Anthropology of the Digital: Information, Memory, and Culture

In the class, we will cover experimental ethnography to reveal the "numerical layer" hidden behind the "cultural layer" of the interface. By intentionally breaking a file, students witness Manovich’s claim that media is simply programmable code. We will observe the tension between the "human interface" (image) and the "computer interface" (code).

Students conduct an "Archaeology of the Interface." They choose one personal device (smartphone, router, etc.) and trace its supply chain backwards to identify the "black-boxed" labour and materials (e.g., cobalt from the Congo) required for its production.

Students experience Kelty’s "Recursive Public" by simulating a Wikipedia dispute. They act as "Technocrats"

(neutral tone), "Activists" (impassioned tone), and "Admins" (rule-makers). They discover that the "Admins," who write the

Rules (codes/policies) effectively control the "truth" (socioeconomic outcomes), illustrating that infrastructure is political.

We map how the "Receiver’s Bias" (the algorithm's model of the user) shapes the information environment and discuss how it works in an offline setting (social scripts). We discuss the Encoded/Decoded notion: How did the platform "decode" the student? The programmer encoded a "preferred reading" (relevance), but the algorithm negotiated this based on the user's "cultural baggage" (search history, location). How does this confirm that culture is a filter of reality? We move this notion to the offline setting and discuss how cultures may filter offline reality.

This lesson challenges the notion of "universal" digital technology by exploring how cultural cosmologies and gendered hierarchies are embedded in design. Students examine Yuk Hui’s cosmotechnics to understand how non-Western traditions resist technological determinism, alongside Judy Wajcman’s critique of technology as a site of patriarchal power. The seminar involves an ethnographic audit of voice assistants to visualise how gender biases and "hard/soft" skill dichotomies are hardcoded into supposedly neutral interfaces.

This session explores the transformation of biological life into digital data and the rise of the "data double" as a source of institutional power. Participants analyse how self-knowledge is increasingly mediated by numbers and metrics, potentially overshadowing lived physical experience. Before the class, students perform a "Personal Data Autopsy" by analysing their own data exports from major platforms (e.g., Spotify, Netflix). In class, they analyse one day of their life through the "machine's eyes." What was captured? What "truth" about them is missing from the data?

In the class, we critique the dichotomy between digital and face-to-face communication by examining how intimacy and kinship are mediated by social platforms. The concept of "ambient co-presence" is used to analyse how digital tools sustain relationships through continuous, low-stakes interaction. Applying an "Emoji Ethnography," students decode the phatic labour and unwritten social rules governing digital messaging and response times.

This session reframes algorithms as unstable, human-enacted cultural systems rather than objective mathematical formulas. Drawing on "algorithms as culture," the lecture explores how code embodies specific institutional logics and social values that are constantly negotiated. During the seminar, students conduct ethnographic interviews with AI agents, treating the algorithm as a "cultural informant" to map how its conversational style enacts specific institutional ideologies.

We investigate the intersection of AI reasoning and human cognitive processes, specifically the role of memory and forgetting. We examine how Large Language Models (LLMs) navigate semantic spaces, compared with how human forgetting functions as a cultural filter for meaning. The class includes a "memory audit" to compare instant machine retrieval with the narrative preservation of meaning in human communication, highlighting the risks of data-heavy but meaning-poor cultures.

This session addresses the "epistemological crash" caused by the proliferation of AI-generated media and the resulting shift in how society defines authenticity. Using digital hermeneutics, the lecture explores why "messy" human flaws have become a valuable social currency in an era of synthetic abundance. In the seminar, students perform a "Burn Test for Reality" to analyse their sensory and psychological strategies for distinguishing organic content from synthetic generation.

This lesson explores the convergence of physical migration and digital mobility, examining how virtual environments and avatars facilitate new forms of "staged authenticity." Drawing on ethnographies of virtual worlds, the session questions whether digital travel offers true liberation or merely reinforces existing geographical and social inequalities. The seminar involves creating an "Atlas of Nowhere," in which students critically analyse the cultural stereotypes embedded in AI-generated visions of mobility and pilgrimage.

The concluding lesson synthesises the course by applying Arturo Escobar’s concept of the "Pluriverse" to challenge the singular, productivity-focused trajectory of technological development. It examines how digital systems can be redesigned to prioritise autonomy, care, and cultural diversity over mere efficiency. For the seminar and final examination, students prototype "anti-apps" and draft manifestos that envision digital futures centred on human values and radical interdependence.