Roland Meyer

I am a media and visual culture scholar interested in the history, theory, and aesthetics of #operativeimages. Among other stuff, I have written on the (pre-)history of #facialrecognition & its contemporary implications.
Currently, I am an assistant professor for digital arts and cultures at the University of Zurich and the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)

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nprofile1qqsfhm5zpmmzqsjnj932gvkmt320gw6dvcn6h48yqg8jax5xrgjf0nqpp4mhxue69uhhjctzw5hx6egpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qajs3p0

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Last Notes

2026-10-21 18:21:13 UTC

Morgen in Zürich - Buchvorstellung «Faschisierung. Fluchtlinie des Digitalen» mit Simon Strick, 18:30h im Cabaret Voltaire
#nevent1q…83gn

2026-10-07 07:44:58 UTC

Social media is a paranoia machine. It makes connections explicit, though not transparent. It not only allows you to trace ties between people, institutions, and events, but also continually produces new ties. On social media, everything becomes connected, and thus potentially suspicious. «Explicit, though not transparent» is key here: You can endlessly gather evidence for suspicious connections without establishing criteria for their relevance or settling on their meaning. As both actual and potential connections multiply, they become infinitely open to interpretation.
1/

2026-09-01 10:34:14 UTC

Save the date: Am 22. Oktober kommt Simon Strick nach Zürich, um sein neues Buch «Faschisierung. Fluchtlinie des Digitalen» vorzustellen! https://www.zentrumkuensteundkulturtheorie.ch/veranstaltungen/aktuell/?n=faschisierung-fluchtlinie-des-digitalen

2026-08-15 06:53:29 UTC

Das Programm von «Alerta», der «Konferenz zum Faschismus der Gegenwart und Möglichkeiten des Widerstands» im Rahmen des Steirischen Herbstes in Graz, 16.10.–18.10., ist jetzt online! Mit Beiträgen u.a. von Paul Feigelfeld, Orit Halpern, Anna Kraher, Clara Mattei, Simon Strick, Natascha Strobl und yours truly …https://www.steirischerherbst.at/de/program/events/9151/forum-stadtpark-konferenz-zum-faschismus-der-gegenwart-und-moeglichkeiten-des

2026-08-05 10:02:40 UTC

This image has been widely shared on social media as a document of the human tragedy that has unfolded in Ceuta and an indictment of the EU's murderous border regime in the Mediterranean. The problem is: It's AI-generated. It has a SynthID watermark, as can easily be checked with OpenAI's Verify tool for example
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https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/117/042/321/894/423/725/original/2cf0dafd2d61c109.png

2026-07-25 10:00:33 UTC

Ideologically, generative AI is a 19th century technology: the flawed dream that once you have assembled a supposedly total archive of culture via technical media, you can use it to statistically derive new meaning from patterns of the past

2026-07-06 17:08:28 UTC

Slop ist überall. Vor allem auf Tiktok. Die fünfte und vorletzte Folge von #Slopaganda, meiner Online-Kolumne für die @nprofile…elt9, handelt von «AI Fruit Drama» und davon, dass auch vermeintlich rein kommerzieller #Slop keineswegs unpolitisch ist: «Reaktionäre Muster»
https://www.woz.ch/kolumnen/2026/07/06/slopaganda-reaktionaere-muster

2026-06-19 04:47:51 UTC

In der vierten Folge von #Slopaganda, meiner Online-Kolumne für die @nprofile…elt9, geht es um Grok, Deepfakes und digitale Gewaltdemonstrationen: «Brandbeschleuniger» https://www.woz.ch/kolumnen/2026/06/19/slopaganda-brandbeschleuniger

2026-06-13 06:03:49 UTC

Was mich an diesem Text noch mehr nervt als die wiederholt aufgewärmte Cybersyn-Nostalgie und die komplette Ignoranz gegenüber jeglichen ökologischen Fragen ist das vollkommene Desinteresse an den konkreten Funktionsweisen von Technologien
1/
https://jacobin.de/artikel/die-linke-braucht-eine-eigene-zukunftsvision-fuer-ki

2026-05-19 10:47:30 UTC

I hear critical positions towards so-called «artificial intelligence» nowadays framed more and more as «rejectionism», and this is especially formulated as a critique of the left. The argument often goes something like this: Rather than seeing the potentials of AI, the left merely rejects it. «Rejectionism» thus is framed as an unwillingness to engage with the technology. But nothing could be further from the truth. Left-wing critique of AI, which takes many forms, is based on an empirical assessment of the impact and implications of the dominant model of AI development.
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2026-05-16 13:21:37 UTC

