In this course we will explore machine learning. In this statement we already have a variety of assertion and techniques – from our notions of intelligence and engineering to our understanding of machine as form and operation, to imitation, interpretation and shadowing. The course is organized as a series of seminars with readings, presentations and guest leactures:

 

Thursday, 26.03, 14:15-18:16

Becoming Machine

Readings:

Gilbert Simondon, “The Genesis of The Individual”, (1964) translated by: Mark Cohen and Sanford Kwinter in: Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter (eds.), Incorporations, Zone Books, 1992, pp: 297-319

Alan Turing, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” In: Mind 49, 1950, pp. 433–460

 

Guest: Artist Liat Berdugo

 

Friday, 27.03, 12:15-16:15

Engineering Meaning

Readings:

Thomas Hobbes, “Introduction,” Leviathan or the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill (1651), edited with an introduction and notes by J. C. A. Gaskin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 1-8

Ggrégoire Chamayou, “Patterns of Life: A Very Short History of Schematic Bodies,” trans. Léopold Lambert and Kieran Aarons, The Funambulist Papers 57, The Funambulist EURL, Paris, 2014

 

Guest: Artist Zachary Formwalt

Please read: Zachary Formwalt, More Pictures than the Eyes can Consume, 2025

 

Thursday, 23.04, 14:15-18:15

Machine Visions: Physics and the Age of Constitutions

Readings:

Boris Hessen, “The Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principia,” (1931), In: Gideon Freudenthal and Peter McLaughlin (eds) The Social and Economic Roots of the Scientific Revolution: Texts by Boris Hessen and Henryk Grossmann. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 278. Springer, Dordrecht, 2009, pp. 41-101

 

Otto Mayr, Authority, Liberty and Automatic Machinery in Early Modern Europe (The Johns Hopkins University Press), 1986, pp. 139-147

 

Guest: Curator and scholar Antonio Somaini

 

Friday, 24.04, 12:15-16:15

From the Social to the Technical and Back

Readings:

Mario Tronti, “Lenin in England,” (1964), in: Workers and Capital, Translated by David Broder, Verso, 2019

 

Matteo Pasquinelli, “Introduction: AI as Division of Labour,” The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence, Verso 2023, pp: 11-25

 

Ana Teixeira Pinto, “The Pigeon in the Machine: The Concept of Control in Behaviorism and Cybernetics”, in Matteo Pasquinelli (ed.), Alleys of Your Mind: Augmented Intelligence and Its Traumas, Meson Press, 2015, pp. 23-37

 

Guest: Artist Ulrich Formann

 

Thursday, 21.05, 14:15-18:15

Extraction, Modulation, Synchronization: From Smart Cities to Algorithmic Governmentality

Ludwig Hilberseimer, Metropolis Architecture (1926), GSAPP Books, Columbia University Press, 2012. See also: Großstadt bauten 

 

Antoinette Rouvroy, “Algorithmic Realism: An Eclipse of the Common.” Draft for Momentary Monument - Prospective Lexicon, 2025

 

Guest: Artist Elisa Giardina Papa

 

Friday, 22.05 , 12:15-16:15

Presentations

 

Lectures and presentations will be held in English. Participation in the course involves a few elements:

1. Actively participating in our course 
2. As part of participating in the course, each student will be emgaged in leading the reading assigned for the course once during the semester.
3. For each class, all participating students are requested to bring an existing artwork, visual or cultural piece that relates to the assigned readings.
4. Parallel to the course, students will be asked to watch the documentary series “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace” (BBC) by Adam Curtis
5. Throughout the semester, students will be working on their final projects – “There is no Internet.” For this the students will dedicate a weekly slot of time which will require them to be offline, engaging in research, learning and creative activity outside the internet.
6. Presentations: Research/reflection presented in class

 

Required and optional readings will be made available.  Additional resources - exhibition catalogues, short stories and conversations:

Peter Weibel Siegfried Zielinski, Allah's Automata: Artifacts of the Arab-Islamic Renaissance (800–1200), ZKM, 2015

Andreas Broeckmann, The Making of Les Immatériaux, Meson Press, 2025

Antonio Somaini, The World Through AI, Jeu de Paume/JBE Books, Paris, 2025

Franz Kafka, “A Report to an Academy,” 1917. See also: “Ein Bericht für eine Akademie”

Jorge Luis Borges, “Funes the Memorious,” 1942

Harun Farocki, “Interview with Heiner Müller: Intelligence without Experience,” (1981), in:  Heiner Müller: Germania, Sylvère Lotringer (ed.), New York: Semiotext(e) 1990, pp. 160-167. See also:  Harun Farocki, “Gespräch mit Heiner Müller,” Filmkritik 293, 5/1981, 1981, pp. 197-203

Elisa Giardina Papa, Leaking Subjects and Bounding Boxes: On Training AI, Sorry Press, 2022

 

Viewing: Adam Curtis, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, BBC, 2011 (three episodes)