Deep Culture

We are excited to report that we have started developing our first *Little Tools of Difference*.

While deep learning has been driven by a culture of uniformity, we asked: What if we used these same state-of-the-art architectures to do the opposite?

More prototypes are coming soon, so stay tuned!

How to move along with the audiovisual, vibey, and AI-infused feeds of today's platforms? In this new article with @ddzeeuw.bsky.social and Tommaso Venturini, we theorize 'digital rhythmanalysis' as a potential new quali-quantitative approach to measure and 'feel' rhythms online: bit.ly/pns-dra

Our research was covered by the Dutch public broadcaster NOS:

Keywords are not neutral.

With Tobias Blanke, we investigate the power of keywords as interpretive tools in our work "Keywords in Digital Humanities: A critical assessment of computational techniques for mapping security and freedom in historical debates".

You can read the article now on DHQ!

Interview with Louis Ravn Louis Ravn is a PhD Candidate on Deep Culture at the University of Amsterdam, working in the fields of science and technology studies and critical data/AI studies. Moreover, he is assistant editor for...

Super fun to contribute to this brief interview with Terminally Online, a student-led organization on New Media at the University of Amsterdam.

We spoke about my wonderful team‘s research (@d-eepculture.bsky.social), who inspires me, and some of my own work.

🔗: www.linkedin.com/pulse/interv...

What is digital about abstraction? This chapter examines abstraction as a central principle of computing, not merely as a cognitive skill or epistemological category, but as a material and organizational practice that structures how so...

"What is digital about abstraction?" - new chapter by @riederb.bsky.social

arxiv.org/abs/2508.18181

Critical AI seminar series Register via https://bit.ly/uvacriticalai2526 Program and Invited Speakers: Upcoming seminars November 12, 5-6:30 PM (CEST): Invited talk by Louise Amoore and Alexander Campolo, ‘On reading machine learning‘ January 13, 5:30-7 PM (CEST): Invited talk by Fabian Offert on ‘Vector Media‘ March 18, 3-4:30 (CEST): Invited talk by Helene Ratner and Nanna Thylstrup on ‘Ecologies of evaluation’ May 20, 12-1:30 PM (CEST): Invited talk by Thao Phan on ‘Testing-in-the-wild’

🚨The Critical AI Seminar Series returns in 2025/2026 ✨

This year we will have four talks and are beyond excited to welcome @amoorelouise.bsky.social & @alexcampolo.bsky.social, Fabian Offert, Helene Ratner & @nannathylstrup.bsky.social and @thaophan.bsky.social ✨

Sign up: bit.ly/uvacriticala...