Amsterdam Book Launch of Maisa in Webland-Detouring UX Destinies

By Geert Lovink, December 20, 2025

20/12/2025 @ 20:00 - 22:00 - What does ‘user-friendly’ website mean if, on it, online behaviors like stalking, teasing, and ghosting — once considered peripheral — are now central to survival, care, and belonging? How to thrive without becoming an “Interdisciplinary Unicorn”: the state’s most beloved user-citizen fluent in multiple registers of production, optimization, and self-branding? How in this beautiful world [...]

Second Interview with German Media Theorist Annekathrin Kohout

By Geert Lovink, November 26, 2025

On Annekathrin Kohout’s two recent publications about the hyper-reactive and social media’s take-over of the art world “Art that generates klicks. Careers that depend on the number of followers. Critics who exchange memes instead of reviews. Museum directors who shut up, in fear of shitstorms. Welcome to the Brave New Art World.” This is how [...]

Save the Date: INC Exit Fest

By Geert Lovink, June 25, 2026

25/06/2026 - 26/06/2026 @ All Day - This is the first announcement of the two day conference plus party to celebrate the departure of our 22 year-old centre from the HvA polytech to become an indy-autonomous centre as NGO/cultural organization. This this move was instigated by the (forced) retirement on September 1, 2026, of its founder, Geert Lovink. Instead of running the [...]

Amsterdam Book Launch of Geert Lovink’s Platform Brutality

By Geert Lovink, November 13, 2025

13/11/2025 @ 17:30 - 19:00 - When: Thursday 13 November, 5.30-8 Where: OT301/Ventilator, Overtoom 301, Amsterdam Organized by: Valiz, Institute of Network Cultures and OT301 Entry: Free Language: English Look at the book here The program begins with a conversation between the author and Stefania Milan (UvA Mediastudies). This will be followed by a presentation by Marissa Memelink from SETUP in Utrecht about their Facebook [...]

Contribution to the Design Debate 2025

By Geert Lovink, October 26, 2025

(This short statement was written for the Next Nature/Design Debate 2025, that took place during Dutch Design Week, on October 25, 2025 in Evoluon, Eindhoven. Geert Lovink in debate with Paul Hekkert about the thesis: “When machines create, there is nothing left for designers.” The event was framed like this: “Welcome to a world where [...]

On Internet Aesthetics, Art Practice, Grief and Death – Interview with Geert Lovink by Raquel Luaces

By Geert Lovink, October 8, 2025

Raquel Luaces is a PhD student in the Department of Image and Design, Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona. From September-December 2025 she is a guest researcher at INC. Her supervisor is Montse Morcate, whose work focuses on photographic representations of illness, grief and death (not unlike the work of Tamara Kneese). [...]

Book Presentation of Geert Lovink’s Platform Brutality @V2 in Rotterdam

By Geert Lovink, October 10, 2025

10/10/2025 @ 17:30 - 19:00 - With panelists Miriam Rasch, Arie Altena & Marissa Memelink Technologies of Solidarity is a three-day program in collaboration with the Engage festival.

The Story of Italian Brainrot – Collective Musings on a Meme Wave

By Francesco Barchiesi, September 30, 2025

By Francesco Barchiesi & Geert Lovink “The most solid pleasure in this life is the empty pleasure of illusion.” Giacomo Leopardi During the first months of 2025 the meme sphere got taken over by Italian Brainrot. The hype coincided with the beginning of the Trump II presidency, when Elon Musk and his DOGE troops were [...]

Out Now: Platform Brutality by Geert Lovink

By Geert Lovink, September 27, 2025

Platform Brutality by Geert Lovink, Valiz, Amsterdam, September 2025. Jetzt auch auf Deutsch, Die Brutalität der Plattform, erschienen bei Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld, November 2025. The Spanish edition (with Bellaterra) and the Italian one (with Meltemi Editore) will be out in the first half of 2026. The internet has become an integral part of all human [...]

Living With Algorithms In Costa Rica – Interview with Ignacio Siles

By Geert Lovink, September 3, 2025

How do we live, or rather cope, with algorithms? Ignacio Siles wrote a book about it, Living With Algorithms, Agency and User Culture in Costa Rica (MIT Press, 2023). I met Ignacio Siles in San Jose in April 2025 when I had the honor to open the academic year of the University of Costa Rica [...]