Dr Tony D Sampson
Reader in Digital Media Culture and Communication
Cultural Engine Research Group, University of East London, Arts and Digital Industries (ADI)
Tony is a Reader in Digital Cultures and Communications. He research active and the current programme leader for MA Media and Communications Industries.
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University of East London
Docklands Campus
University Way
London, E16 2RD
United Kingdom
E16 2RD - t.d.sampson@uel.ac.uk +44208237149
Dr. Tony D. Sampson is reader in digital media cultures and communication at the University of East London. His publications include The Spam Book, coedited with Jussi Parikka (Hampton Press, 2009), Virality: Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks (University of Minnesota Press, 2012), The Assemblage Brain: Sense Making in Neuroculture (University of Minnesota Press, Dec 2016) and Affect and Social Media, coedited with Darren Ellis and Stephen Maddison (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018). Tony is the organizer of the Affect and Social Media conference, a co-founder of Club Critical Theory in Southend, Essex and Director of the EmotionUX Lab at UEL. As a Reader Tony is research active in the School of ACI. He teaches across subject areas and disciplines. He teaches on UG and PG programmes and supervises a range of PhD students and Professional Doctorates in Fine Art.
In addition to leading the MA Media and Communications Industries, Tony is leading on Immersive Media Production programme developments in ACI.
MA Multimedia: Cultures and Production
PhD from Essex University, Sociology dept (contagion theory)
PGCE
FHEA
Academic advisor to the Cultural Engine CIC
Overview
Interests
Please visit my Virality blog for updated information
Tony's current research explores a wide range of digital media culture related interests, specializing in persuasion theory, experience design theory, social media marketing, virality (socio-digital contagion), marketing power, emotional design and branding, network models, pass-on-power, the convergence between experience design (UX) and experience marketing, assemblage and affect theory, critical human computer interaction (HCI) and activism and the onset of neuroculture (i.e. neuromarketing, neuroeconomics).
Tony has published his work internationally in peer reviewed academic books and journals. He has also appeared as a keynote, plenary speaker, invited guest speaker and presenter at international scholarly events (see below).
Publishing
In 2009 Tony co-edited The Spam Book: On Viruses, Porn and Other Anomalies from the Dark Side of Digital Culture (Hampton Press; 2009) with Jussi Parikka. This is a significant contribution to the digital culture and communications field bringing together leading scholars to shed light on the “dark” cultures of the internet.
It includes chapters on viral and spam marketing.
Tony’s next book, Virality: Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks (Minnesota University Press, 2012), innovatively brings together the early social imitation theory of Gabriel Tarde and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to develop a contemporary alternative to memetics, encompassing digital, affective, economic, political and cultural contagions.
The book includes chapters on Tarde, networks, memes, viral videos and a critique of persuasion in communication and design practices.
His most recent book, The Assemblage Brain: Sense Making in Neuroculture (Minnesota University Press, Jan 2017) develops a radical critical theory exploring the “interferences” between the neurosciences, philosophy, art and capitalism. This book includes chapters on the interference as a methodological tool, the convergence between user interaction design research, emotional design and user experience marketing, marketing power, neuromarketing, big pharma and the attention economy, emergence theory, populism and the politics of affective neurocultures.
Tony is currently working on a coedited collection, Affect and Social Media, with Darren Ellis and Stephen Maddison (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018) stemming from the annual Affect and Social Media conferences he organizes at UEL. This book will be published in summer 2018.
Funding
Internal Funding from UEL
Civic engagement x2 Resorting to the Coast with Essex CC - partner on 360k HLF project.
- Website and Digital research (£2,000)
- Conference organisation and management (£4,000)
Research internship
- Digital Food Cultures Focus Groups in South Essex (£2,000)
Impact Fund
- Essex Future Conference 2 Day Conference at the Civic Centre in Southend-on-Sea (£5,000)
External Funding for Projects and Programmes
Currently working on an Affect and Social Media Research Network application (£30, 000).
