In this course, you will develop the ability to understand legal frameworks and their dissemination and application in the context of digitality. You will not only learn to navigate copyright, image rights, and data protection laws but also critically interrogate them and apply them in a practical and context-sensitive manner. The course aims to empower you to integrate these topics into your work independently while keeping societal and educational implications and mechanisms in view. A particular focus will be placed on digital self-defense.

The context for this exploration includes your own educational work, artistic practice, and broader digital practices and techniques. This course also serves as a space for sharing digital resources and engaging in discussions about current events in digitality.

Key topics include:

• Copyright and image rights
• Data protection and surveillance capitalism
• Platform capitalism / tech oligarchy
• Open Access / Open Source
• Artificial intelligence (AI), NFTs, and immersive art
• Social media, memes, girl/blogging, censorship
• Media literacy

Language of instruction: German (bilingual German & English if needed)

Active participation (30%), Research/reading preparation (30%), Short presentation (40%)

Continuous assessment (prüfungsimmanente Lehrveranstaltung)

Further reading/literature (selection):

Tiziano Bonini/Emiliano Treré, Algorithms of Resistance. The Everyday Fight against Platform Power, Cambridge (MA) 2024.

Joy Buolamwini, Unmasking AI. My Mission to Protect what is Human in a World of Machines, Cambridge (MA) 2023.

Kyle Chayka, Filterworld. How Algorithms Flattened Culture, London 2024.

Mark Fisher, Postcapitalist Desire. The Final Lectures, London 2021.

Ester Freider, I'm like a pdf but a girl. Girlblogging as a nomadic pedagogy,  2022.

Kenneth Goldsmith, Duchamp Is My Lawyer, New York 2020.

Jacob Kastrenakes, How many layers of copyright infringement are in Emily Ratajkowski's new NFT? Ratajkowski trolls an art troll, The Verge, Apr 24, 2021.

Nicolas Maigret/Maria Roszkowska (Eds.), The Pirate Book, Ljubljana 2015.

Thomas S. Mullaney / Benjamin Peters / Mar Hicks / Kavita Philip (Hg.), Your Computer Is on Fire, Cambridge (MA) 2021.

Cathy O'Neil, Weapons of Math Destruction, New York 2016.

Felix Stalder, Der Autor am Ende der Gutenberg Galaxis, Zürich 2014.

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The Fight for the Future at the New Frontier of Power, New York 2019.