When we hear the word extraterrestrial, we often think of aliens, visitors from another planet, another galaxy, another world. But as humans explore deeper into the vastness of space the question arises, are we not, to some extent, also extraterrestrial? Thinking about ourselves as extraterrestrial beings dissolves the false separation between Earth and outer space…

In his new book, Forty-Four Esolangs (MIT Press), Daniel Temkin challenges conventional definitions of language, code, and computer, showing the potential of esolangs—or esoteric programming languages—as pure idea art. The languages in this volume ask programmers to write code in the form of prayer to the Greek gods, or as a pattern of empty folders,…

In the workshop “Frogs and Clowns: An Object Orientation of Protest Today”, Anneke Jansen (Theatre Programming, SPOT Groningen) and Iris van der Tuin (Utrecht University) introduced ‘object orientation’ as a collaborative method that initiates interdisciplinary conversations. By using an object as a starting point, researchers collectively reflect on what kinds of perspectives arise from their…

  What is a clown nose? Is it a nose or, rather, something that conceals your nose? Does this concealment make you a clown? My second coffee of the day has just kicked in, and I am ready to “unpack” the small spongy sphere in front of me. Soon enough, I am reminded of Dumit’s…

What do you think of when I mention a frog? A slimy green creature? A silly-looking jumping creature? A cute little dude on a leaf? Unless frogs are particularly scary to you, the idea of someone in an inflatable frog costume would probably be a mood-lifting sight, a welcome bit of silliness added to your…

by Ani Encheva “The multiple dimensions that make up objects also make up ourselves, as well as our categories. Telling the stories of an object therefore begins unpacking our own clichés, our certainties, our affects.” – Joseph Dumit (2014, 349) In encountering the inflatable frogs and clowning artefacts that populate contemporary protest, we are invited…

On November 25th, Dr. Tamara Borovica (RMIT University) will lead the workshop “Affective Cartographies: Sensing and Mapping Climate Emotions”, hosted by the Futures + Literacies + Methods Lab. Dr. Tamara Borovica has designed Affective Cartographies as a practice-led workshop that explores how we can think, feel, and know through the body. Using body mapping as…

More information will be available closer to the date of the session. This session is part of the Transmission in Motion seminar (2025-2026): “Navigating Entanglements.” To stay updated with more seminar sessions, please subscribe to our newsletter.

More information will be available closer to the date of the session. This session is part of the Transmission in Motion seminar (2025-2026): “Navigating Entanglements.” To stay updated with more seminar sessions, please subscribe to our newsletter

While comedians are often described as “truth-tellers,” the relationship between comedy and truth-telling is typically taken for granted. But what do we mean when we say that comedians “speak truth”? How can comedic speech be truthful? What “truth regimes,” to borrow a term from Michel Foucault, govern their work? In a post-truth world in which…