Tactics&Practice [podcast]

Tactics&Practice [podcast]
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Arts
  • Weekly Series

Institute for Contemporary Art Ljubljana

  1. Episode 1

    S6 [Becoming Image] E1: Who’s Still Here? [w/dmstfctn]

    Who are we when our identities are shaped through interfaces, datasets, and platforms? And what does it mean to see, to be seen, or to become visible when every act of seeing is mediated by software?  dmstfctn (Francesco Tacchini and Oliver Smith) join the podcast to discuss their decade-long collaboration exploring simulation, fiction and the hidden systems that shape contemporary digital life. Focusing on their “God Mode” trilogy and the latest artwork Big Things Coming (2026) at Chemist, London from July this year, the conversation traces a world of AI reward hacking, synthetic training data and algorithmic misbehaviour through simulated supermarkets, theatrical game engines and self-playing videogames.From image-caption datasets and the Waluigi effect to data labour, optimisation metrics and the limits of language, the episode examines how machine learning systems not only represent the world but actively reshape it. Along the way, we discuss embodiment and consciousness through the work of N. Katherine Hayles, systemic realism, the aesthetics of lossy digital environments, and why leaving language behind for something like dance might offer a way out of computational logic. RELATED LINKS https://dmstfctn.nethttps://www.instagram.com/dmstfctnGOD MODE: Episode 3: Big things coming Waluigi’s PurgatorySad Luigi game Ennuigi 1.0 by Josh Millard. Thanks to Petra Szemán for the link up!N.B in the episode I say the game is based on a sad Waluigi, but it’s actually based on a sad Luigi.COCO dataset  Grim Fandango game The paper Depressive Realism: Four Theoretical Perspectives was published in 1988 by Lauren Alloy and Lyn Abramson in the book Cognitive Processes in Depression published by Guilford Press on May 27, 1988. Quake III Arena bot COLOPHON Host: Rebecca EdwardsGuest: dmstfctnRecording: Rebecca EdwardsMusic: Gašper TorkarEditing: Rebecca Edwards, Janez Fakin JanšaAudio post-production: Oskar Kandare, Staš KramarBecoming Image podcast seriesCurated by: Rebecca EdwardsCoordinated by: Janez Fakin JanšaProduced by: Marcela OkretičProduction:Aksioma | Institute for Contemporary Art Ljubljana, 2026Part of:tactics&practice#17: Becoming ImageCurated by Marco De MutiisSupported by:the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana The post S6 [Becoming Image] E1: Who’s Still Here? [w/dmstfctn] appeared first on Aksioma.

    S6 [Becoming Image] E1: Who’s Still Here? [w/dmstfctn]

  2. Episode 2

    S6 [Becoming Image] E2: Brainrot as Theory [w/Dian Joy]

    What does thinking or imaging look like when it’s optimised for scroll, repetition, and affect? When thinking itself becomes “scrollified” how do repetition, optimisation, and affect rewire imagination, compress attention, and turn imaging itself into something endlessly refreshed, looped, and platform-shaped?In this episode, London-based British-Nigerian interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker Dian Joy discusses their research-driven practice exploring subjectivity in the age of networked media and how images circulate and shape identity, desire, and perception. Drawing on film theory and Alexander Galloway’s ideas about the cinematic encounter, we ask what changes when images shift from singular cinematic events to an ambient algorithmic barrage. We discuss the research underpinning Dian’s new film work, Krumville, including a LoRA (Low-Rank Adaptation algorithm) trained on screenshots from her social media feeds, and years of diarised, affective experiences that are reconfigured into a fictional town structured by hyperlink logic and the condensed language of short-form media. The conversation explores AI as a tool for rendering implicit cultural patterns and biases visible at scale, while interrogating authorship, virality and the changing conditions of media literacy in an age of dual-screen attention. RELATED LINKS https://dianjoy.mehttps://www.instagram.com/dian__joyThe Hoping MechanismKrumville premiering at AND Festival 2026 Alexander Galloway: Interface Effect Gilbert Simondon’s idea of the pre-individual is developed primarily in his major work Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information (L’individu et sa genèse physico-biologique / L’individuation psychique et collective) José Esteban Muñoz defined unconscious futurity in his book Cruising Utopia as a collective, not-yet-conscious realm of potentiality.  Günther Anders’s Promethean Shame is written about in an article titled Günther Anders’s “Promethean Shame”: Technological Ressentiment and SurveillanceCarly Busta’s essay Hallucinating sense in the era of infinity-contentJenna Bliss’s work True Entertainment in the group exhibition Genuine Fake Premium Economy at the ICA COLOPHON Host: Rebecca EdwardsGuest: Dian JoyRecording: Rebecca EdwardsMusic: Gašper TorkarEditing: Rebecca Edwards, Janez Fakin JanšaAudio post-production: Oskar Kandare, Staš KramarBecoming Image podcast seriesCurated by: Rebecca EdwardsCoordinated by: Janez Fakin JanšaProduced by: Marcela OkretičProduction:Aksioma | Institute for Contemporary Art Ljubljana, 2026Part of:tactics&practice#17: Becoming ImageCurated by Marco De MutiisSupported by:the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana The post S6 [Becoming Image] E2: Brainrot as Theory [w/Dian Joy] appeared first on Aksioma.

