Dr Tony D Sampson

Sampson, T. 2020. A Sleepwalker’s Guide to Social Media. Polity.
Sampson, T., Maddison, S. and Ellis, D. (ed.) 2018. Affect and Social Media: Emotion, Mediation, Anxiety and Contagion. Rowman & Littlefield.
Sampson, T. 2016. The Assemblage Brain: Sense Making in Neuroculture. University of Minnesota Press.
Sampson, T. 2012. Virality: Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks. University of Minnesota Press.

For updated research outputs see my UEL Repository.

Research Outputs

To see full list please use the badly designed scrollbar on your right. Thanks! 

Please visit my Virality blog for updated information

Monographs

Tony D Sampson, A Sleepwalker's Guide to Social Media, Polity Press (2020)

Tony D Sampson, The Assemblage Brain: Sense Making in Neuroculture, University of Minnesota Press (Jan, 2017).

Tony D Sampson, Virality: Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks, University of Minnesota Press (2012).

Ebook release
Digital Neuroland: An interview with Tony D. Sampson, Rhizonomic Series, Rizosfera (ed.) Creative Commons Four, (2017).

Edited Collections

In production - Tony D Sampson (with Darren Ellis and Stephen Maddison) (eds.) Affect and Social Media, due summer (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018).

Tony D Sampson (with Jussi Parikka) (eds.) The Spam Book: On Viruses, Porn and Other Anomalies from the Dark Side of Digital Culture, Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2009.

Book Chapters

Tony D Sampson “Cosmic Topologies of Imitation: From the Horror of Digital Autotoxicus to the Auto-Toxicity of the Social” in Autoimmunities, Stefan Herbrechter, and Michelle Jamieson (eds.), Routledge, 2018.

Tony D Sampson, "Tap my Head and Mike My Brain: Neuromarketing and Addiction in Are We All Addicts Now, Editor: Vanessa Bartlett, Liverpool University Press (forthcoming, 2017).

Tony D Sampson “The Self-Other Topology: The Politics of [User] Experience in the "Like" Economy” in Boundaries of Self & Reality Online: Implications of Digitally Constructed Realities Editor: Jayne Gackenbach, Elsevier (2017).         

Tony D Sampson “The Man with Two Brains, but no Umbrella” in Jane Millar and Deborah Gardner (eds.), Conway Actants (2016).

“An Interview with Tony D Sampson” in the Birth of Digital Capitalism: Populism, Crowd, Power and Postdemocracy on the 21st Century, Obsolete Capitalism Free Press, 2015.

Tony D Sampson, “Contagion Theory Beyond the Microbe” in Kroker and Kroker (eds.), Critical Digital Studies: A Reader, University of Toronto Press, 2013.

Tony D Sampson (with Jussi Parikka), “Learning from Network Dysfunctionality: Accidents, Enterprise and Small Worlds of Infection” in Hartley, Burgess and Bruns (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to New Media Dynamics, Wiley-Blackwell, (forthcoming); 2012.

Tony D Sampson, “Error-Contagion: Network Hypnosis and Collective Culpability,” Error: Glitch, Noise, and Jam in New Media Cultures, Mark Nunes (ed.), London, New York: Continuum, 2010.

Tony D Sampson (with Lugo and Lossanda), "A Prospective Analysis of the Video Games Industry in Latin America: From Banana Republic to Donkey Kong," FILE: Electronic Language International Festival 10 Years Commemorative Book, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2010.

Tony D Sampson (with Parikka), "On Anomalous Objects: An Introduction," The Spam Book: On Viruses, Porn and Other Anomalies From the Dark Side of Digital Culture, Parikka and Sampson (eds.), Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 1-18; 2009.

Tony D Sampson, "How Networks Become Viral: Three Questions Concerning Universal Contagion," The Spam Book: On Viruses, Porn and Other Anomalies From the Dark Side of Digital Culture, Parikka and Sampson (eds.), Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 39-59; 2009.

