The Rabbit Hole Edition

The internet used to be a space to explore – a space of active discovery.
With personalised, algorithmic feeds and recommended content, engagement with media online became increasingly more passive.

In the Rabbit Hole Edition of this years Platform Physics class, we will try to reintroduce a conscious way of moving through online networks and a deliberate engagement with content in a productive way.

In the age of immediate answers by LLMs, the class will be in favour of the detour, of active exploration of the hidden and obscure, of drawing unexpected relations and creating interconnected systems of meaning.

We will look at the relationship between the structural constitution of various platforms and its influence on the shaping of their content and our movement through them.

Together we will approach key concepts like:

• Surfing vs. Doomscrolling
• Research as leisure activity
• Attention Economy
• Dark Forest Theory of the Web / Cozyweb
• Flattening of Content
• Context Collapse
• Archiving and Second Brains
• The Carrier Bag Theory of Content
• AI-Slop and its Signal to Noise Ratio
• The Content Industrial Complex
• Enshittification of Platforms
• Dead Internet Theory
• Digital Community-building

and their implications for contemporary image-production and distribution.

• Immanent
• 80% presence
• Active participation
• Presentation

The course will be held in english.

Max. 14 participants.