The 2019 GEM Lab Seminar in Media and Political Theory showcases works in progress examining the paranoid potentialities of digital media technologies and the computational imagination. By highlighting new attentional forms, which correspond to the creative and productive side of paranoia, we investigate strategies of coping and making do with the increasingly complex world we live in. How might the productivity of paranoiac knowledge provide entry points for grappling with current crises in cognitive and imaginative forms, as well as larger technological, financial, or political flows? How can we contribute to or reframe debates about digital cultures and their politics by investigating the technological mechanisms at the heart of contemporary paranoia: from data-violence and algorithmic segregation to new attention economies and uncertain futures. The workshop asks how paranoid epistemologies may serve as a method to analyze cultural and political shifts shored up by digital media technologies.

For more information visit the GEM Lab website.