REGIMES OF THE VISUAL

ALGORITHMIC AUTOCRACY

Physical/ Digital borders and checkpoints operate on multiple layers at once: they regulate movement, communicate power, shape social relations, and leave lasting marks on memory and territory. Rarely do these layers align without friction.

‘…borders are no longer merely lines of demarcation separating distinct sovereign entities. Increasingly, they are the name we should use to describe the organised violence that underpins both contemporary capitalism and our world order in general.’ Achille Mbembe, Bodies as Borders (2024), 61–62

In this course, we take the “digital border” as a lens to explore the growing entanglement of AI, militarisation, and spatial control in an era of crisis of faith in governance, where public trust declines in the face of growing surveillance and opaque decision-making.

Through a series of model training exercises, we will examine how algorithmic systems such as facial recognition, predictive policing, and large-scale surveillance extend and reconfigure the logic of borders, often operating with a degree of invisibility that makes them difficult to challenge. Building on this, practical sessions in counter-mapping and spatial tracing will provide tools for critically engaging with the algorithmic infrastructures that shape contemporary urban life.

Regime des Visuellen
Univ.Lekt. Bilal Alame DI

Montag, 20. Oktober 2025

Ort: Seminarraum AC0440

Weitere Details in TISS