Additionally, I am looking for applications specifically interested in critically examining (/theorising) the implementation of digital technologies (including AI) into physical retail environments. This PhD would be co-supervised with Brian Hracs.

static1.squarespace.com/static/61978...

Crawford's new essay in e-flux offers the best summary of the monstrous absurdity of contemporary AI that I've read in a long time.

(via @jonnyjjt.bsky.social)

www.e-flux.com/architecture...

To those attending the RGS conference this week: interested in authoritarianism and/or AI, do come and join us on Friday for this brilliant set of papers. It will be insightful, bleak, and much more. ✨

organised w/ @sophiamaalsen.bsky.social @casey-lynch.bsky.social

Announcing my book, Techno-Negative!

It will be out in Spring 2026, published with @uminnpress.bsky.social.

Wrote a book review of Roy Christopher's "Escape Philosophy", a rich, if somewhat universalist, dive into the human desire to escape the body.

Part of a forthcoming special issue on 'Geographies of Leaving' in Social and Cultural Geography.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

We trace the limits of political media content focused on 'information', 'entertainment' and 'exposure', and offer a polemic in favour of fuelling the negative passions.

Tired of the politically-stale state of much contemporary film? If so, you might vibe with this manifesto I co-wrote with Andrew Culp. It's available for online reading and for printing.

Read: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/y4nbk...

Print: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/rf7c2...

Submitted the final manuscript of 'Techno-Negative' recently (@uminnpress.bsky.social). If all goes well, the book should be out in Spring 2026. Can't wait to share it with the world.

Tomorrow: Montreal screening of our two films - Machines in Flames + BREACHED - in case anyone is in the area.

Enjoyed being able to present a new project alongside
@vickiezhang.bsky.social yesterday at King's' geography seminar series. Thank you to @kbrickell.bsky.social @drruthcraggs.bsky.social and Alex Loftus for hosting us!

"Without defaulting to imagining dystopias or non-affirmative worlds, we need to find ways to imagine imagination outside affirmation, if that is possible."

New Progress report by Harriet Hawkins.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Who's going to transmediale this year?

We're contributing with a Conversation: what if our central political problem is not that we are all too pacified - lured into passivity - but that we’re overly activated?

Join us if you're around.

A reminder: looking for PhD project applications around 2 topics✨

'Digital Futures of Physical Retail'(co-supervised w
B Hracs) thomasdekeyser.com/s/Digital-Fu...

'AI geographies of human-animal relations'(co-supervised w
@emmajroe.bsky.social) thomasdekeyser.com/s/AI-geograp...

Links = details

Very excited to just have gotten the green light for my book 'Techno-Negative: A History of Refusal' (Uni of Minnesota Press). The book, which traces histories of techno-refusal, is due early next calendar year. (re-)Reading these reviewer recommendations for help with final revisions.

We are inviting applications for a PhD project on the theme of 'AI geographies of human-animal relations', supervised by
@emmajroe.bsky.social & I in Geography at Uni of Southampton.

Full details re the project, funding options & how to express interest here: www.thomasdekeyser.com/s/AI-geograp...

And finally, my latest short film BREACHED co-directed with Andrew Culp.

Synopsis: in 2021, freight train robberies grabbed headlines as images of tracks strewn with amazon packages went viral. BREACHED traces the politics of (counter)logistics, through the eyes of a local worker.

breached.mov

A co-authored paper with V Zhang and @davidjbissell.bsky.social in which we trace the scholarly habit of rehabilitating negative affects into positive ones, foregrounding its ethico-political challenges, & develop an alternative ethics of 'impotentiality’. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

A solo-authored paper in 'Transactions' that examines the implicit, but omnipresent gesture towards 'worlds to come' in spatial thought. What does it promise + indemnify against? What's lost in prioritising it over world-ending?

A paper with @casey-lynch.bsky.social arguing that 'automated shops' like Amazon Go have introduced ubiquitous sensing and deep learning into retail spaces & how that shapes the conditions of control & refusal in retail. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....