, and that means completely generic and exchangeable. It’s not only that these visuals are derivative. It’s that their production seems effortless and without friction. Everything seems possible, and thus equally boring. Deepfakes, synthetic media, AI slop etc. have often been discussed in terms of a «crisis of truth» or an «erosion of trust». Fair enough. But in my impression, there’s something else that gets lost in waves of AI slop flooding our screens, and that’s a «sense of wonder», of surprise, amazement and awe. This loss of wonder has, in many ways, been prefigured by the ubiquity of CGI effects over the last two decades. Here, as in many other fields, genAI merely exposes and amplifies existing cultural tendencies, reproducing and reinforcing what has already become generic and hollow. It enables the mass production of seemingly fantastic worlds without the slightest spark of imagination. It‘s wish fulfillment on demand, detached from care or personal investment. The result is always a demo — a demonstration of the AI model’s technical performance, and, more often than not, the carelessness of those who use it.

We’re introducing: Roland Meyer 👀💿👀 For Reclaiming Data, Roland Meyer will give the keynote “Patterns of Pastness. Generative AI and the Re-Imagination of History.” Roland Meyer has been DIZH Bridge Professor for Digital Cultures and Arts at the University of Zurich and the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) since July 2024. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre Virtual Lifeworlds at Ruhr University Bochum, where he worked on virtual image archives. As a media and visual culture researcher, his work focuses on networked image cultures. He is particularly interested in the aesthetic and operational functions of digital images under the conditions of global digital platforms, ubiquitous computing, mobile media, and big visual data. He has published on facial recognition, image forensics, navigation in augmented spaces, and generative AI and synthetic image worlds. Keynote 🗓 12 June 2026 🕕 18:00–19:15 📍 Alter Lesesaal / New Practice TU Berlin Main Building Straße des 17. Juni 135 10623 Berlin For the full programme, check the links in bio. #ReclaimingData #RolandMeyer #DigitalArchives #GenerativeAI #MediaTheory VisualCulture AIandSociety TUBerlin BerlinEvents

Immediately after the landing of Artemis 2, AI-generated images of the recovery spread online. We have seen this before, with the kidnapping of Maduro or the mass protests against ICE raids – fake images of real events. While these synthetic images fictionalize reality, they are not necessarily meant as disinformation. Rather, they both illustrate and cater to widespread expectations. In our hypervisualized world of ubiquitous networked cameras, we expect to see perfect images of whatever is happening immediately. #AIslop delivers. Compared to the actual footage, which in this case, NASA shared on a Flickr account, the AI versions are often more dramatic, cinematic, and optimized for social media clickbait. Perhaps we will become accustomed to these types of images and recognize them for what they are: generic, more or less realistic visualizations of headlines and trending topics, not unlike earlier forms of imagery. No one would, for example, mistake Gericault’s «Raft of the Medusa» for a document of the actual events it was based on. These AI-generated images actually have more in common with history paintings or movie productions than with documentary photography. Unlike paintings or movies, however, they are created instantly, spread immediately, and compete with real news photos for our attention on the same channels and platforms

OpenAI's sudden discontinuation of its video model #Sora, just a few months after a spectacular deal with Disney, shows just how little these AI companies care about their so-called products. AI video apps, to quote Hito Steyerl, are «onboarding tools» — their purpose is more ideological than commercial. Rather than offering revenue-generating services (OpenAI is burning money with every single Sora generated clip), these apps are designed to accustom us to a world in which so-called generative AI seems inevitable — and to provide investors with impressive demonstrations of these models' performance. In other words, companies like OpenAI do not develop consumer products; they merely launch demos that can be retracted once they have fulfilled their purpose. Never mind that, in the meantime, they are flooding our media landscape with a deluge of #slop and destroying entire cultural sectors in the process

