Richard Vickers

Thesis

Thesis

• Dr Nick Jones and Professor Marian Ursu

Thesis Title: Curating the Self: Augmented Capitalism and Generative AI for Immanent Critique.

This creative practice-based PhD investigates how platform systems, social media, and artificial intelligence are transforming the production, circulation, and value of identity. It argues that contemporary digital culture has moved beyond representational models of media towards computational forms of mediation, in which identities are continuously generated, classified, and valorised through algorithmic processes.

The research introduces the concept of Augmented Capitalism to describe this emerging phase, where AI and platform infrastructures operationalise the commodification of identity and self-image. Rather than understanding digital culture solely through frameworks of spectacle, participation, or attention, the project explores how computational systems actively shape subjectivity itself.

Alongside theoretical analysis, the project develops the Immanent Critique Engine (ICE), an experimental AI-driven system that translates critical theory into a computational and artistic framework. Through the generation and recombination of moving images, ICE seeks to make visible the processes through which identity is produced, classified, and transformed into value. In doing so, the research examines how critique might emerge from within computational systems rather than from outside them.

Biography

Biography

Richard Vickers became interested in the creative possibilities of interactive media in the early 1990s and gained industry experience as a digital media producer working across commercial, cultural, and arts-based projects before entering higher education in 2000.

He has held academic leadership positions and in 2019 he was awarded Google for Education Certified Innovator status in recognition of his work exploring the transformative potential of digital technologies in education and creative practice.

His professional and academic work spans digital media, interactive storytelling, documentary practice, creative technologies, and emerging forms of computational culture. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Research Interests

Richard Vickers became interested in the creative possibilities of interactive media in the early 1990s and gained industry experience as a digital media producer working across commercial, cultural, and arts-based projects before entering higher education in 2000.

He has held academic leadership positions and in 2019 he was awarded Google for Education Certified Innovator status in recognition of his work exploring the transformative potential of digital technologies in education and creative practice.

His professional and academic work spans digital media, interactive storytelling, documentary practice, creative technologies, and emerging forms of computational culture. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

External research activity

Papers

Vickers, R. (2023) ‘Reimagining the Society of the Spectacle: Marxism, montage and détournement in the age of social media.’  Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival Conference. Collage Worlds, Imaginary Futures and Collaborative Identity: Collage as a visual/multimodal anthropology medium and method. Royal Anthropological Institute, London.

Vickers, R. (2022) ‘The Society of the Spectacle in the age of Augmented Capitalism’, AMPS (Architecture Media Politics Society), Representing Pasts – Visioning Futures, Queen’s University Belfast, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, National University of Singapore.

Vickers, R. (2022) ‘The Society of the Spectacle REDUX #1: Augmented Capitalism’, XVIII International Academic Forum on Design and Creation, 21st International Image Festival, University of Caldas, Manizales and, the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano – Bogota., Colombia.

Exhibitions

‘The Society of the Spectacle REDUX #2: Unified Division’, Currents New Media Arts & Technology Festival, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, 16 – 25 June 2023.

‘The Society of the Spectacle REDUX #1: Augmented Capitalism’, Special Mention, 01 NFT | New Media | Experimental | Digital Arts Film Festival, UK, 2023.

‘The Society of the Spectacle REDUX #1: Augmented Capitalism’, Videomedeja 26^th International New Media Art Festival, Svilara Cultural Station, Novi Sad, Serbia, 7-9 October 2022.

‘The Society of the Spectacle REDUX #1: Augmented Capitalism’, Stockholm City Film Festival, Stockholm, Sweden, August 2022.