About this Episode
In this final video of Chapter 4, we explore the role of curiosity as the central force behind character performance as a method of discovery. Drawing on analogies of spiritual mediumship, we contrast traditional acting with a performance practice that suspends control in favour of soul-searching and character attunement. This episode asks how authentic character expression can emerge when we hold space for the unknown—treating character not as something projected, but as something conjured.
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.
Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
About this Episode
What if our personality isn’t composed of a set of fixed traits, but is more like a weather system—dynamic, patterned, and ever-evolving? In this video, we move from thinking of character as a frame to imagining it as a climate: a behavioural attractor that governs the shape of our thoughts and actions over time. Drawing analogies from meteorology and dynamical systems theory, this episode explores how patterns of selfhood emerge, shift, and even change completely—raising questions about identity, transformation, and the limits of what can be thought from within given characters.
This is the third of four episodes in Chapter 4 of the thesis, Scripting for Agency, setting the stage for a deeper understanding of how characters emerge, shift, and are socially regulated.
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
Thought Shift Performance Experiment
References
- Hong, Ying-Yi, et al. “Multicultural Minds: A Dynamic Constructivist Approach to Culture and Cognition.” American Psychologist 55, no. 7 (2000): 709–20.
- John Lewis. “Roots of Ensemble Forecasting.” Monthly Weather Review 133, no. 7 (2005): 1865–87. https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR2949.1.
- Pirandello, Luigi. One, No One and One Hundred Thousand. Translated by William Weaver. New York: Marsilio, 1990.
- Ranković, Miloš. “Meteoric Theory of Art.” Lecture. London: 2014.
- Ranković, Katarina. “Thought Shift Performance Experiment.” 2022.
- Schumacher, Joel, dir. Falling Down. United States: Warner Bros., 1993.
- Nichols, Mike, dir. Regarding Henry. United States: Paramount Pictures, 1991.
About this Episode
What happens when we shift the way we act, speak, or even think depending on who we’re with? In this video, we explore frame switching—a psychological and social phenomenon where individuals adopt different “selves” across cultural and social contexts. Drawing on research from cultural psychology, sociology, and performance studies, this episode examines how authenticity, consistency, and social expectation shape our identities. Through the lens of cultural theory and lived experience, the video asks: Is inconsistency really inauthentic? Or is it simply the cost of navigating a complex social world?
This is the second of four episodes in Chapter 4 of the thesis, Scripting for Agency, setting the stage for a deeper understanding of how characters emerge, shift, and are socially regulated.
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.
Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
Thought Shift Performance Experiment
References
- Boucher, Helen C. “The Dialectical Self-Concept II: Cross-Role and Within-Role Consistency, Well-Being, Self-Certainty, and Authenticity.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 42, no. 7 (2011): 1251–71.
- Chiu, Chi-Yue, Ying-Yi Hong, and Carol S. Dweck. “Lay Dispositionism and Implicit Theories of Personality.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73, no. 1 (1997): 19–30.
- Dehghani, Morteza, et al. “The Subtlety of Sound.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 34, no. 3 (2015): 231–50.
- Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. Great Britain: Amazon, 2020.
- Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Winchester: Zero Books, 2009.
- Francis, Kathryn B., et al. “Simulating Moral Actions: An Investigation of Personal Force in Virtual Moral Dilemmas.” Scientific Reports 7, 13954 (2017).
- Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin Books, 1990.
- Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. United Kingdom: Harvill Secker, 2014.
- Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 2012.
- Hong, Ying-Yi, et al. “Multicultural Minds: A Dynamic Constructivist Approach to Culture and Cognition.” American Psychologist 55, no. 7 (2000): 709–20.
- Linville, Patricia W. “Self-Complexity and Affective Extremity: Don’t Put All of Your Eggs in One Cognitive Basket.” Social Cognition 3, no. 1 (1985): 94–120.
