Selected Talks and Presentations
“AI is not a Metaphor, but an Allegory,” Shifting Natures Symposium, ICI Berlin, March 14–15, 2024. Online video on the ICI Berlin website.
“Black Box & Oil as Imperial Allegories: The Geopolitical Aesthetic of Gulf Futurism,” KW Digital: Poetics of Encryption Conference, Theater im Delphi, Berlin, Germany, October 27–28, 2023. Online video on the KW Digital “Poetics of Encryption” website.
“Reprogramming Utopias through Media Arts in the Middle East,” Coding Utopias Symposium, the ICI Berlin, September 28–29, 2023.
“The Dialectical Condition of Diasporic Post-Internet Aesthetics,” Haunted by Homes Symposium, the ICI Berlin, May 5–6, 2022. Online video on the ICI Berlin website.
“The Geopolitical Aesthetic of Digital Media and Theorizing Through Arts,” Theorizing Through the Global South Workshop, the ICI Berlin, March 9–10, 2022.
“Reclaiming Algorithmic Media: Forensic Architecture and Machine-Enabled Public Truth,” Algorithms in Film, Television and Sound Cultures: New Ways of Knowing and Storytelling, Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey, April 29–30, 2021.
“The Racial Politics of Smartness Mandate: Counterfuturisms Arising from the Middle East,” Recursive Colonialism Artificial Intelligence, and Speculative Computation, Online Symposium, December 1–12, 2020. Online video on the "Recursive Colonialism" website.
“The Geopolitical Aesthetic of Computational Media in the Middle East,” Research Networks Panel, Transmediale Festival: End-to-End Symposium, January 31–February 2, 2020, Volksbühne, Berlin, Germany, 2020.
“Historicizing Digital Media in the Middle East: The Geopolitical Aesthetics of Imperial Infrastructures and Neoliberal Symptoms,” Media Infrastructures in the Middle East Conference, American University of Beirut, Lebanon, January 9–11, 2020.
“Passages Between the U.S. and the Middle East: Racialized State Violence and Predictive Algorithms,” The Neil Postman Graduate Conference, New York University, New York, NY, United States, November 1, 2019.
“Socio-Technical Imaginaries of the Middle East: Petropolitics & Digital Colonialism,” Annual Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), New Orleans, LA, United States, Sept 4–7, 2019.
“The Geopolitical Aesthetic of Computational Media: Counter-Futuristic Imaginaries from the Middle East,” The Limits of Growth of the Smart-City Symposium, The School of Architecture, Cities and Territories, Paris-Est University, Marne-La-Vallee East, France, June 5–6, 2019.
“Anthropocene and Digital Colonialism: Speculative Narratives from the Middle East,” Without Computer: Anthropocene and Digital Imaginaries Conference, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France, April 8–9, 2019.
“Digital Media Arts in the Middle East: Affordances for Whom?,” Rethinking Affordance Symposium, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany, June 7–9, 2018.
“Alternative Histories of New Media: Telecommunication Technologies and Media Arts in the Middle East,” Re:Trace: Media Art Histories, November 23–25, Vienna, Austria, 2017.
“Maintenance, Justice, and Self-Determination: Connections and Tensions Between Sustained Social Practice and Its Archives,” in collaboration with Duke FHI Social Practice Lab, Open Engagement, Chicago, IL, Unites States, April 19–23, 2017.
“Indexicality as ‘Shadow Archive’ in Post-Cinema,” The Annual Conference of the Society of Literature, Science and the Arts (SLSA), Atlanta, GA, United States, November 3–6, 2016.
“Affective Methodologies for Digital Resistance: Media Arts in the Middle East,” The Coils of Politics and Aesthetics, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, July 4, 2015.
“Body Image and Body Schema: Interaction Design for and through Embodied Cognition,” In collaboration with Diane Gromala & Maryam Mobini, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) International 2014, Crete, Greece, June 25–27, 2014.
“In/visible Memories and Images: Video Art and Anthropology,” American Ethnology Society and Society for Visual Anthropology Spring Meeting, Boston, MA, United States, April 10–12, 2014.
Keynote Lectures
“Reclaiming Decolonialization! Heritage, Geopolitics, Resistance,” Decolonising Cultural Heritage: State of the Art, Methodologies, and Practices, University for Foreigners of Siena, Siena, May 5–6, 2025.