Tony D Sampson (with Lugo and Lossada), "Novas indústrias culturais da América Latina aind ajogam velhos jogos Da República de Bananas a Donkey Kong," FILE: Festival Internacional de Linguagem Eletrônica, Barreto, Ricardo; Perissinoto, Paula (eds.) São Paulo: File, 2006, pp. 164- 179; 2006.

Tony D Sampson (with Lugo), “The Discourse of Convergence. A Neo-liberal Trojan Horse," Broadcasting and Convergence: New Articulations of the Public Remit, Lowe and Hujanen (eds.) Nordicom, pp. 83-92 ISBN: 91-8947-18-0; 2003

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

In production: “Unthought Meets the Assemblage Brain: A Dialogue between N. Katherine Hayles and Tony D. Sampson.” Invited article for US open access Capacious Journal (due 2018).

In production: “Affect, Cognition and the Neurosciences.” Invited article for special issue, Mapping Affects Studies in Athenea Digital (due 2018). Spanish and English.

Tony D Sampson "Transitions in HCI: From Data Embodiment to Experience Capitalism" invited article for special issue of AI and Society, 2018.

Tony D Sampson “Cosmic Topologies of Imitation: From the Horror of Digital Autotoxicus to the Auto-Toxicity of the Social” invited article for Parallax special issue on Autoimmunities, 2017.

In Hungarian translation of Tony D Sampson, "Contagion Theory Beyond the Microbe," invited article in a special issue of Apertúra on Vírus, mém, (poszt?) memetika, forthcoming 2017. http://uj.apertura.hu/about-us/

“An Interview with Tony D Sampson” NANO special issue on Originality in Digital Culture, Dec 2016. https://www.upress.umn.edu/press/press-clips/nano-new-american-notes-online-interviews-tony-d-sampson

Tony D Sampson, “Joyful Encounters with Affective Capitalism” Ephemera special issue on Affective Capitalism, 2016.

Tony D Sampson, a review of Michael Schillmeier's Eventful Bodies: The Cosmopolitics of Illness in New Formations 84(5), 2015.

Tony D Sampson, commentary on a special section on Contagion in The Journal of Public Health, Oxford University Press, 2013. Tony D Sampson, a review of Lisa Blackman’s Immaterial Bodies in New Formations 79(79), 2013.

Tony D Sampson, "Tarde's Phantom Takes a Deadly Line of Flight: From Obama Girl to the Assassination of Bin Laden." invited article for special issue, Operations of the Global - Explorations of Dis/Connectivity, Distinktion Journal, 2012.

Tony D Sampson, "Contagion Theory Beyond the Microbe," CTheory Journal of Theory, Technology and Culture, Special Issue: In the Name of Security, Jan, 2011.

Tony D Sampson (with Lugo), "E-Informality in Venezuela: The Other Path to Technology," Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 102-118; 2008.

Tony D Sampson,” The Accidental Topology of Digital Culture: How the Network Becomes Viral," Transformations: online journal of region, culture and society, Accidental Environments, Issue 14 ISSN 1444-377; 2007

Tony D Sampson, "Senders, Receivers and Deceivers: How Liar Codes Put Noise Back on the Diagram of Transmission," Media and Culture Journal, 'Transmit', Volume 9 Issue 1 ISSN 1441-2616; 2006

Tony D Sampson, "Dr Aycock's Bad Idea: Is the Good Use of Computer Viruses Still a Bad Idea?" Media and Culture Journal, 'Bad', Volume 8 Issue 1 ISSN 1441-2616; 2005

Tony D Sampson, "A Virus in Info-Space: the open network and its enemies" Media and Culture Journal 'Open' Volume 7 Issue 3 (2004) ISSN 1441-2616; 2004

Tony D Sampson (with Lugo),"A Small Picture of Big Wars: Understanding the Changing Role of Television in Future Warfare," Bailrigg Paper 31 Future Conditional: War & Conflict After Next, Centre of Defence and International Security Studies, 2002 pp. 72- 86.

