---
title: "In the Fog of the Digital: AI and Neural-Digital Entanglement in Cognitive Capitalism"
description: Intensive summer academy in Berlin exploring AI, digital technologies, and cognitive capitalism. Free application, June 29–July 4, 2026.
url: https://www.artsume.com/programs/7380bac8-c42a-4492-8c2f-eddae108c2b4
type: program
status: closed
createdAt: "2026-03-30"
updatedAt: "2026-09-30"
programType: Workshop/program
organization: Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art
organizationUrl: https://www.artsume.com/o/saas-fee-summer-institute-of-art
deadline: "2026-04-02"
location: Berlin, Germany
isOnline: false
disciplines:
  - video
  - photography
  - installation
  - multimedia
  - film
  - design
  - architecture
---

# In the Fog of the Digital: AI and Neural-Digital Entanglement in Cognitive Capitalism

**Hosted by:** Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art

**Type:** Workshop/program | **Location:** Berlin, Germany | **Deadline:** April 2, 2026

## About This Program

> "AI and the Neural-Digital Entanglement in Cognitive Capitalism"

For its sixteenth iteration (and fifth in Berlin), Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art 2026, "In the Fog of the Digital: AI and the Neural-Digital Entanglement in Cognitive Capitalism," will focus on the effects of the acceleration of digital technologies (especially AI) on the process of individuation of the contemporary subject and its repercussions for thought and understanding, as well as artistic and aesthetic countermoves.

The phrase "fog of the digital" is reminiscent of the earlier concept of the "fog of war" (generally attributed to the Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz), used to describe the complexities and ambiguities inherent in the theater of war. The term highlights the difficulty of gathering accurate and timely information in dynamic, unpredictable, and unstable immersive environments, and points to the visually obscuring effects of billowing clouds of smoke and the associated cacophony of discordant sounds emanating from surrounding bombardment, all of which affect the individual soldier's corporal senses and clarity of thought.

Today, this concept serves as an apt metaphor to describe the fog of the digital (or digital fog) that results from the explosive transformation of industrial capitalism into cognitive capitalism, in which the proletariat physically working on the assembly line has been transformed into the cognitariat working in front of screens producing data. According to Byung-Chul Han in Psychopolitics (2017), we have become solitary, auto-exploiting laborers of our own enterprises, in which the individual becomes both master and slave at once. Bernard Stiegler similarly points to another insidious consequence of the externalization and outsourcing of cognitive abilities to artificial technics within digital immersion: "proletarianization – through which the hyperindustrial age becomes the era of systemic stupidity."

The recent advent of Large Language Models has accentuated this situation. As curator Antonio Somaini states in The World Through AI (2025): "As AI models become more and more pervasive, and as internet contents keep growing exponentially, latent spaces become a way of ordering, processing, and activating a hypertrophic accumulation of cultural memory that has become unmanageable and disorienting." The fog of the digital is further accentuated by information overload, fake news and deepfakes, the attention (and inattention) economy, deep surveillance, and the production of new forms of automation that have the potential to replace human agency entirely. As we enter this late phase of cognitive capitalism, the brain and its neural commons – its neural plasticity have become the focus of capitalist adventurism and exploitation. Under the banner of techno-optimism, a cornucopia of artificial intelligence (AI) and brain–computer technologies have produced neural-digital entanglements in the wild west of contemporary neoliberalism.

"In the Fog of the Digital" explores the aesthetic, philosophical, political, and social implications of our brave new world. Together, we seek to identify possibilities for new forms of emancipation within this minefield of psycho-neural despotism.

Faculty: Nora Al-Badri, Ruth Anderwald + Leonhard Grond, Kader Attia, David W. Bates, Grégory Chatonsky, Sergio Edelsztein, Claire Fontaine, Agnieszka Kurant, Liz Magic Laser, Yuk Hui, Anna Longo, David Joselit, Warren Neidich (founder/director), Matteo Pasquinelli, Martha Schwendener, and Antonio Somaini.

Applications for SFSIA 2026 Berlin are open to students, practitioners and scholars from the fields of art (including video, photography, installation and multimedia), art history, science and technology studies, philosophy, design, architecture, critical theory, cultural studies, film and media studies, and beyond.

## Eligibility & Requirements

- **Geographic Eligibility:** International
- **Disciplines:** video, photography, installation, multimedia, film, design, architecture
- **Note:** Open to students, practitioners and scholars from the fields of art (including video, photography, installation and multimedia), art history, science and technology studies, philosophy, design, architecture, critical theory, cultural studies, film and media studies, and beyond.

### Additional Requirements

See application at https://sfsia.art/2026-berlin/2026-berlin-application/ for full requirements.

## Timeline

- **Opens:** March 30, 2026
- **Deadline:** April 2, 2026
- **Program Start:** June 29, 2026
- **Program End:** July 4, 2026

## How to Apply

Apply at: https://sfsia.art/2026-berlin/2026-berlin-application/