- Lu, Yongbiao, et al. “Surface Acting or Deep Acting, Who Need More Effortful? A Study on Emotional Labor Using Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 13 (10 May 2019). doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2019.00151.
- OpenAI. “DALLE-2.” https://openai.com/dall-e-2/.
- Pirandello, Luigi. One, No One and One Hundred Thousand. Translated by William Weaver. New York: Marsilio Publishers, 1990.
- Rakić, Tamara, Melanie C. Steffens, and Amélie Mummendey. “Blinded by the Accent! The Minor Role of Looks in Ethnic Categorization.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100, no. 1 (2011): 16–29.
- West, Keon, Asia Eaton, and Angela R. Robinson. “More Than the Sum of Its Parts: A Transformative Theory of Biculturalism.” Journal of Social Issues 74, no. 4 (2018): 963–90.
- West, Keon, Asia Eaton, and Angela R. Robinson. “The Potential Cost of Cultural Fit: Frame Switching Undermines Perceived Authenticity and Likeability.” Frontiers in Psychology 9 (2018): 2622. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02622.
About this Episode
In this episode, we delve into the idea of character as a frame, drawing from cultural psychology, linguistics, and personal narrative. Exploring the phenomenon of frame switching—how individuals seamlessly shift between social personas depending on cultural context—this video challenges essentialist views of identity. We discuss concepts like code-switching, cultural priming, and contextual personality, unpacking what happens when our selves are triggered, adapted, or performed based on the company we keep. What are the social costs and benefits to character inconsistency?
Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
References
- Bhatia, Sunil. “Rethinking Culture and Identity in Psychology: Towards a Transnational Cultural Psychology.” Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 27–28, no. 2–1 (2007): 301–21.
- Cheng, Chi-Ying, Fiona Lee, and Veronica Benet. “Assimilation and Contrast Effects in Cultural Frame Switching Bicultural Identity Integration and Valence of Cultural Cues.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 37 (2006): 742–60.
- Cheng, Chi-Yue, and Shirley Y. Y. Cheng. “Toward a Social Psychology of Culture and Globalization: Some Social Cognitive Consequences of Activating Two Cultures Simultaneously.” Social and Personality Psychology Compass 1, no. 1 (2007): 84–100.
- Chen, Sylvia Xiaohua, and Michael Harris Bond. “Two Languages, Two Personalities? Examining Language Effects on the Expression of Personality in a Bilingual Context.” Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin 36, no. 11 (2010): 1514–28.
- Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin, 1990.
- Higgins, E. Tory. “Knowledge Activation: Accessibility, Applicability and Salience.” In Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles, ed. by E. Tory Higgins and Arie W. Kruglanski, 133–68. New York: Guilford Press, 1996.
- Hong, Ying-Yi, et al. “Multicultural Minds: A Dynamic Constructivist Approach to Culture and Cognition.” The American Psychologist 55, no. 7 (2000): 709–20.
- Kay, Paul, and Willett Kempton. “What Is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?” American Anthropologist 86, no. 1 (1984): 65–79.
- Myers-Scotton, Carol. “Common and Uncommon Ground: Social and Structural Factors in Codeswitching.” Language in Society 22, no. 4 (1993): 475–503.
- Ramírez-Esparza, Nairán, et al. “Do Bilinguals Have Two Personalities? A Special Case of Cultural Frame Switching.” Journal of Research in Personality 40, no. 2 (2006): 99–120.
- Sheldon, Kennon M., et al. “Trait Self and True Self: Cross-Role Variation in the Big-Five Personality Traits and Its Relations With Psychological Authenticity and Subjective Well-Being.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73, no. 6 (1997): 1380–93.
- Sui, Jie, Ying Zhu, and Chi-yue Chiu. “Bicultural Mind, Self-construal, and Self- and Mother-reference Effects: Consequences of Cultural Priming on Recognition Memory.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43, no. 5 (2007): 818–24.