Tony D Sampson (with Lugo and Lossanda), "A Prospective Analysis of the Video Games Industry in Latin America: From Banana Republic to Donkey Kong," Games Studies: the international journal of computer game research, Volume 2 Issue 2; 2002

Online

“Crowds, Power and Post-Democracy in the 21st Century” an interview with Tony D. Sampson by Rizomatika, Obsolete Capitalism and Variazioni Foucaultiane blogs, 2013.

Tony D Sampson, “Barbican's Digital Exhibition is Nothing More Than Gimmickry”, Review of Barbican Digital Revolution Exhibit in The Conversation, July 2014.

‘Tarde as Media Theorist’: an interview with Tony D. Sampson, by Jussi Parikka on the Theory, Culture and Society blog, 2012.

Tony D Sampson, “Imitative Inventions”, an online review of Olga Goriunova’s Art Platforms and Cultural Production on the Internet, Mute Magazine, 2012.

Tony D Sampson, “Software de Arriba a Abajo”, Tin Tank: Conocimieto Inspiracione Ideas ahora, 2010.

Tony D Sampson, “Turning Software Inside Out: A Review of FLOSS +Art and Software Studies”, Mute Magazine, 2009.

Press

Mashable: http://mashable.com/2016/01/27/why-apps-like-peach-go-viral/#E91NglX2kqq9

Review in https://theconversation.com/profiles/tony-d-sampson-130096

Article on Facebook "Like" Farming in the last print edition of The Independent

Various Keynotes, Plenaries, Presentations, Chairs

2016

Keynote at the Rietveld Studium in Amsterdam at an event called What is Happening to Our Brain? Art and Life in Times of Cognitive Automation on Tues 8th Feb 2017.

This event is open to the public and includes Franco “Bifo” Berardi. http://whatishappeningtoourbrain.rietveldacademie.nl/

An Assemblage Brain collaboration with two UEL artists, Mikey Georgeson and Dean Todd, as part of Georgeson’s The Deadends exhibit at the Studio One Gallery in South West London on Thurs 23 Feb.

Introductory talk and MC for the CCT Essex Futures Conference, Civic Centre, Southend, Sept 15-16 2017.

Chairing Club Critical Theory special at Strange, Mad Celebration on David Bowie, Southend, 19 June.

“Monadology and the Megamind.” Guest speaker at roundtable symposium on the theme of Cybernetic Subjectivities and the Mediation of Trust and Empathy, an inaugural founding event marking the establishment of the Centre for Entangled Media Research, hosted by the School of Film and Media, University Lincoln, UK, 24-25 May.

“Gramsci does HCI.” A plenary talk at Streams of Consciousness: Data, Cognition and Intelligent Devices conference at Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, Warwick University, 21 and 22 April 2016.

Organizer and host for the Affect and Social Media 2016 symposium#2 at UEL March 23.

“The Man with Two Brains, but no Umbrella.” Talk at a Club Critical Theory special at the Conway Actants exhibit at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London 3 March.

2015 On sabbatical in term one

"Start Spreading the News: Crowds, Publics and Social Media Contagion." Paper given at From Multitude to Crowds in Social Movements – publics, gatherings, networks and media in the 21th century. An international conference hosted by the Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon, 26 and 27 January 2015.

Organizer and chair at the first Affect and Social Media Research Symposium at UEL, Docklands campus, Friday 27 Feb.

"On Crowds, Publics and Desire: How to Theorize a Problem like UKIP." An introductory talk at a pre-election Club Critical Theory special event Where is the Common Ground: Making Local Activism Work In Southend, upstairs at the Railway Hotel, Southend-on-Sea, Sunday 3 May, 2015.

“From the Horror of Digital Autotoxicus to the Auto-Toxicity of the Social.”