    S6 [Becoming Image] E2: Brainrot as Theory [w/Dian Joy]

  3. Episode 3

    S6 [Becoming Image] E3: Ready Player None [w/Milia Xin Bi]

    What does it mean to imagine alternatives to prescripted narratives when AI has already prescribed the rules of the world? How to navigate prescriptive AI systems to prototype other worlds, other rules, and other ways of playing within algorithmic constraint?In this episode, curator and writer Milia Xin Bi discusses how board games and tabletop RPGs shape her practice exploring media art, emerging technologies, and games, contrasting their improvisational “in-between” play with the predesigned possibilities of video games. We talk about her recent exhibition at FACT “Can Meeple Escape Neophoria?”, as well as AI and hybrid agency, glitches and gaps as sites of play, the gallery as a space to preserve friction against technology’s drive to collapse distance, and what modding and speedrunning can tell us about alternative tech futures. Cat-fu gets an honourable mention too. RELATED LINKS https://miliaxinbi.xyz/https://www.instagram.com/miliabbb/ Can Meeple Escape The Neurophoria exhibition at FACT Carcassonne game Jan Zuiderveld’s coffee machine as part of Can Meeple Escape The Neurophoria exhibition at FACT Donald Winnicott’s concept of potential space originates from his book Playing and Reality Joseph Wilk’s Crip Ship as part of Can Meeple Escape The Neurophoria exhibition at FACT Gilles Deleuze introduced the term dividual in his 1990 essay Postscript on the Societies of ControlKaren Hao’s talk at Manchester Business School Sam Lavigne’s SlowLLM browser  McKenzie Wark Gamer Theory K Allado-McDowell’s concept of Neural Media Katherine N. Hayles’ idea of an integrated cognitive framework originates in her book Bacteria to AI: Human Futures with Our Nonhuman SymbiontsCat-fu video examples: here, and here QQ by Tencent Y7 Undead Internet Theory talk and screening at ESEA Ivan Seal’s exhibition Your Guests Never Mention Me at Alma Pearl as part of The Black Lights Festival in BlackpoolTeleAI (The Institute of Artificial Intelligence of China Telecom) COLOPHON Host: Rebecca EdwardsGuest: Milia Xin BiRecording: Rebecca EdwardsMusic: Gašper TorkarEditing: Rebecca Edwards, Janez Fakin JanšaAudio post-production: Oskar Kandare, Staš KramarBecoming Image podcast seriesCurated by: Rebecca EdwardsCoordinated by: Janez Fakin JanšaProduced by: Marcela OkretičProduction:Aksioma | Institute for Contemporary Art Ljubljana, 2026Part of:tactics&practice#17: Becoming ImageCurated by Marco De MutiisSupported by:the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana The post S6 [Becoming Image] E3: Ready Player None [w/Milia Xin Bi] appeared first on Aksioma.

    S6 [Becoming Image] E3: Ready Player None [w/Milia Xin Bi]

  4. Episode 4

    S6 [Becoming Image] E4: Darker Patterns [w/Ben Grosser]

    What infrastructures shape what we’re allowed to do, see, or become? From Technical to Hot to Operational, what are the political ontologies of the contemporary image and how might we rethink interfacing with interfaces? In this episode, artist Ben Grosser traces his background and early interest in computer music and scientific imaging, as well as early experiments in destabilising software assumptions. He explains his Demetricator works, browser extensions that hide visible social-media metrics to reveal how likes and counts condition users, and argues that platforms are designed for growth and compulsion. We talk through his “Praise-Prompt Envelope” theory, the dynamics of chatbot validation to shifting forms of literacy in the age of AI-generated text and dark patterns, and how platform interfaces engineer desire, culture and behaviour through the logic of engagement. RELATED LINKS Ben’s 2009 self-portrait from the Flexible Pixels project  Demetricator works: Twitter Demetricator, Facebook Demetricator, Instagram Demetricator Reading the Praise/Prompt Machine: An Interface Criticism Approach to ChatGPT by Ben Grosser and Søren Bro Pold    Douglas Rushkoff’s book Present Shock  Matthew Fuller and Eyal Weizman’s book Investigative Aesthetics Lux Affirma prototype here Safebook The Endless Doomscroller Laurence Sterne’s novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman  B. F. Skinner’s idea of operant conditioning, was first introduced in a 1937 journal article, and fully formalised it in his landmark 1938 book, The Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis  Stuck in the Scroll  Not For You  Francois Bonnet’s book, After Death   COLOPHON Host: Rebecca EdwardsGuest: Ben GrosserRecording: Rebecca EdwardsMusic: Gašper TorkarEditing: Rebecca Edwards, Janez Fakin JanšaAudio post-production: Oskar Kandare, Staš KramarBecoming Image podcast seriesCurated by: Rebecca EdwardsCoordinated by: Janez Fakin JanšaProduced by: Marcela OkretičProduction:Aksioma | Institute for Contemporary Art Ljubljana, 2026Part of:tactics&practice#17: Becoming ImageCurated by Marco De MutiisSupported by:the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana The post S6 [Becoming Image] E4: Darker Patterns [w/Ben Grosser] appeared first on Aksioma.

    S6 [Becoming Image] E4: Darker Patterns [w/Ben Grosser]
See All Season 6 (4)

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Institute for Contemporary Art Ljubljana

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