- Tamer, Youssef. “Language Choice & Code Switching.” L’université Ibn Zohr. Uploaded 14 December 2014.
- Van Oudenhoven, Jan Pieter, and Veronica Benet-Martínez. “In Search of a Cultural Home: From Acculturation to Frame-switching and Intercultural Competencies.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 46 (2015): 47–54.
- West, Alexandria L., et al. “More Than the Sum of Its Parts: A Transformative Theory of Biculturalism.” Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology 48, no. 7 (2017): 963–90.
- West, Alexandria L., et al. “The Potential Cost of Cultural Fit.” Frontiers in Psychology (2018).
- Hough, Lauren. “A Lesbian Walks into a Bathroom: A Lesson on Code Switching.” TEDx Talks.
- Grehoua, Lucrece. “Code-Switching.” BBC Radio 4, 30 August 2020.
- Riley, Boots. Sorry to Bother You. United States: Mirror Releasing; Focus Features; Universal Pictures, 2018.
About this Episode
In this opening video for Chapter 4 of Scripting for Agency, we delve into the evolving concept of character—moving beyond the idea of character as software into more dynamic models drawn from cultural psychology and meteorology.
Building on earlier discussions of character as a transmissible pattern, this episode introduces the idea of character as both frame and climate. Drawing on tools like phase portraits and research into frame switching, we begin to see character not just as a fixed identity but as a fluctuating behavioural landscape that can be experimentally explored and manipulated—especially within performance.
This chapter sets the stage for a deeper understanding of how characters emerge, shift, and are socially regulated, and questions why character consistency is so often privileged in social life.
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.
Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
About this Episode
Can a script produce an agent?
In this closing to Chapter 3: Code and Expression, we explore how scripting—understood as the dual mechanism of code and expression—may contribute to the emergence of agency. From genetic and computational systems to artistic and performative contexts, this video traces how scripts operate across different material substrates to generate autonomous-seeming behaviour. We revisit concepts like substrate neutrality, the relationship without a touch, and character as a transferable script, and reflect on what it means to write or perform an agent—biological, artificial, or fictional.
This is the concluding episode of four in Chapter 3 of the thesis, Scripting for Agency, exploring the question: can a self be written—or, "encoded and decoded"?
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
References
- Cairns-Smith, A. Graham. Seven Clues to the Origin of Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
- Dennett, Daniel C. Freedom Evolves. Harlow: Penguin, 2004.
- Derrida, Jacques. Margins of Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
About this Episode
What does it really mean to act “spontaneously”? In this episode, we challenge the common belief that spontaneity correlates with authenticity—and that scripting undermines agency. From gender identity and social performance to jazz improvisation and machine learning, this lecture explores how our actions, even the seemingly unscripted ones, are shaped by deep cultural repertoires. Drawing on Judith Butler, Erving Goffman, Daniel Dennett, and personal performance practice, we examine the potential false dichotomy between being scripted and being free.
This is the third of four episodes in Chapter 3 of the thesis, Scripting for Agency, exploring the question: can a self be written—or, "encoded and decoded"?
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.
Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
References
- Althusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Translated by Ben Brewster. London: New Left Books, 1971.
- Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”. New York: Routledge, 1993.
- Dennett, Daniel C. Freedom Evolves. Harlow: Penguin, 2004.
- Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.
- Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin, 1990.
- Merton, Robert King. Social Theory and Social Structure. London: Collier-Macmillan, 1968.
- Royal Society. Machine Learning: The Power and Promise of Computers That Learn by Example. London: The Royal Society, April 2017. https://royalsociety.org/-/media/poli....
- Ahmed, Samira. “The Arts and Artificial Intelligence,” interview with Mick Grierson. Front Row, BBC Radio 4, 21 November 2018. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000....
- Hayls World. “10 ChatGPT Life Hacks - THAT’LL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!” YouTube video, 12:12. Uploaded March 31, 2023.