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Understood as ideology, slop is largely devoid of specific content; or rather, its main message lies in its platformized formats, which can be filled by mostly arbitrary and exchangeable content. The aim of slop is less to indoctrinate than to naturalize a world fully mediated and governed by digital platforms, a world that knows no outside of the endless feedback loops of platform capitalism
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2026-05-16 13:21:03 UTC

Some theses on #Slop (a thread):
Slop is automated ideology. It's content made of content, optimized for circulation, prompted, shaped, and refined through feedback loops of adaptation to platform conditions. Slop is what you get when the conditions of content distribution — the recommendation algorithms, reaction economies, and monetization schemes of social media — feed directly, continuously and automatically back into content production
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2026-05-09 06:44:04 UTC

Für die @nprofile…elt9 darf ich in einer neuen Online-Kolumne alle zwei Wochen über #Slopaganda schreiben. Los geht‘s mit den Basics: Was ist eigentlich Slopaganda? https://www.woz.ch/kolumnen/2026/05/08/slopaganda-was-ist-slopaganda

2026-04-15 16:23:51 UTC

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@nprofile…3eu7 Klar, trotzdem kein Zufall, dass die «most moral army in the world» auch Vorreiter beim KI-Einsatz ist …

2026-04-15 09:11:57 UTC

«Wenn es einen Zusammenhang gibt zwischen Produktion und Destruktion, so wird gelten, dass weniger Hardware und mehr Steuerung abgesetzt werden sollen. Mehr Steuerung lässt sich nur verkaufen, wenn es auf eine genaue Unterscheidung von Freund und Feind ankommt. Die Ökonomie, wenigstens die der Waffenhersteller, verlangt Kriege für humanitäre Ziele.»
Harun Farocki, «Der Krieg findet immer einen Ausweg» (2005). In: Harun Farocki: Lerne das Einfachste! Texte 2001–2014 (Schriften, Bd. 6), hg. von Volker Pantenburg, Berlin 2022

2026-04-14 04:48:14 UTC

Immediately after the landing of Artemis 2, AI-generated images of the recovery spread online. We have seen this before, with the kidnapping of Maduro or the mass protests against ICE raids – fake images of real events. While these synthetic images fictionalize reality, they are not necessarily meant as disinformation. Rather, they both illustrate and cater to widespread expectations. In our hypervisualized world of ubiquitous networked cameras, we expect to see perfect images of whatever is happening immediately. #AIslop delivers.
1/3
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/116/401/243/051/646/215/original/254c6a7d88a8382f.jpg

2026-03-26 06:08:15 UTC

OpenAI's sudden discontinuation of its video model #Sora, just a few months after a spectacular deal with Disney, shows just how little these AI companies care about their so-called products. AI video apps, to quote @nprofile…hlev Steyerl, are «onboarding tools» — their purpose is more ideological than commercial.
Rather than offering revenue-generating services (OpenAI is burning money with every single Sora generated clip), these apps are designed to accustom us to a world in which so-called generative AI seems inevitable — and to provide investors with impressive demonstrations of these models' performance.
In other words, companies like OpenAI do not develop consumer products; they merely launch demos that can be retracted once they have fulfilled their purpose. Never mind that, in the meantime, they are flooding our media landscape with a deluge of #slop and destroying entire cultural sectors in the process.

2026-01-30 17:52:48 UTC

Annika Brockschmidt beschreibt in diesem erschütternden Artikel das Ausmass, in dem US-Regierungsaccounts Neo-Nazi-Content verbreiten. Ich durfte auch meine Einschätzungen beitragen https://www.volksverpetzer.de/analyse/us-regierung-neo-nazi-content/

2025-12-02 09:36:45 UTC

«The integrity of historical image archives as a necessary reference is currently under massive threat.» For ZETT, the magazine of the Zurich University of the Arts, I wrote a little essay on generative AI and «Synthetic Archives» https://www.zhdk.ch/en/news/synthetic-archives-8928

2025-12-01 18:59:24 UTC

It took some time, but now my essay «Images from Images: Generative AI and the Reconfiguration of the ‹Photographic›» is finally out in open access, as part of the latest issue of «Photography & Culture» https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17514517.2025.2522517?src=#abstract

2025-12-01 06:39:08 UTC

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@nprofile…tvdr Bin beim ersten Teil 100% dabei, beim zweiten hätte ich Rückfragen. Müssen mal ausführlicher diskutieren!

