Professor Joanna Zylinska
Staff details
Joanna Zylinska is a media theorist and artist, working on digital culture, artificial intelligence, photography, ethics and the planetary ecological crisis. Professor in New Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, she has also held visiting positions as Guest Professor at Shandong University in China, Winton Chair Visiting Scholar at the University of Minnesota, US, and Beaverbrook Visiting Scholar at McGill University in Canada.
Zylinska is the author of seven books - most recently, The End of Man: A Feminist Counterapocalypse (University of Minnesota Press, 2018; online version freely available), Nonhuman Photography (MIT Press, 2017) and Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene (Open Humanities Press, 2014; e-version freely available). Her translation of Stanislaw Lem's philosophical treatise, Summa Technologiae, came out from the University of Minnesota's Electronic Mediations series in 2013. Her own work has been translated into Chinese, French, German, Norwegian, Polish, Russian and Turkish.
Zylinska combines her philosophical writings with photographic art practice and curatorial work. In 2013 she was Artistic Director of Transitio_MX05 'Biomediations': Festival of New Media Art and Video in Mexico City. She has presented her work at many art and cultural institutions, e.g. Ars Electronica in Linz, CCC Barcelona, Centre Culturel International de Cerisy, Fotomuseum Winterthur, MMOMA in Moscow, Serpentine Galleries in London, SESC Sao Paolo and Transmediale in Berlin. She has recently co-edited Photomediations: An Open Book and Photomediations: A Reader as part of Europeana Space, a grant funded by the European Union's ICT Policy Support Programme.
Her current research involves photographing media entanglements and starting a new project on hydromedia (with water literacy being considered a form of media literacy). She is also exploring the conceptual and creative edges of artificial intelligence in a new polemical book, AI Art: Machine Visions and Warped Dreams (forthcoming 2019).
You can read an interview with Joanna about her book Nonhuman Photography conducted by Andrew Dewdney for The Photographers’ Gallery.
Here’s another interview, ‘We need a new way of seeing the Anthropocene’, by Laura Benítez Valero for Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona.
Teaching
Joanna Zylinska teaches the following modules:
- Media Arts (first-year undergraduate core module)
- Technology and Cultural Form: Debates, Models, Dialogues (core module on MA Digital Media)
She also contributes to the PhD Methods course, interdepartmental MA Gender, Media and Culture and PG Certificate in the Management of Learning and Teaching in HE.
Areas of supervision
Joanna supervises theory- and practice-led PhDs, in the areas of digital culture, technology, cultural theory and media art.
Her current and past PhD students have worked on software as a form of writing; the genetic contamination of Mexicanness; vernacular photography; affect and mobile phones; fungi media; geological filmmaking; light at night; nonhuman practices of scientific imaging; the interface in new media art; and narratives of conflict, independence and engagement in video game culture.
Publications
Book
The End of Man: A Feminist Counterapocalypse
Zylinska, Joanna. 2018. The End of Man: A Feminist Counterapocalypse. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-1-5179-0559-0
Nonhuman Photography
Zylinska, Joanna. 2017. Nonhuman Photography. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262037020
Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene
Zylinska, Joanna. 2014. Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene. Ann Arbor: Open Humanities Press. ISBN 978-1-60785-329-9
Life after New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process
Kember, Sarah and Zylinska, Joanna. 2012. Life after New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-01819-7
Bioethics in the Age of New Media
Zylinska, Joanna. 2009. Bioethics in the Age of New Media. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-24056-7
The Ethics of Cultural Studies
Zylinska, Joanna. 2005. The Ethics of Cultural Studies. Continuum. ISBN 0826475248
On Spiders, Cyborgs and Being Scared: the Feminine and the Sublime
Zylinska, Joanna. 2001. On Spiders, Cyborgs and Being Scared: the Feminine and the Sublime. Manchester University Press. ISBN 0719058236
Edited Book
Photomediations: A Reader
Kuc, Kamila and Zylinska, Joanna, eds. 2016. Photomediations: A Reader. London: Open Humanities Press. ISBN 978-1-78542-002-3
BioethicsTM: Life, Politics, Economics
Zylinska, Joanna, ed. 2011. BioethicsTM: Life, Politics, Economics. UNSPECIFIED. ISBN 978-1-60785-256-8
Technology and Cultural Form: A Liquid Reader
Zylinska, Joanna, ed. 2010. Technology and Cultural Form: A Liquid Reader. Open Humanities Press.
Imaginary Neighbors: Mediating Polish-Jewish Relations After the Holocaust
Zylinska, Joanna and Glowacka, Dorota, eds. 2010. Imaginary Neighbors: Mediating Polish-Jewish Relations After the Holocaust. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0803232709
The Cyborg Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age
Zylinska, Joanna, ed. 2002. The Cyborg Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age. London and New York: Continuum. ISBN 978-0826459039
Book Section
“Media Always and Everywhere: A Cosmic Approach.”