About this Episode
Can something scripted ever be truly free? In this episode, we explore the philosophical tension between determinism and autonomy by asking what it really means to act freely within a system governed by rules. Drawing on Daniel Dennett’s compatibilism, cellular automata like John Conway’s Game of Life and the aesthetics of glitch, we examine whether agency can emerge from scripts—biological, computational, or cultural.
Along the way, we challenge common assumptions about spontaneity, control, skill, and error, and reflect on whether scripting might be not a limitation of agency, but its very condition. For artists, coders, and thinkers alike, this is an invitation to reimagine agency beyond the binary of prescription versus autonomy.
This is the second of four episodes in Chapter 3 of the thesis, Scripting for Agency, exploring the question: can a self be written—or, "encoded and decoded"?
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.
Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
Play the Game of Life: https://playgameoflife.com
References
- Ainslie, George. Breakdown of Will. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
- Barad, Karen. “Diffracting Diffraction: Cutting Together-Apart.” Parallax 20, no. 3 (2014): 168–187. https://doi.org/10.1080/13534645.2014....
- Collins, Joan. “Joan Collins – Unscripted.” Royal & Derngate. YouTube video. Uploaded August 10, 2016.
- Dennett, Daniel. Freedom Evolves. Harlow: Penguin, 2004.
- Gell, Alfred. Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
- Rankovic, Katarina. “Unborn Lovers: Scripting for Agency.” Curating the Contemporary, May 2, 2016. https://curatingthecontemporary.org/2....
- Ranković, Miloš. “Theory and Practice of Handmade Distributed Representation.” PhD diss., The University of Leeds, 2007. https://www.academia.edu/1458773/Theory_and_Practice_
of_Handmade_Distributed_Representation.
- Rippon, Gina. “How neuroscience is exploding the myth of male and female brains.” New Scientist, February 28, 2019. https://www.newscientist.com/article/....
- Wolfram, Stephen. A New Kind of Science. Champaign, IL: Wolfram Media, 2002.
About this Episode
In this episode, we consider how both human beings and fictional characters are shaped by forces of inheritance and leave behind legacies. Through a reflection on Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being and an original performance piece (A Ritual Resuscitation of Eternal Lovers), this video explores how character is not born from essence but emerges from scripts—cultural, literary, and behavioural. What does it mean to be haunted by characters we could have been? Can fictional agents be said to live? And what do we share, ontologically, with the ghosts of literature?This is the first of four episodes in Chapter 3 of the thesis, Scripting for Agency, exploring the question: can a self be written—or, "encoded and decoded"?
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
A Ritual Resuscitation of Eternal Lovers: https://rosaandlawrence.art, performed also at The Cockpit Theatre and South London Gallery as part of Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2021.
References
- Bo Burnham. Inside. Released 30 May 2021. Netflix.
- Brewer, David A. The Afterlife of Character, 1726–1825. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.
- Frow, John. Character and Person. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
- Kundera, Milan. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. London: Faber and Faber, 1984.
- Palmer, Alan. “Storyworlds and Groups.” In Social Minds in the Novel, 183–202. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2010.
- Ricœur, Paul. Oneself as Another. Translated by Kathleen Blamey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
About this Episode
What if your personality could be scripted like a computer program? In this opening video of Chapter 3, we explore the human being as a programmable machine capable of playing out “character”—understood here as a kind of transferable behavioural code. Drawing from computing, biology, theatre, and aesthetics, this episode introduces a theory of character as a dual mechanism made up of code and expression. From ghostly dualisms to scripting fictional agents, we begin to unpack how character governs our actions—and how art can be used to reprogram the self.
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.
Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
References
- Ranković, Miloš. “‘Something like thinking, that is, intervenes:’ ‘The spectral spiritualisation that is at work in any tekhnē.’” Unpublished paper, 2011. https://www.academia.edu/5879590/_Som....