2025-11-30 07:13:21 UTC

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@nprofile…tvdr Ah, das ist leider ganz an mir vorübergegangen. Deine Keynote klingt sehr spannend, hätte ich gerne gehört!

2025-11-29 14:10:22 UTC

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@nprofile…tvdr Wo bist Du denn da gelandet?

2025-11-16 07:47:51 UTC

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@nprofile…tvdr Merci für's Teilen. Hier auch ein Geschenklink, hoffe, der funktioniert noch: https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/kuenstliche-intelligenz-historische-figuren-in-bizarren-ki-filmen-auf-social-media-a-584fcb0d-62ac-48ab-918f-69ff7c8806e1?giftToken=f600729f-8000-445d-aebe-514ebf792bae

2025-11-09 09:34:06 UTC

Mit meiner lieben Kollegin Judith Siegmund habe ich über Gemeinsinn, Social Media und die Zukunft der Kunsthochschule gesprochen – im ZHdK-Podcast «Kunstlicht», moderiert von Eva Pauline Bossow https://www.zhdk.ch/meldung/ueber-gemeinsinn-differenz-und-social-media-8869

2025-06-09 05:54:19 UTC

Dieses Jahr war ich zum ersten Mal auf der @nprofile…y2ra – ein in jeder Hinsicht eindrückliches Erlebnis. Noch nie stand ich auf einer so grossen Bühne vor einem so grossen Publikum. Vermutlich hat man mir meine Aufregung angemerkt. Aber es war toll, so viel und so positive Resonanz zu erfahren. Ganz herzlichen Dank an alle, die da waren! #rp25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZpi6Irzvd0

2025-06-07 08:54:37 UTC

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@nprofile…dngu Those memes are quite fat phobic, aren‘t they? Also, I wouldn‘t count them as anti-fascist, it‘s just Chinese nationalism for me. Or do I miss something?

2025-06-07 05:55:05 UTC

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There are many reasons why AI slop has become the aesthetic of current digital fascism, but one may lie in the competitive and selective logic of AI training itself: GenAI amplifies the presence of those who are already highly visible while rendering invisible those who are already marginalized. AI image generation ultimately fuses mediocrity with power – it's the aesthetic and political triumph of the ordinary and predictable. While it's non-exclusive in terms of use (anyone can generate images) it's highly exclusionary in terms of representation, making it the perfect tool for crowd-sourced propaganda and #memefascism,
3/3

2025-06-07 05:53:25 UTC

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The aim of this latest portrait, however, seems to be to fuse a classic form of presidential representation with the memeified version of himself that Trump has become: memes turning into ‹reality› (as in ‹reality television›), in the form of fascist branding distributed by the official White House channels. That might actually be the one thing Trump understands about both meme culture and AI image generation: it's all about brand recognition. Trump is a perfect AI meme because he's already so pervasive in digital visual culture. In a way, he's been working for decades to be a major factor in every training dataset.
2/3
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/114/640/525/131/452/778/original/95f71e5397f64e52.jpg

2025-06-07 05:49:49 UTC

As some have already noticed, Trump's latest official portrait bears a striking resemblance to the aesthetic of #aislop. In particular, his shirt and tie display an almost otherworldly glow and a painterly slickness so typical to many AI image generators. This to me is further evidence of how integral AI has become to Trump's brand. Of course, every official portrait of Trump has been an exercise in branding – the last one, released at his inauguration in January, visibly attempted to recreate the famous mugshot that had already become a key element of the iconography of MAGA merchandise.
1/3
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/114/640/505/096/581/542/original/a757dde5e13da874.jpg

2025-06-01 16:41:31 UTC

«Es ist allerhöchste Zeit, wirklich anzuerkennen, dass Faschismus kein Kampfbegriff ist, sondern eine Analyse jetziger Zustände und dass der digitale Raum ein Werkzeug geworden ist, durch das ... faschistische Ideologien ... verbreitet werden ...»
Jochen Dreier in einem ausführlichen Rückblick auf die @nprofile…y2ra bei @nprofile…dahy im Deutschlandfunk Kultur – «Digitaler Faschismus und was dagegen hilft»
#rp25
https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/re-publica-25-digitaler-faschismus-und-was-dagegen-hilft-100.html