A joint statement on the principles of critical research and artistic practice, collectively written and published on Carrier Bag. Cobalt123, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Principles for Critical Research and Artistic Practice Published: 16 Mar 2026 Our teaching, research and artistic practices engage critically with contemporary social, cultural and technical systems in need of investigation and imagination beyond cycles of hype and doom. Challenging dominant assumptions and employing surprising or unexpected strategies is critical to this endeavour. The artistic and scientific freedom this relies upon is framed by international communities and based on the values of conviviality and the public good enacted in our networks of exchange and collaboration. Note: This statement positions artistic research within the framework of academic freedom while acknowledging the urgent need to respond to emergent authoritarianism and its consequences for cultural production and knowledge creation. Signatures Felix Stalder, Prof. Zurich / University of the Arts Paul Feigelfeld, Prof. / Mozarteum University Salzburg  Axel Stockburger, Assoc. Prof. / Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna Clemens Apprich, Prof. / University of Applied Arts Vienna Dani Ploeger, Prof. / University of Music and Theatre Munich Su Steinmassl, Prof. / Mozarteum University Salzburg Boris Cuckovic Berger, / Prof. Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Hito Steyerl, Prof. / Academy of Visual Arts Munich Francis Hunger / Academy of Visual Arts Munich Volker Möllenhoff / Academy of Visual Arts Munich Constant Dullaart, Prof. / Academy of Visual Arts Nurnberg Roland Meyer, Prof. / University of Zurich and Zurich University of the Arts Christy Westhovens / University of Music and Theatre Munich Kevin B. Lee / Prof. Università della Svizzera Italiana

Das Programm des 5. Medienwissenschaftlichen Symposiums der DFG „Medien der Faschisierung“ @vigonigram Mit Asli Telli, Christine Krischan Hanke, Elena Vogman, Eylem Çamuroğlu Çiğ, Felix Brinker, Felix Raczkowski, Henning Schmidgen, Jasmin Degeling, Julia Eckel, Johanna Schaffer, Kathrin Peters, Katrin M. Kämpf, Katrin Köppert, Maja Figge, Markus Stauff, Morten Paul @paul.morten , Philipp Hohmann, Nanna Heidenreich @nachnennung , Peter Vignold, Roland Meyer @bildoperationen , Sara Morais dos Santos Bruss @saramosaramo_ , Simon Strick, Vera Mader - und Judith Keilbach, Mary Shnayien, Tobias Matzner, Ulrike Bergermann als Kommentierende. Aus dem Call: „Faschismus kommt gegenwärtig (wieder) aus der Mitte der Gesellschaft: Von den Wahlsiegen rechtspopulistischer und faschistischer Parteien bis zum Erstarken supranationaler ethnonationalistischer Bewegungen ist in den letzten Jahren eine breite gesellschaftliche und demokratisch legitimierte Faschisierung sichtbar geworden. »Faschisierung« als Prozess wirft einerseits genealogische Fragen nach den Quellen und Zuläufen auf, andererseits sind Medien als zentrale Prozessträger und Katalysatoren dieser Entwicklung zu befragen: Vernetzte Aktivitäten auf Social Media Plattformen sowie kolonial-kapitalistische Geschäftsmodelle der Tech-Industry sind an der Organisation gesellschaftlicher Unterstützung für ein Spektrum rechter, autoritärer bis faschistischer Bewegungsparteien mitbeteiligt. Sie erzeugen Synergien zwischen politischer Ökonomie, Medieninfrastruktur und Faschisierung. … Das Symposium soll deren Ausbreitung, Attraktivität und Radikalität in Verzahnung mit medialen Entwicklungen analysieren. Es gilt, ein Konzept von Faschismus als Feld heterogener sozialer, politischer und medialer Prozesse zu entwickeln, in denen sich Ideologien der Ungleichheit und Gewaltorientierung, des Völkischen und der Vormacht, nationaler Reinheit und Wiedergeburt, und deren Strategien und Organisationen in Verbindung mit medial-technischen Bedingungen entfalten. Zugleich muss sich die Medienwissenschaft selbstkritisch auf ihre machtaffinen Genealogien und Leerstellen hin überprüfen.“