About this Series
In this episode, we explore a new model of selfhood: the line. Building on earlier discussions of the self as vessel and as distributed, this chapter proposes that the self might be understood as a medium, akin to a guitar string or a wave field, that resonates with and expresses viral patterns of character. Drawing from physics, drawing, and memetics, this video reframes agency and personhood through the aesthetics and logic of resonance, contagion, and impressionability.This is the third of three episodes in Chapter 2 of the thesis, Scripting for Agency, exploring the shapes we use—often unconsciously—to model the self.About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.
Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
References
- Coppola, Roman, Jason Schwartzman, Alex Timbers, and Paul Weitz. Mozart in the Jungle. Season 2, Episode 3, “It All Depends on You.” United States: Amazon Prime Video, 2014.
- Morin, David. “Fourier Analysis.” In Unpublished Textbook on Waves, 2009. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dav....
- Warner, Marina. Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media into the Twenty-first Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
About this Episode
In this episode, we explore the distributed self—a model of personhood that challenges the idea of the self as a centralised essence contained within the body. Drawing on thinkers such as Daniel Dennett, Marilyn Strathern, and Virginia Woolf, the video proposes that the self may instead be constituted across objects, others, places, and time.We follow Virginia Woolf's protagonist Mrs Dalloway through the streets of London as she experiences herself as “everywhere”, and consider how this reframing of selfhood may shift our understanding of death, loneliness, and authorship. The distributed self is not only a philosophical proposition, but a way of living in relation, of becoming communal even in solitude.This is the second of three episodes in Chapter 2 of the thesis, Scripting for Agency, exploring the shapes we use—often unconsciously—to model the self.
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.
Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
References
- Bourdieu, Pierre. “Social Space and Symbolic Power.” Sociological Theory 7, no. 1 (1989): 14–25.
- Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Winchester: Zero Books, 2009.
- Forbes, Shannon. “Equating Performance with Identity: The Failure of Clarissa Dalloway’s Victorian ‘Self’ in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway.” The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 38, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 38–50.
- Gell, Alfred. Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
- Hildyard, Daisy. The Second Body. London: Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017.
- Mauss, Marcel. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. Translated by W. D. Halls. London: Routledge, 1990.
- Ranković, Miloš. “Meteoric Theory of Art.” Lecture video. Meteoric Theory of Art
- Ranković, Slavica, and Miloš Ranković. “The Talent of the Distributed Author.” In Modes of Authorship in the Middle Ages, edited by Slavica Ranković et al., 52–75. Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies Press, 2012.
- Strathern, Marilyn. The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
- Strathern, Marilyn. “Art and Anthropology after Relations.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6, no. 2 (2016): 425–439.
- Woolf, Virginia. Mrs Dalloway. London: Penguin, 2007.
About this Episode
In this episode, we explore one of the most persistent intuitive models of the self: the vessel. Drawing on anthropology and neuroscience, the video examines why the idea of a soul or self as something “contained within” the body remains so widespread—and what problems this shape creates when trying to understand agency.We encounter the “homunculus effect,” investigate infinite regress, and consider alternatives to the idea of a centralised core self. While critiquing the limits of the vessel model, we also examine its affordances—such as how hiddenness contributes to our perception of agency, and how layers of containment might help us reframe animacy as a “procession of skins.”This is the first of three episodes in Chapter 2 of the thesis, Scripting for Agency, exploring the shapes we use—often unconsciously—to model the self.
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-seriesPhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
Diagramming the Self: Deriving Lay Theories of Self from Drawings: https://katarinarankovic.art/scriptin....
References
- Brownlee, Emma Claire. “The Dead and Their Possessions: The Declining Agency of the Cadaver in Early Medieval Europe.” European Journal of Archaeology 23, no. 3 (2020): 406–27.
- Dennett, Daniel. Freedom Evolves. London: Penguin, 2004.
- Gell, Alfred. Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
- Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin, 1990.