2025-04-26 14:38:56 UTC

Für die FAS hab ich über KI-generierte Bildwelten der Rücksichtslosigkeit und das Bündnis von Techoligarchie und autoritärer Staatsmacht geschrieben https://zeitung.faz.net/fas/feuilleton-kunst-und-verbrechen/2025-04-27/aeee96080430bd250a4fef8931fe5957?GEPC=s5
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/114/404/774/804/010/947/original/5bbbb64bc14d22fc.png

2025-03-17 07:50:33 UTC

Für die Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung habe ich über die aktuellen Lösch- und Zensurkampagnen in den USA und über die veränderte Rolle digitaler Bildarchive angesichts generativer KI geschrieben – und darüber, warum Datensicherung jetzt das Gebot der Stunde ist. Wir brauchen Gegenarchive! https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/wo-us-behoerden-archivbilder-von-minderheiten-loeschen-110354085.html

2025-03-01 13:49:54 UTC

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@nprofile…dngu «Reactionary Modernism» is a great term, I should read Herf, I guess. There's a lot of this going on in Silicon Valley now, and some of the ideas of Thiel and other's seem to flow directly from the pages of people like Ernst Jünger - Ganz is also pointing in this direction in this piece.
But it's a yesterday''s idea of technocratic future, and all the images and stories they use to sell it to us seem already nostalgic, at least that's my impression ...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-21/palantir-ceo-s-new-book-is-a-call-to-arms-and-a-sales-pitch

2025-02-28 09:52:44 UTC

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@nprofile…dngu But they'll always be trapped within the limits of the archive. The fascist idea of the future is, for the most part, built upon the idea of rebirth, of realizing a past that never was (including the past's idea of the , e.g. colonizing Mars or whatever). I admit it's an oversimplification, but I don't see a real sense of future in most of this

2025-02-12 06:09:15 UTC

#JobAlert: Art university professorship in Linz, at the intersection of interactive media/digital art, interface design, and critical data studies. Applications are to be sent by 2 March 2025. Please share!
https://www.kunstuni-linz.at/en/current/jobs/tender/universitaetsprofessur-fuer-interface-cultures-critical-data-nach-98-ug-2002

2025-02-02 07:50:09 UTC

Warum die radikale Rechte generative KI liebt und wie Midjourney & Co. die Ästhetik des gegenwärtigen digitalen Faschismus prägen, darüber durfte ich für «Geschichte der Gegenwart» @nprofile…3gc5
schreiben
#PlatformRealism #ImageGeneration
https://geschichtedergegenwart.ch/echte-emotionen-generative-ki-und-rechte-weltbilder/

2025-01-05 13:20:32 UTC

Full-time position as University Professor of ‹Interface Cultures/Critical Data› at the University of Arts Linz, starting on 1 October 2025, digital applications are to be sent by 7 February 2025
#JobAlert
https://www.kunstuni-linz.at/en/current/jobs/tender/universitaetsprofessur-fuer-interface-cultures-critical-data-nach-98-ug-2002

2024-11-21 06:40:36 UTC

Kürzlich hat mich @nprofile…wtf3 für den «Kulturplatz» des SRF an der @nprofile…nyv4 besucht. In den Archivräumen des Medien- und Informationszentrums MIZ haben wir uns über generative KI, über die künftige Rolle von Archiven sowie über die nostalgische Sehnsucht nach einer Vergangenheit unterhalten, die es so nie gab.
Das Gespräch ist Teil der Sendung «Futter für die KI: Wenn Kultur zum Datensatz wird», die man jetzt hier online anschauen kann – und die auch anschaulich vorführt, wie man aus den Fernseharchiven endlose Mengen scheinbar neuen, zugleich allzu vertrauten Contents generieren könnte.
Ganz herzlichen Dank an Karpi für die Gelegenheit, an dieser im besten Sinne aufklärerischen Sendung mitwirken zu dürfen!
https://www.srf.ch/play/tv/kulturplatz/video/futter-fuer-die-ki-wenn-kultur-zum-datensatz-wird?urn=urn:srf:video:326fb746-8e2b-418b-852a-73999d67dd67

2024-11-20 10:43:27 UTC

My talk «It’s a flat world. The Synthetic Realities of AI Video» from the Hidden Layers – AI & Design Conference at Köln International School of Design (@kisdesign) is now online.
Big thanks to @nprofile…sgf3 and Matthias Grund for inviting me to Cologne and organizing this great event!
https://vimeo.com/1011342969
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/113/514/869/137/704/693/original/1effd290879b8b11.png

2024-11-14 06:01:04 UTC

Memes have become the law of the land, and it's not funny, but incredibly cruel and bleak