Network Resorting to the Coast – Funding from Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) - Funding for 2 Conferences organised by UEL (£8,000)
Collaborative application submitted to Europe for Citizens “Understanding the European Past of Fascism Cultures: Actions towards a Virtual Museum (ActiViM).” (£8-10, 000 - Pending)
AHRC Standard Grant Application for collaborative "Virality and the News" (£500, 000). Unsuccessful - currently redeveloping for an ESRC grant.
Collaborative application submitted to the 4th HERA Joint Research Programme “Public Spaces: Culture and Integration in Europe.” (160, 000Euro from 1million overall). Unsuccessful.
CERC/DSWG/UEL “Creative Digital: Southend” project - bid to “Make Happen” (HEFCE and Essex University), (£95, 000). Unsuccessful.
Research Roles
Director of the emotionUX lab at UEL
In 2013 Tony successfully secured funding for a lab space and equipment dedicated to research into user experience, affect and social media. The lab has subsequently been central to research funding bids, art projects and hosts the annual Affect and Social Media Symposia at UEL.
Organizer of the Annual Affect and Social Media Conferences and Sensorium Art Show
Tony organizes and hosts UEL’s annual Affect and Social Media conferences, which invite cross-disciplinary engagement in the study of the mobilization of affect, feelings and emotions in digital online environments.
Public and Civic Engagement Roles
Tony is co-founder of Club Critical Theory (CCT); a free ‘club’ based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex dedicated to bringing about public engagement in the town through the application of critical theory to everyday life. CCT work with local community groups, artists, and local authorities. For example, as well as holding events in informal venues and art galleries, the club, along with their civic engagement partners, the Cultural Engine, secured funding in 2016 for a major conference bringing together policy makers, experts and the community to discuss cultural policy in the area. This event included debates on food cultures (with Jack Monroe), cultural industries (with Matthew Taylor), design/branding, tourism and heritage in the area.
In 2017 a successful bid to the civic engagement fund resulted in a student-led UX design and branding project that assisted a successful 350k HLF bid for a seaside cultures project, including two major conferences organized by UEL and the Cultural Engine. http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/national-lottery-grant-to-fund-tendring-seaside-heritage-project-1-4947017
PhD supervision and external examination
Tony has successfully supervised PhDs and Professional Doctorates in Fine Art to completion and continues to supervise students on a wide range of projects related to his own research. These include studies on mobile technology and development in Kenya, liminal performance art practice, re-membering and pervasive digital media, digital-Taylorism and HCI design, vision and absurdity, influence of digital marketing on TV production and viral marketing.
Tony has examined PhDs internally and externally at e.g. Exeter, Sheffield and Essex.
Selected keynotes, invited talks, chairs and conference papers
Keynote Panel talk at “VIRAL/GLOBAL Popular Culture and Social Media: An International Perspective”
Regent Campus, The University of Westminster Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), Sept 13 2017.
Guest speaker at Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts, London) on Tues 7 November at a special public symposium to discuss a new book called Are We All Addicts Now?
Speaker on the “Assembling Empathy” panel at the SLSAeu Empathies conference at the University of Basel on 22 June 2017 with Greg Seigworth, Darren Ellis and Ian Tucker.
Co-organizer and introductory speaker at Club Critical Theory’s Food Cultures: A Food Plan for Southend at The Focal Point Gallery, The Forum, Southend, Essex, 10 June, 2017.
Organizer and host of the Affect and Social Media#3 conference, University of East London, 25 May 2017.
Guest panel member. Trauma of the Anthropocene. Discussants: Mateusz Chaberski (moderator, Jagiellonian University), Mateusz Borowski (Jagiellonian University), Tony D. Sampson (University of East London), Małgorzata Sugiera (Jagiellonian University) at Traumatic Modernities. From Comparative Literature to Medical Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland, April 19-21, 2017.