- Ranković, Miloš. “Theory and Practice of Handmade Distributed Representation.” PhD diss., University of Leeds, 2007. https://www.academia.edu/1458773/Theo....
- Ranković, Katarina. “Diagramming the Self,” 2023. https://katarinarankovic.art/scriptin....
- Taylor, Steve. “How a Flawed Experiment ‘Proved’ That Free Will Doesn’t Exist.” Scientific American, 6 December 2019. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/....
About this Episode
In this introductory video to Chapter 2 of Scripting for Agency, we explore the question: What is the shape of a thinking thing? Drawing comparisons to scientific models, such as have existed for atoms or the Earth, this episode highlights how intuitive diagrams and conceptual “shapes” influence the way we think about selves, agents, and identity. Through historical examples, contemporary thought, and an original drawing study on lay theories of selfhood, this section sets the stage for a deeper investigation into models of the self—starting with the vessel, then the distributed self, and finally, a string theory of self.
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.
Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
Diagramming the Self: Deriving Lay Theories of Self from Drawings: https://katarinarankovic.art/scripting-for-agency-appendix-3.
References
- Cavarero, Adriana. Inclinations: A Critique of Rectitude. Translated by Amanda Minervini and Adam Sitze. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016.
- Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage, 1994.
- Kuhn, Thomas S., and Ian Hacking. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.
- Ocasio, William. “Attention to Attention.” Organization Science 22, no. 5 (2011): 1286–1296.
- Piaget, Jean. Structuralism. Translated by Chaninah Maschler. New York: Psychology Press, 2015.
- Ranković, Katarina. “Diagramming the Self: Deriving Lay Theories of Selfhood from Drawings.” 2023. Experimental Report 3/4. https://katarinarankovic.art/scripting-for-agency-appendix-3.
- Stover, Christopher, and Eric W. Weisstein. “Line.” MathWorld—A Wolfram Web Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Line.html.
About this EpisodeIn this final section of Chapter 1, we delve into the uncanny act of prolonged mirror gazing as a method of self-estrangement. What begins as a reassuring glance becomes a disquieting encounter—where the self, once assumed stable, starts to unravel into something indeterminate. Drawing from personal performance practice, Luigi Pirandello, Bertolt Brecht, and phenomenology, this video explores how looking at oneself can shift the self from being an answer into becoming a question. What does it mean to see oneself as a machine of potential, rather than a fixed identity?
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
References
- Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, ed. and trans. John Willett. London: Methuen, 1964.
- Dennett, Daniel C. Freedom Evolves. New York: Viking, 2003.
- Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Winchester: Zero Books, 2009.
- Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin Books, 1990.
- Graham, Rodney. “Phonokinetoscope,” 16 mm film installation, 2001.
- Gunn, Daniel P. “Making Art Strange: A Commentary on Defamiliarization.” The Georgia Review 38, no. 1 (1984): 25–33.
- Kelly, Molly. “Estrangement, Epochē, and Performance: Bertolt Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt and a Phenomenology of Spectatorship.” Continental Philosophy Review 53, no. 4 (2020): 419–31.
- McCarthy, Paul. In Paul McCarthy, eds. Kristine Stiles, Ralph Rugoff and Massimiliano Gioni, 6–30. London: Phaidon Press, 2016.
- Pirandello, Luigi. One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand. Trans. William Weaver. Sacramento, CA: Spurl Editions, 2018.
- Ranković, Miloš and Ranković, Slavica. Personal communication and conceptual frameworks.
- Ramachandran, Vilayanur S. “The Emerging Mind,” Reith Lectures, BBC Radio 4, 2003.
- Sacks, Oliver W. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. London: Picador, 1986.
- Serpell, Namwali. Stranger Faces. Oakland, CA: Transit Books, 2020.
- Smith, Owen F. “Playing with Difference: Fluxus as a World View.” In Fluxus Virus 1962–1992, 119. Köln: Galerie Schuppenhauer, 1993.
