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Research Colloquium
Colloquium / Spring 2026
23/05/2026

İdil Galip on Ambient Propaganda:

Memes, Attention, and the Infrastructure of Influence

Wednesday, 3 June 2026, 13:00–17:00

In-person event with İdil Galip.
Open to all. No registration needed.

Critical Media Lab
Freilager-Platz 1
4142 Basel/Münchenstein

This participatory event with guest İdil Galip is hosted by the Critical Media Lab and the Ambient Propaganda Study Group, as part of the Documenting module within the MA Transversal Design programme.

A meme, an aesthetic, a vibe… Softly woven into the fabric of digital culture, ambient propaganda is the fuzzy negative of more traditional, top-down forms of persuasion. In the last twenty years, the acceleration of platform capitalism has meant that the distinction between self-expression and ideological reproduction, the influencer and influenced, has proven far harder to define.

How then can we counter propaganda when ideology is imperceptibly incorporated into our online existence? What are the ways in which we can reclaim our attention in environments where hyper-mediation immersively distorts our field of view?

In the last Colloquium of the season, İdil Galip invites us to slow down and more carefully consider what we see as we scroll. Starting with a screenwalk exploring her own digital environment, Dr. Galip will direct our attentions towards the emulsion of intentional and incidental forms spanning performance, consumption, labour, entertainment, amplification, ambivalence, and more.

Together, we will turn to our own devices in a participatory workshop, where we will examine the content that finds us in our filter bubbles, and what it means to participate—by scrolling, liking, sharing, screenshotting, or saving—below the threshold of our own awareness.

Bring your devices and your feeds, past personal archives, libraries, saved folders, early screenshots, or even hard drives.

Guest

İdil Galip is a writer, researcher, and lecturer at the University of Amsterdam. Her work explores the meme as foundational infrastructure of contemporary culture and politics, revealing how memetic media form new publics, dictate the rhythms of attention, and act as an ideological battleground. She is the founder of the Meme Studies Research Network, and the co-editor of the third volume of the Critical Meme Reader.

Schedule

13:00
Study Group Welcome

13:15
Screenwalk with İdil Galip

14:00 — Break

14:15
Workshop: individual exercise

14:30
Workshop: sharing in small groups

15:15 — Break

15:30
Full group discussion and Q&A

16:30 — Close

For Preparation
Further Reading & Materials