“Counter-Futuring: Past Futures and Speculative Presences of Computing,” AI: Ancestral Immediacies, HKW Berlin, Germany, July 28–30, 2023.
Panels, Workshops & Guest Lectures
Guest Speaker, "The Black Boxed Allegories of Artificial Intelligence and its Contested Futures," Institut für Kunst und Kunsttheorie, Universität zu Köln, Monthly Lecture Series, June 4, 2024. Online video available on the University of Cologne's website.
Roundtable discussant, “Ether’s Bloom: A Programme on Artificial Intelligence,” Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany, November 4, 2023.
Guest speaker, "Black Boxed Allegories and Decolonial Trajectories of Computation," Philosophy of Technology Seminar Series, University of Florence (Online), May 18, 2023.
Roundtable discussant, Counter-digital > mining / critique / dancing, in conversation with Martin Howse, Jan Distelmeyer and Shintaro Miyazaki, Acud Macht Neu, Berlin, May 2, 2023.
Guest Speaker, “The Irreducible Other of Computational Capital,” Lecture Series, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, November 30, 2022.
Workshop leader, 12th Berlin Biennale Curator's Workshop, organized by Reem Shadid, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany, July 9, 2022.
Roundtable discussant, Abstraction and Abjection, in conversation with Alan Díaz Alva, Seb Franklin, and Marina Vishmidt. diffrakt:zentrum für theoretische peripherie, Berlin, Germany, July 7, 2022.
Panel Discussant, Heavier than Air: Resisting the Military State, organized by Sam Dolbear, the ICI Berlin, June 15, 2022.
Panel Discussant, Caliphate Pop, organized by Hasan Özgür Top, Mandus Ridefelt, and Assem Hendawi, Index Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden, February 3–4, 2022.
Guest Speaker, “The Geopolitical Aesthetic of Smart Urbanism: Counter-Futuring in the Middle East,” Domino Lectures, Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey, January 11, 2022.
Roundtable Discussant, The Rightness of Wrong: Error and Progress in Science and the Arts, in conversation with Christopher Chamberlin, Işıl Eğrikavuk, hosted by Kata Katz, Mafalda Sandrini, and Anita Jóri, Vilém Flusser Archive, The Universität der Künste Berlin, October 28, 2022.
Panel Discussant, Suspending Touch: Haptic Skepticism for Life During a Pandemic, organized by Rachel Aumiller, the ICI Berlin (online), May 20, 2021.
Guest Speaker, “The Politics of Digital Rendering: Counter-Futuring in the Middle East,” Design Culture International Lecture Series, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey, December 16, 2020.
Roundtable Discussant, Beautiful Seams: Unraveling the Intelligence of Everything, organized by KairUs, Art Meets Radical Openness (AMRO), Linz, Austria, May 23, 2020.
Conferences and Symposia Organized
Performing Transformation: Shifting Landscapes in Art, Science, and Technology, co-organized with Robert Fischer, Pauline Hohn, Clara Jacobi, Gwendolin Kremer, Lucas von Ramin, TU Dresden, Dresden, September 29–30, 2025.
Ghost Mines: Sensing Pasts, Casting Futures [Research Studio], co-organized with Michaela Büsse, Kristiane Fehrs, and Orit Halpern, TU Dresden, Dresden, June 2–6, 2025.
Planetary Design: Reclaiming Futures, co-organized with Governing Through Design project team, ICI Berlin & Spore Initiative, Berlin, October 23–26, 2024.
Drag! Queer Crossings in Global Contexts, co-organized with Tunay Altay, B Camminga, and Ruth Ramsden-Karelse, ICI Berlin, May 13, 2024.
Translation, Mediation, Power, co-organized with Iracema Dulley, ICI Berlin, June 12, 2023.
Counter-Futuring Symposium, co-organized with Shintaro Miyazaki, ICI Berlin, Berlin, Germany, September 22, 2022.
Theorizing Through the Global South Workshop, co-organized with Iracema Dulley, ICI Berlin, March 9–10, 2022.
Data Determinacy: A Multi-Disciplinary Symposium on Race, Algorithms, and Critical Intervention, co-organized with Shannan Hayes and Max Symuleski, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States, April 12–13, 2018.