Invited talk at the Vital Mobilizations: Care and Surveillance in the Age of Global Connectivity conference at the Collège d'études mondiales, Paris, 1-2 June, 2015.

“Waking the Somnambulist: The Capture of Affect, Attention and Memory (and why we need new weapons to stop it).” Invited talk at The Image of Network symposium, Winchester School of Art (Southampton) organized by Yigit Soncul and Jussi Parikka, Tuesday June 16, 2015.

"Joyful Encounters with Affective Capitalism" Paper for the Affective Capitalism panel at the Affect Theory Conference, Millersville University's Ware Center, Lancaster PA , USA 14 -17 Oct.

Co-organizer for Club Critical Theory event on Politics and the Media in Southend, Fri 4 Dec. 2014.

"Deleuze, Contagion, Southend." Talk and discussion at Club Critical Theory, upstairs at the Railway Hotel, 17 April.

“HCI and Neurolabour.” Guest talk at City University, London, 23 April.

“Joyful Encounters.” Keynote speaker at the “Affective Capitalism” symposium scheduled for June 5-6 at University of Turku, Finland.

Chairing Club Critical Theory discussion on "Kursaal as Heterotopic Space" with Angie Voela (UEL) and Jane Millar (artist and curator), upstairs at the Railway Hotel, Southend-on-Sea, Friday 20 June.

Keynote speaker at the "Cultural im/materialities: Contagion, affective rhythms and mobilization" PhD summer school at Aarhus University, Denmark, 25 June.

"The Rhythmic Brain: Attention Deficit and the Care of Youth" Invited talk at Concerning Relations: Sociologies of Conduct, Care and Affect Symposium, Exeter Medical School, University of Exeter, 28 – 29 November 2014. 2013

“The Immunologic Stratagem: How to Spread Fear by Not Specifying Whom Your Enemy Is.” Part of a CCSR Seminar: Security, Community & Democracy, 6 February 2013, 14:00 to 16:30 Room EB.G.10 Docklands Campus, UEL

“Viral Love and the Underground Man.” Invited talk at the “Love Slam” event. 14 Feb 2013 6-9pm at the University of East London.

“Anomalies, Archaeology and Contagion.” Discussion and launch event with Jussi Parikka and Tony D Sampson. 20 March 2013 (tbc) at King's College, London.

“The Human Freedom Virus.” Collaboration with artist Dean Todd. Bookworks exhibit April 8-19 2013 at the University of East London.

“Putting the Neuron Doctrine to Work.” Invited talk at public lecture series called Public Sphere, Crowd Sentiments and the Brain. April 11 2013 at the Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.

“From Virality to Neuroculture at the Contagion.” Invited talk for the Geography Dept’s transforming social analysis and method workshop at Exeter University. 14 May.

“Too Much Connectivity.” Invited talk at the New Media and The Internet: Digital Democracy or Complex Chaos? Part of a series of workshops at Brunel University on May 24 2013.

An invited talk on Virality as part of the “I am Algorithm” show by the artist Charlie Tweed. 6pm on Wednesday 19 June at the Aspex Gallery in Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth.

"Virality, Chaos and the Brain." A series of workshop talks on virality and neuroculture organized by The Bureau of Melodramatic Research based in Bucharest - 22-23 June.

“Leaking Affects and Mediated Spaces.” Paper at the Fourth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Emotional Geographies at the University of Groningen, Netherlands, July 1-3 2013.

Invited talk on Virality and Neuroculture at Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick, 15 Oct 2013.

Workshop on viral networks at the Royal College of Art, 10am on Weds 30 Oct, 2013.

Guest panel member at the Meme Control event, the Future Human salon, 7-9.30pm, Nov 20 at The Book Club, Shoreditch, London.

“Noncognitive Capitalism.” Invited talk at the Bochum Colloquium for Media Studies (bkm) hosted by the Institute of Media Studies at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany 3 Dec. 2012

Launch Event for Virality, Evil Media (MIT) and Computational Cultures Journal. Oct 22 2012 at Goldsmiths College.