Talk with Jussi Parikka: Experiencing Digital Culture, Anatomy Lecture Theatre, 6th Floor, King’s Building, King’s College London, Strand, WC2R 2LS, 7 March, 2017 7-9pm. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/experiencing-digital-culture-tickets-31933122830
Keynote at the Rietveld Studium in Amsterdam at an event called What is Happening to our Brain? on Tues 8 Feb 2017. With Franco “Bifo” Berardi.
A book launch collaboration with 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, 2017.
MC and introductory talk at CCT’s Essex Futures Conference in Southend, Essex 15-16 Sept, 2016
Guest speaker at roundtable symposium at the University Lincoln, UK, on the theme of ‘Cybernetic Subjectivities and the Mediation of Trust and Empathy’. 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.
Plenary speaker at Streams of Consciousness: Data, Cognition and Intelligent Devices conference at Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, Warwick University, 21 and 22 of April 2016.
Hosting the Affect and Social Media Symposium#2 at UEL Docklands on 23 March 2016. Full details will appear on this blog in mid Jan.
Talk at a Club Critical Theory special at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London 3 March 2016. A response to Conway Actants by artists Deborah Gardner and Jane Millar.
Invited talk “Waking the Somnambulist: The Capture of Affect, Attention and Memory (and why we need new weapons to stop it)” at The Image of Network symposium, Winchester School of Art (Southampton) organized by Yigit Soncul and Jussi Parikka, Tuesday June 16, 2015.
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.
“On Crowds, Publics and the Potential of Assemblages.” An introductory talk at a pre-election Club Critical Theory special event called Where is the Common Ground: Making Local Activism Work In Southend, Upstairs at the Railway Hotel, Southend-on-Sea, Sunday 3 May, 2015.
Organiser and chair for the Affect and Social Media Research Seminar at UEL, Docklands campus, Friday 27 Feb, 2015.
“Start Spreading the News: Audiences, News and Contagion”, From Multitude to Crowds in Social Movements – publics, gatherings, networks and media in the 21st century, 26-27 January, Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon, 2015.
“The Rhythmic Brain: Attention Deficit and the Care of Youth” at Concerning Relations: Sociologies of Conduct, Care and Affect Symposium, Exeter Medical School, University of Exeter, 28 – 29 November 2014.
Chairing Club Critical Theory discussion on “Kursaal as Heterotopic Space” with Angie Voela (UEL) and Jane Millar (artist and curator), 2014.
Keynote at the “Cultural im/materialities: Contagion, affective rhythms and mobilization” PhD summer school at Aarhus University, Denmark 25 June, 2014.
Keynote at the “Affective Capitalism” symposium at University of Turku, Finland, June 5-6, 2014.
“From Taylor to Neurolabour: Continuities and discontinuities in the three paradigms of HCI” guest talk HCID 2014 at City University, April 23, 2014.
“Deleuze, Contagion and the New Brighton” guest talk at Club Critical Theory, upstairs at The Railway Hotel, Southend-on-Sea, Essex. April 17, 2014.
“From Virality to Neuroculture” 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, 2013.
Guest panel member at the Meme Control event, the Future Human Salon, 7-9.30pm, Nov 20 at The Book Club, Shoreditch, London, 2013.
“Viral Networks” invited talk at the Royal College of Art, London, Oct 30, 2013
“Memes, spam, nodes, moods and super–clusters of attention” invited talk on Virality and Neuroculture at Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick, 15 Oct 2013.
“Leaking Affects and Mediated Spaces” paper presented at at the Fourth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Emotional Geographies at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, 1-3 July 2013.
“Virality, Chaos and the Brain” invited talks for a two day workshop on virality and neuroculture organized by The Bureau of Melodramatic Research based in Bucharest – 22-23 June, 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, 2013.
“Too Much Connectivity” invited speaker at Brunel and Oxford Brookes University series on Networks and Society, Friday 24 May 2013.
