4 - 8 January 2027

 

In-person 

Opening Time:
4 January at 9.15am Amsterdam time. Please be punctual!

Opening Day Location:
University of Amsteram
Oudemanhuispoort 4-6 
1012 CN Amsterdam, the Netherlands
 

Everyday location:
Digital Methods Initiative
University of Amsterdam
Turfdraagsterpad 9
1012 XT Amsterdam

 

Digital Methods Initiative - Winter School 2027

 

Creative AI methods for digital research: Plumbing the vector space

 

What do LLMs have to offer digital research? To date much of the attention to research with LLMs has been in the service of supporting or even supplanting existing methodological instrumentaria. In earlier discourse, these substitutive means would have been called the virtualisation of methods, referring to their emulation in a new realm. Whether working with LLMs, chatbots or agents, the question has been how (well) they can do our analytical work the way we usually do it. There are core analytical tasks AI is asked to perform. Can they annotate and classify data sets, extracting overt as well as latent meanings, narratives and discourses? Can they affirm or find fault with findings made by more standard qualitative and quantitative means? Can they synthesise data to a degree that it more or less mimics real-world material? Can they produce reference lists on a subject matter? But there is also some work that strives to repurpose their intended use, plumbing the vector space for social structures and cultural trends. For example, can their biases be studied as societal indicators? Can they show extant and emerging social and cultural associations? The Winter School is dedicated native AI methods and their creative uses.

Information

For all details about this Winter School Course, please visit the Digital Methods website below. 

Instructions, project descriptions and welcome package (as they become available)

 

Course information:

• Dates: 4-8 January 2026
• Tuition fee: € 895
• Registration deadline: rolling admissions until 8 December 2025
• Academic director: Richard Rogers
• Academic level: all graduate levels - Master's, PhD candidates and professionals/scholars
• Credits: 6 ECTS 
• Field of study: New Media and Digital Culture
• Location: In-person. University of Amsterdam, Media Studies, Turfdraagsterpad 9, 1012 XT Amsterdam, the Netherlands

School philosophy

The Digital Methods Winter School is exploratory and experimental. It is not a setting for ‘just’ tool training or for principally tool-driven research. Substantive research projects are conceived and carried out. Participants are encouraged to ‘span time with their issue’ and the materials. In other words, we heed Alexander Galloway’s admonition about data and tool-driven work: “Those who were formerly scholars or experts in a certain area are now recast as mere tool users beholden to the affordances of the tool — while students spend ever more time mastering menus and buttons, becoming literate in a digital device rather than a literary corpus.”[1] We encourage device and corpus literacy! The device training we ask you to do prior to the School through online tutorials, and at the School itself, in a kind of flipped learning environment (if you'll excuse the overused phrase), we would like to believe that you have familiarised yourself already with the tools (and are driven, to complete the thought). During the School we will discuss and tinker with the nitty-gritty, aim to invent new methods, techniques and heuristics and create the first iterations of compelling work to be shared.

[1] Alexander Galloway (2014)." The Cybernetic Hypothesis," Differences. 25(1):107-131. See page 127.

About the Winter School

The Digital Methods Winter School, a part of the Digital Methods Initiative, is directed by Professor Richard Rogers, Chair in New Media & Digital Culture, Media Studies, University of Amsterdam. The Winter School is one training opportunity provided by the Digital Methods Initiative (DMI). DMI also has a Summer School, held the first weeks of July. Both Schools have a technical staff as well as a design staff, drawn from the ranks of Density Design in Milan. The Schools also rely on a technical infrastructure of servers hosting tools and storing data. 

In a culture of experimentation and skill-sharing, participants bring their laptops, learn method, undertake research projects, make reports, tools and graphics and write them up on the Digital Methods wiki. The School concludes with final presentations. Often there are subject matter experts from non-governmental or other organizations who present their analytical needs and issues at the outset and the projects seek to meet those needs, however indirectly.

Please see previous Digital Methods Summer Schools, 2007-2026. See also previous Digital Methods Winter Schools, 2009-2026.

The Digital Methods Initiative was founded with a grant from the Piet Mondriaan Foundation, the public cultural funding organization. The Digital Methods Summer and Winter Schools are self-sustaining.

Credits and completion certificate

Completion certificate and transcript for 6 ECTS are granted to participants who follow the School program, and complete a significant contribution to a School project as evidenced by co-authorship of the project report as well as final (joint) presentation slides. Templates for the project report as well as for the presentation slides are supplied. Please note that certificates of completion and the transcripts are the same. There are no other certificates or proof of participation supplied.