“Viral Utopias.” Mute launch party for Virality, Open Utopia, Contract and Contagion, and Mute Magazine, including performance with Tim Vogt (Bass Guitar), Francesco Tacchini (VJ) and Nik Vaughn (turntables). 16 Nov 2012 7pm-1am at Limehouse Town Hall, London.

“Putting the Neuron to Work.” Invited speaker at a seminar series on 'Public Sphere, Crowd Sentiments and the Brain' at the Copenhagen Business School, 27 November 2012.

“Following the Glint in the Eye of the Consumer.” Centre for Cultural Studies Research symposium Pushing the Limits of the Affective Workspace: Revolts, Absorption, and Ecologies of Waste at the University of East London, 21 March 2012.

Various 2001-11

“Tarde's Phantom Takes a Deadly Line of Flight.” Invited speaker at The Operations of the Global – Explorations of Dis/Connectivity Conference, Warburg-Haus, University of Hamburg, Germany, 6-8 October 2011.

“Press Delete: The Politics and Performance of Spamculture.” The International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), Dortmund, Germany, 23 to 27 August 2010.

“Viral Love.” Invited talk for the Thinking Network Politics: Methods, Epistemology, Process Conference, ARU, Cambridge, UK, 25 & 26 March 2010.

“New Media Hypnosis.” Research on relevance of Tardean sociology. Presentations for both Innovation Studies Research Seminar at UEL (Making Connexions: Access, Interaction and Innovation) and the Centre for Cultural Studies Research Seminar at UEL (Studies in Evil Media) Winter 2009.

“Error-Contagion.” Research presentation for ATACD Changing Cultures: Cultures of Change, University of Barcelona, Spain, December 10-12, 2009.

“Rethinking Producer/Consumer Relations in the Age of Networks or the Politics of User Experience Design.” Panel session at MeCCSA Conference at the National Media Museum, Bradford, UK, Jan 2009.

Co-organizer and speaker on the Network Anomalies Panel at the New Network Theory International Conference in Amsterdam, 28-30 June 2007. Proceedings Published online in The New Network Theory Reader.

"E-informality in Venezuela: The 'Other Path' of Technology." Paper written with Lugo presented at the SLAS Annual Conference 2006: The University of Nottingham, 31 March-2 April 2006.

“Viral Code as Rhizomatic Computing.” Paper presented at the School of Cultural and Innovation Research Symposium, UEL, 2004.

“The Open Network and Its Enemies.” Paper presented at the School of Cultural and Innovation Convergence Emergence Divergence Seminars, UEL, 2004.

"Public Broadcasting in the Information Battlefield." Paper at the RIPE Conference: Copenhagen and Aarhus Denmark, 2004.

“Theorising the Computer Virus.” Guest Speaker at Graduate Conference, University of Essex, 2003.

"Rethinking Hypernews Theory outside the Metaphors of New Media and the Classroom." Paper with Lugo at ECCR Mass Media Communications in the e-Society of the 21st Century: Access and Participation Moscow State University, Russia, 2002.

"The Myth of the Post Capitalist Transition: Old concepts can still explain the 'new economy’.” Paper with Lugo at The Communication and Capitalism Conference, University of Westminster, London, 2002.

"Technological or Ideological Convergence? How the Concepts of Market and Technological Convergence are Displacing Public Service Commitment in the New Communications and Broadcast Public Policy of the UK." Paper with Lugo at the http://www.yle.fi/ripe/2002/ Conference: Broadcasting and Convergence: Articulating a New Remit YLE in Helsinki & the University of Tampere, Finland, 2002.

Guest Speaker at John Moores University Liverpool: Digital Democracy Seminar, 2002.

"A Prospective Analysis of the Video Games Industry in Latin America: From Banana Republic to Donkey Kong." Co-author with Lugo for paper at the Game Cultures Conference University of the West of England, Bristol, 2001.