- Squiers, Anthony. “A Critical Response to Heidi M. Silcox’s ‘What’s Wrong with Alienation?’” Philosophy and Literature 39, no. 1 (2015): 243–47.
- Stiles, Kristine, and Paul McCarthy. “Kristine Stiles in Conversation with Paul McCarthy.” In Paul McCarthy, eds. Kristine Stiles, Ralph Rugoff and Massimiliano Gioni, 6–30. London: Phaidon Press, 2016.
- Trier, Lars von. Direktøren for det hele [The Boss of It All]. Denmark: Nordisk Film, 2006.
About this EpisodeIn this episode, we explore how agency, authorship, and creativity have long been imagined in spatial terms—from ancient poets and muses to modern artists like Cézanne and Cindy Sherman. Drawing on philosophical, anthropological, and artistic accounts, this chapter unpacks the surprisingly persistent idea that the self must be "emptied" before it can be filled. Is agency something we possess—or something that possesses us?About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
References
- Blanchot, Maurice. The Book to Come, trans. Charlotte Mandell. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
- Burke, Sean. Authorship: From Plato to the Postmodern. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995.
- Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton. London: Continuum, 2001.
- Gell, Alfred. Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
- Lau, Heidi. “Heidi Lau’s Spirit Vessels.” Art21, uploaded 1 June 2022.
- Pamuk, Orhan. Snow, trans. Maureen Freely. London: Faber and Faber, 2004.
- Plato. Ion, in Authorship, ed. Sean Burke, 14–18.
- Sherman, Cindy. “Characters.” In The Essential Cindy Sherman, ed. Amanda Cruz et al., 173–75. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999.
About this EpisodeWhat happens when the artist steps aside and lets something—or someone—else speak through them? In this video, we continue exploring the metaphor of the artist as a medium—someone who becomes a channel for external agency, impression, or character. Drawing on examples from Cézanne’s rhythmic brushwork, T.S. Eliot’s impersonal theory of poetry and Cindy Sherman’s photographic self-transformations, this chapter unpacks the ambiguity between passivity and agency in art-making. Can a self disappear into its influences? And what does this mean for how we understand authorship, creativity, and identity?About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
References
- Blanchot, Maurice. The Book to Come. Translated by Charlotte Mandell. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.
- Eliot, T. S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” In Authorship: From Plato to the Postmodern: A Reader, edited by Sean Burke, 73–80. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006.
- Gell, Alfred. Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
- Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy and Painting. Edited by Galen A. Johnson and Michael B. Smith (translation). Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1993.
- Phelan, Peggy. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. London; New York: Routledge, 1996.
- Sherman, Cindy. “Characters, Cindy Sherman.” Art 21. Uploaded 1 April 2011. Online video, https://art21.org/watch/extended-play.... Last accessed 1 September 2022.
- Sherman, Cindy. “Cindy Sherman.” National Portrait Gallery. Retrospective exhibition, 27 June–15 September 2019.
About this EpisodeIn this episode, we explore the metaphor of the artist as a medium: a channel for other voices, forces, and intentions. Drawing from historical, spiritual, and artistic lineages, the video asks what it means to make space for otherness in art, and how we might conceptualise agency. Does creativity come from within—or through us? And how does this affect our understanding of authorship, originality, and intentionality?
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-seriesPhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
References
- Warner, Marina. Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media into the Twenty-first Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
- Burke, Sean, ed. Authorship: From Plato to the Postmodern: A Reader. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995.
- Zucker, Jerry, dir. Ghost. Paramount Pictures, 1990.
About this Episode
In this episode, we explore the idea of character as a contagious system of memes—cultural patterns that spread and evolve like genes. Building on the concept of jealousy introduced earlier, this video investigates how our identities are shaped by memetic inheritance, and how imitation, expression, and transmission make us part of a shared cultural lineage. Drawing from Dawkins, Dennett, Goffman, and personal performance experiments, it asks: Are we the authors of our character, or its hosts?
