J Kemper
Biographic Data
| ID | 32116 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Kemper |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Kemper |
| SIGNATURE | KEMPER J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3839-8275 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 7 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Doing the numbers
What to make of the bizarre imagery of AI slop? If AI slop feels meaningless to interpret, this is because it has little to do with meaning and representations. In this article, we read the aesthetic of AI slop as operational in the sense that its primary aim is not to represent the world but rather to act on it: it functions as a signal aimed at maximizing engagement metrics. To do so, we first examine how the logic of immediacy and generative a…
The Masculine Urge to Rawdog Life
This article engages with the online trend of ‘rawdogging’ flights—where men endure long flights without any distractions, entertainment or amenities—to analyse the gendered logic behind digital detox cultures. We investigate this trend, a typical instance of digital detox, as a hegemonically masculine practice of resistance to what are experienced as the feminizing forces of digital technologies. Our contention is that this experience of emascul…
The enduring schism between culture and technique
This article contends that the promises and perils that people ascribe to so-called generative AI are in fact not so singular and that the debates around AI and the arts can be situated within a longer discursive lineage. We claim that antithetical responses to emerging new media historically tend to activate a perceived schism between culture and technique. As such, whenever a new technology appears to impact the artistic process, there is a ten…
Templates and sovereignty
This article examines how Wikipedians embed their sovereign authority within the development of the site’s multilingual policy environment. By drawing on the concepts of cultural techniques, imagined affordances, and online authority, the edits and comments of editors were examined through a discourse analysis of 15 rules across 15 years. With a focus on the English and Spanish-language Wikipedias and additional comparisons with the Arabic, Dutch…
Frictionlessness
Frictionlessness provides an examination of the environmentally destructive digital design philosophy of "frictionlessness" and the critical significance of a technological aesthetic of imperfection. If there is one thing that defines digital consumer technologies today, it is that they are designed to feel frictionless. From smart technologies to cloud computing, from from one-click shopping to the promise of seamless streaming-digital technolog…
Deep Time and Microtime
Living in Anthropocene times entails living in relation to two seemingly separate temporalities - the microtime of digital operations and the deep time of geological upheaval. Though divergent, these temporalities are united by their unavailability to perception; microtime proceeds too fast to perceive directly, while deep time is too vast to apprehend. Taking these temporalities as a point of departure, this paper develops three arguments. First…
Glitch, the Post-digital Aesthetic of Failure and Twenty-First-Century Media
This paper aims to understand how everyday life is affected by new technological conditions through an inquiry into glitch, a concept that signifies moments of faulty interference in the regular operation of a technology and that is often labeled a ghost in the machine. By drawing on two concepts from cultural studies – spectrality and post-digital culture – it demonstrates how the imperfection-oriented aesthetic of glitch is today complicated by…
Deep Time and Microtime
Living in Anthropocene times entails living in relation to two seemingly separate temporalities - the microtime of digital operations and the deep time of geological upheaval. Though divergent, these temporalities are united by their unavailability to perception; microtime proceeds too fast to perceive directly, while deep time is too vast to apprehend. Taking these temporalities as a point of departure, this paper develops three arguments. First…
Glitch, the Post-digital Aesthetic of Failure and Twenty-First-Century Media
This paper aims to understand how everyday life is affected by new technological conditions through an inquiry into glitch, a concept that signifies moments of faulty interference in the regular operation of a technology and that is often labeled a ghost in the machine. By drawing on two concepts from cultural studies – spectrality and post-digital culture – it demonstrates how the imperfection-oriented aesthetic of glitch is today complicated by…
Glitch, the Post-digital Aesthetic of Failure and Twenty-First-Century Media
This paper aims to understand how everyday life is affected by new technological conditions through an inquiry into glitch, a concept that signifies moments of faulty interference in the regular operation of a technology and that is often labeled a ghost in the machine. By drawing on two concepts from cultural studies – spectrality and post-digital culture – it demonstrates how the imperfection-oriented aesthetic of glitch is today complicated by…
Frictionlessness
Frictionlessness provides an examination of the environmentally destructive digital design philosophy of "frictionlessness" and the critical significance of a technological aesthetic of imperfection. If there is one thing that defines digital consumer technologies today, it is that they are designed to feel frictionless. From smart technologies to cloud computing, from from one-click shopping to the promise of seamless streaming-digital technolog…
Deep Time and Microtime
Living in Anthropocene times entails living in relation to two seemingly separate temporalities - the microtime of digital operations and the deep time of geological upheaval. Though divergent, these temporalities are united by their unavailability to perception; microtime proceeds too fast to perceive directly, while deep time is too vast to apprehend. Taking these temporalities as a point of departure, this paper develops three arguments. First…
Templates and sovereignty
This article examines how Wikipedians embed their sovereign authority within the development of the site’s multilingual policy environment. By drawing on the concepts of cultural techniques, imagined affordances, and online authority, the edits and comments of editors were examined through a discourse analysis of 15 rules across 15 years. With a focus on the English and Spanish-language Wikipedias and additional comparisons with the Arabic, Dutch…
Doing the numbers
What to make of the bizarre imagery of AI slop? If AI slop feels meaningless to interpret, this is because it has little to do with meaning and representations. In this article, we read the aesthetic of AI slop as operational in the sense that its primary aim is not to represent the world but rather to act on it: it functions as a signal aimed at maximizing engagement metrics. To do so, we first examine how the logic of immediacy and generative a…
The Masculine Urge to Rawdog Life
This article engages with the online trend of ‘rawdogging’ flights—where men endure long flights without any distractions, entertainment or amenities—to analyse the gendered logic behind digital detox cultures. We investigate this trend, a typical instance of digital detox, as a hegemonically masculine practice of resistance to what are experienced as the feminizing forces of digital technologies. Our contention is that this experience of emascul…
The enduring schism between culture and technique
This article contends that the promises and perils that people ascribe to so-called generative AI are in fact not so singular and that the debates around AI and the arts can be situated within a longer discursive lineage. We claim that antithetical responses to emerging new media historically tend to activate a perceived schism between culture and technique. As such, whenever a new technology appears to impact the artistic process, there is a ten…
Computer Science (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Cybernetics and Technology in Society (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works) · Aesthetics (2 works) · Art (2 works) · Digital Games and Media (2 works) · Digital Media and Philosophy (2 works)