Reviews

Impressive and ambitious, Virality offers a new theory of the viral as a sociological event. Brian Rotman, Ohio State University.

Tarde and Deleuze come beautifully together in this outstanding book, the first to really put forward a serious alternative to neo-Darwinian theories of virality, contagion, and memetics. A thrilling read that bears enduring consequences for our understanding of network cultures. Unmissable. Tiziana Terranova, author of Network Culture.

Sampson is a great writer, and the language itself is affective: ‘bullish’, ‘cynical’ are words that become not just descriptive but gather a force of expression in Sampson’s way of mapping techniques of the noncognitive in marketing and politics.” Jussi Parikka’s review in Theory, Culture and Society - TCS Journal review of Virality.

“[Virality] is an important interdisciplinary contribution to the understanding of network cultures not only because it puts into historical context how crowd behavior has been studied for the last hundred years, but also because it helps anyone interested in attaining a more in-depth understanding of Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy; thus, Virality is a real contribution to assemblage theory and its relation to media archeology in terms of network analysis. For this reason, it is a book that anyone interested in understanding how social media functions at the beginning of the 21st century should seriously consider reading.” Huffington Post book review by Eduardo Navas

“Virality participates in a growing scholarly trend within the humanities in which researchers criticize and propose alternatives to the reification of a methodological division between biology and culture. While dense, Virality treats a wide range of relevant scholarship as it presents a refreshing approach to contagion theory in what has been a stagnant area of scholarship… the book is both innovative and timely, which means that the work necessary to understand Sampson’s connections will be well rewarded.” Claire Barber in Reviews in Cultural Theory.

Tony D Sampson (with Jussi Parikka) (eds.) The Spam Book: On Viruses, Porn and Other Anomalies from the Dark Side of Digital Culture, Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2009.

“Tony Sampson tackles the problem of modeling contagions by folding system instability over stability therein bringing inside the hitherto externality of the parasite model. He rehabilitates the figure of the juvenile virus writer for technocultural theory and revalorizes a “constitutive anomaly” that makes instability a key factor of stability in a network not given in advance, that is, not frozen, but sensitive to growth, uncertainty, and vulnerability. This idea of the network “in passage” is rich and foregrounds the robustness of the fragile” Gary Genosko’s review of The Spam Book Leonardo Reviews

“Parikka and Sampson present the latest insights from the humanities into software studies. This compendium is for all you digital Freudians. Electronic deviances no longer originate in Californian cyber fringes but are hardwired into planetary normalcy. Bugs breed inside our mobile devices. The virtual mainstream turns out to be rotten. The Spam book is for anyone interested in new media theory.” Geert Lovink, Dutch/Australian media theorist

“What if all those things we most hate about the Internet, the spam, the viruses, the phishing sites, the flame wars, the latency and lag and interruptions of service,and the glitches that crash our computers what if all these are not bugs, but features? What if they constitute, in fact, the way the system functions? The SpamBook explores this disquieting possibility.” Steven Shaviro, DeRoy Professor of English, Wayne State University

“The first section, on ‘Contagion’, is strong on the question of the internal informational architecture of the web itself, analysing the particular topologies of networked spaces. It took me a while to grasp the logic behind this section, since the heading ‘Contagion’ seemed a secondary concern for a chapter that ultimately focused on the production of space. In fact, this counter-intuitive framing of the subject is particularly useful – the paradigm here is one of process ontology, whereby a network is not identified with its physical infrastructure, but shown to be continually produced and transformed through the making and breaking of links, in dynamic processes of interaction. The network, in this sense, does not carry contagion, but is constituted by the flows of contagion, ‘a heterogeneous compositional force endemic to the network’. This theme opens up questions as to which biological concepts are most helpful in mapping the internet – the polemical thrust of the book is to reject images of functional organic completeness in favour of viral proliferation and productive malfunction.” Ben Pritchett’s Review for Mute