From Virality to Neuroculture at the Contagion: transforming social analysis and method workshop. Invited talks for the Dept in Geography at Exeter University, 13-14 May, 2013.
“Putting the Neuron Doctrine to Work,” invited talk at the Copenhagen Business School series on Crowds and the Brain, April 11 2013. See event poster
“Anomalies, Archaeology and Contagion” discussion with Jussi Parikka and Tony D. Sampson at Kings College, London, 20 March 2013.
“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, 6th-8th October 2011.
‘Press Delete’ The Politics and Performance of Spamculture panel session, the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), Dortmund, Germany, 23 to 27 August 2010.
Viral Love, research presentation for the Thinking Network Politics: Methods, Epistemology, Process Conference, ARU, Cambridge, 25 & 26 March 2010.
Tony’s research interests include philosophies
of media technology, virality, design thinking, social and immersive user
experiences and neurocultures. He has published extensively on digital media
cultures, social contagion theory, neurocultures, affect philosophy, assemblage
theory and social media.
Tony also organises
the annual international conference series, Affect and Social Media in East
London, the details of which can be found on his blog.
Research
Publications
Funding
Internal Funding from UEL
Civic engagement x2 Resorting to the Coast with Essex CC - partner on 360k HLF project.
- Website and Digital research (£2,000)
- Conference organisation and management (£4,000) See:
https://www.uel.ac.uk/events/2018/3/essex-sea-side-conference
Research internship
- Digital Food Cultures Focus Groups in South Essex (£2,000)
Impact Fund
- Essex Future Conference 2 Day Conference at the Civic Centre in Southend-on-Sea (£5,000)
External Funding for Projects and Programmes
Currently working on an Affect and Social Media Research Network application (£30, 000).
Network Resorting to the Coast – Funding from Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) - Funding for 2 Conferences organised by UEL (£8,000)
Collaborative application submitted to Europe for Citizens “Understanding the European Past of Fascism Cultures: Actions towards a Virtual Museum (ActiViM).” (£8-10, 000 - Pending)
AHRC Standard Grant Application for collaborative "Virality and the News" (£500, 000). Unsuccessful - currently redeveloping for an ESRC grant.
Collaborative application submitted to the 4th HERA Joint Research Programme “Public Spaces: Culture and Integration in Europe.” (160, 000Euro from 1million overall). Unsuccessful.
CERC/DSWG/UEL “Creative Digital: Southend” project - bid to “Make Happen” (HEFCE and Essex University), (£95, 000). Unsuccessful.
emotionUX lab
In 2013 Tony successfully secured funding through the Challenge Fund for a purpose built lab space and equipment dedicated to research into user experience, affect and social media. The lab has subsequently been central to research funding bids, art projects and hosts the annual Affect and Social Media Symposia at UEL. Tony has also successfully bid for paid student research interns working on projects in the lab.
Public Engagement
Tony is co-founder of Club Critical Theory (CCT); a free ‘club’ based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex dedicated to bringing about public engagement in the town through the application of critical theory to everyday life. As well as holding events in informal venues (pubs) the club, along with their public engagement partners and funder, the Cultural Engine, have recently secured impact funding for a major conference exploring cultural policy in the area. This event includes debate on food cultures, cultural industries, tourism and heritage in the area. See:
https://clubcriticaltheory.wordpress.com/next-cct-event/
Related funding
In 2016: £2,400 Impact Fund for CCT Essex Futures Conference
In 2017: 5k Civic Engagement Fund for Seaside Cultures project (with The Cultural Engine) - resulting 350k HLF project and UEL's involvement in organizing two major conferences in Tendring.
Funding
In the gap between art school and returning to HE Tony performed as a musician and songwriter. He continues to write and record music with various collaborators including a recent project with the composer John Leo Dutton titled Fordlandia. He continues to write and record music with various collaborators.
Interests
- PhD and PDFA
supervision
- MA Media and
Communications Industries
- BA Media and
Communication
- BA and MA/MFA
Immersive Media Production