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.
Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
References
- Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker. London: Penguin, 1991.
- Dawkins, Richard. “Viruses of the Mind.” In Dennett and his Critics, edited by Bo Dahlbom, 13–27. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.
- Dennett, Daniel C. Freedom Evolves. New York: Viking, 2003.
- Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books, 1959.
- Warner, Marina. Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media into the Twenty-first Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
- Stokel-Walker, Chris. “Welcome to the Metaverse.” New Scientist, January 8, 2022, 39–43.
- Offeh, Harold. Lounging, photographic series, 2017–2020.
- Wex, Marianne. Let’s Take Back Our Space: Female and Male Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures. West Germany: Frauenliteratur Hermine Fees, 1979.
- Ranković, Slavica and Miloš. “A Formula is a Habit Colliding with Life.”
- Merriam-Webster. “Breathing Life into ‘Inspire’.” Last modified September 22, 2017.
About this Episode
This episode introduces jealousy as a central emotional mechanism in the development of character within an artistic performance practice. Drawing on childhood encounters with powerful fictional figures like Disney’s Mulan, the artist explores how admiration can become a catalyst for transformation, imitation, and aesthetic experimentation. Unlike desire or envy, the jealousy described here preserves the other’s autonomy, sparking a form of temporary empathy that allows the performer to inhabit different ways of being. Through reflections on copying, influence, mirror neurones and artistic identity, this video reframes jealousy as a positive, generative force in the creative process.
About this Series
Scripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.
Links
Series Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-series
PhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdf
Thesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-art
References
- Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook. Mulan. United States: Buena Vista Pictures, 1998.
- Daniel Dennett. Freedom Evolves. New York: Viking, 2003.
- Yuval Noah Harari. “A Brief History of Humankind.” Coursera, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
- Brené Brown. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. United Kingdom: Penguin Audio, 2021. Audiobook.
- Samuel Beckett (quoted in): Anthony Cronin. Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist. London: Flamingo, 1997.
- Jean Matthee. “Eating the Book.” Journal of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research 4 (Summer 1994): 113–135.
- T. S. Eliot. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” In Authorship: From Plato to the Postmodern: A Reader, edited by Sean Burke, 73–80. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995.
- Erving Goffman. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin, 1990.
- Alfred Gell. Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
- Lucina Q. Uddin, Marco Iacoboni, Claudia Lange, and Julian Paul Keenan. “The Self and Social Cognition: The Role of Cortical Midline Structures and Mirror Neurons.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11, no. 4 (2007): 153–157.
- Cecilia Heyes and Caroline Catmur. “What Happened to Mirror Neurons?” Perspectives on Psychological Science 17, no. 1 (2022): 153–168.
- Alan Palmer. “Storyworlds and Groups.” In Introduction to Cognitive Literary Studies, edited by Lisa Zunshine, 179–193. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.
- Daria Martin. At the Threshold. 16mm film, 17.5 min, 2014–2015.
- Katarina Ranković. Amado Mio. Video, 2012.
- Leslie H. Martinson. Batman. United States: 20th Century Fox, 1966.
- Winsor McCay and Bill Blackbeard. Little Nemo 1905–1913, 2nd ed. Köln, Germany: Taschen, 2006.
- Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain. France: UGC Fox Distribution, 2001.
- Jane Rendell. “Travelling the distance/Encountering the Other.” In Here, There, Elsewhere: Dialogues on Location and Mobility, edited by David Blamey, 53–54. London: Open Editions, 2002.
- Gemma Blackshaw. “‘In time the likeness will become apparent’: Rebecca Fortnum’s Feminist Copies.” In A Mind Weighted with Unpublished Matter, edited by Rebecca Fortnum and Andrew Hunt, 6. London: Slimvolume, 2020.