Kember, Sarah and Zylinska, Joanna. 2016. “Media Always and Everywhere: A Cosmic Approach.”. In: Ulrik Ekman; Lily Diaz; Morten Søndergaard; Jay David Bolter and Maria Engberg, eds. Ubiquitous Computing, Complexity and Culture. New York: Routledge, pp. 226-236. ISBN 9780415743822
The Creative Power of Nonhuman Photography
Zylinska, Joanna. 2015. The Creative Power of Nonhuman Photography. In: , ed. Photographic Powers. Helsinki: Aalto University, pp. 132-154. ISBN 978-952-60-6392-8
Bioethics Otherwise, or, How to Live with Machines, Humans, and Other Animals
Zylinska, Joanna. 2011. Bioethics Otherwise, or, How to Live with Machines, Humans, and Other Animals. In: Tom Cohen, ed. Telemorphosis: Theory in the Era of Climate Change, v. 1. 1 www.openhumanitiespress.org: Open Humanities Press, pp. 203-225. ISBN 978-1-60785-237-7
Is There Life in Cybernetics?: Designing a Posthumanist Bioethics
Zylinska, Joanna. 2009. Is There Life in Cybernetics?: Designing a Posthumanist Bioethics. In: Rosi Braidotti; Claire Colebrook and Patrick Hanafin, eds. Deleuze and Law: Forensic Futures. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 117-141. ISBN 978-0-230-21017-2
Creative Media: performance, invention, critique
Kember, Sarah and Zylinska, Joanna. 2009. Creative Media: performance, invention, critique. In: Maria Chatzichristodoulou; Janis K. Jefferies and Rachel Zerihan, eds. Interfaces of Performance. England and USA: Ashgate, pp. 7-23. ISBN 978-0-754-67576-1
'Who is my Neighbor?': Ethics under Duress
Zylinska, Joanna. 2007. 'Who is my Neighbor?': Ethics under Duress. In: Joanna Zylinska and D. Glowacka, eds. Imaginary Neighbors: Mediating Polish-Jewish Relations after the Holocaust. University of Nebraska Press, pp. 275-300. ISBN 0803222173
Article
Photography after the Human
Zylinska, Joanna. 2016. Photography after the Human. Photographies, 9(2), pp. 167-186. ISSN 1754-0763
On Life, Movement and Stoppage: Agency and Ethics in the Anthropocene
Zylinska, Joanna. 2015. On Life, Movement and Stoppage: Agency and Ethics in the Anthropocene. Leonardo, 48(2), pp. 180-181. ISSN 0024-094X
The Vanishing Object of Technology
Zylinska, Joanna. 2015. The Vanishing Object of Technology. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 1(1), ISSN 2380-3312
iEarth
Zylinska, Joanna. 2014. iEarth. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, 5,
On Bad Archives, Unruly Snappers and Liquid Photographs
Zylinska, Joanna. 2010. On Bad Archives, Unruly Snappers and Liquid Photographs. Photographies, 3(2), pp. 139-153. ISSN 1754-0763
Playing God, Playing Adam: The Politics and Ethics of Enhancement
Zylinska, Joanna. 2010. Playing God, Playing Adam: The Politics and Ethics of Enhancement. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 7(2), pp. 149-161. ISSN 1176-7529
'Visuell kultur og Det etiske imperativ' (Visual culture and the ethical imperative)
Zylinska, Joanna. 2010. 'Visuell kultur og Det etiske imperativ' (Visual culture and the ethical imperative). Ekfrase: Nordic Journal of Visual Culture, 3(2), ISSN 1891-5752
I Don’t Go to the Movies
Zylinska, Joanna. 2010. I Don’t Go to the Movies. Culture Machine, 11, ISSN 1465-4121
‘Creative Media between Invention and Critique, or What’s Still at Stake in Performativity’
Zylinska, Joanna and Kember, Sarah. 2010. ‘Creative Media between Invention and Critique, or What’s Still at Stake in Performativity’. Cultural Machine, 11, ISSN 1465-4121
You Killed Barack Obama, 2008
Zylinska, Joanna. 2009. You Killed Barack Obama, 2008. Journal of Visual Culture, 8(2), p. 190. ISSN 1470-4129
The Secret of Life: Bioethics between Corporeal and Corporate Obligations
Zylinska, Joanna. 2007. The Secret of Life: Bioethics between Corporeal and Corporate Obligations. Cultural Studies, 21(1), pp. 95-117. ISSN 09502386
'Of Swans and Ugly Ducklings: Bioethics between Humans, Animals and Machines'
Zylinska, Joanna. 2007. 'Of Swans and Ugly Ducklings: Bioethics between Humans, Animals and Machines'. Configurations, 15(2), pp. 125-150. ISSN 1063-1801
Conference or Workshop Item
Post-masculinist philosophy, or how to think like a girl: minimal ethics on a universal scale
Zylinska, Joanna. 2014. 'Post-masculinist philosophy, or how to think like a girl: minimal ethics on a universal scale'. In: Opening Lecture for Centre for Feminist Research. Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom.
Audio
Encountering the Anthropocene: Geology, Culture, Ethics
Zylinska, Joanna. 2017. Encountering the Anthropocene: Geology, Culture, Ethics.
