Can machines imagine, or do they merely recombine the vast archive of images and language we have already produced? In this episode of LEPHT HAND, Emma Stamm and Sereptie speak with Fabian Offert about his forthcoming book Vector Media and the philosophical stakes of machine learning. Together they explore machine vision, the politics of images, and the strange epistemology of vector space, where culture, language, and visual media are flattened into new regimes of abstraction. Along the way, the conversation touches on critical technical practice, AI art, and whether these systems reveal something about human perception or instead confront us with an alien form of thought.

Buy Fabian's book: https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517921675/vector-media/

Fabian's website: https://zentralwerkstatt.org/

“The Method of Critical AI Studies, A Propaedeutic,” Fabian Offert and Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2411.18833

"Generative Digital Humanities," Fabian Offert and Peter Bell: https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2723/short23.pdf

Support LEPHT HAND:

Join the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Merch and Design Shop: crit-drip.com

Acid Horizon Links: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon

Emma's Substack: https://elftheory.substack.com/

Sereptie (ambient project): https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/

Acid Horizon Research Commons is now live: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-main

Access Emma's archived course, enroll in Stuart's new course, and discover more: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-main

What happens when love is absent from the stage, yet remains the hidden force driving every act of power and betrayal? In this episode of LEPHT HAND, we sit down with Phil Ford of Weird Studies to explore Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold and the mythic machinery of the Ring Cycle. Moving between politics, metaphysics, and music, we examine the curse of gold, the logic of contracts, and the catastrophic singularity of love. Along the way, we ask whether Wagner’s aesthetic vision can be disentangled from his ideology and what it still reveals about the modern soul.

Enroll in Phil's course on music and the tarot: https://weirdosphere.mn.co/

Support LEPHT HAND:

Join the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Merch and Design Shop: crit-drip.com

Acid Horizon Links: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon

Emma's Substack: https://elftheory.substack.com/

Sereptie (ambient project): https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/

Acid Horizon Research Commons is now live: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-main

Emma and Sereptie debrief the 'Weird Academia' conference in Bloomington, Indiana, reflecting on what it means to make space for the strange within and beyond the academy. We explore animal consciousness, interdisciplinary research, and the “closet” of weird scholarship, asking how encounters that rupture established methods can open new forms of knowledge. The conversation turns toward meta-politics, examining non-communication, collective retreat, and para-academic practices as forms of resistance amid digital exhaustion and institutional collapse. Along the way, we connect weirding to acid communism, communal learning, and the ongoing struggle to sustain the humanities as a living, shared practice.

Support LEPHT HAND:

Join the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Merch and Design Shop: crit-drip.com

Acid Horizon Links: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon

Emma's Substack: https://elftheory.substack.com/

Sereptie (ambient project): https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/

Acid Horizon Research Commons is now live: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-main

In this episode of LEPHT HAND, Emma leads a conversation with Aragorn Eloff on psychedelic experience through the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Gilbert Simondon, set against contemporary debates in cognitive science and computational theories of mind. Aragorn introduces his theory of the psychedelic, drawing on enactivism, complex systems theory, and theories of individuation and becoming. Together, the discussion explores anxiety, metastability, immanent spirituality, and the risks and possibilities of psychedelic transformation. The episode considers how non-computational models of mind open new ways of thinking about consciousness, therapy, and collective sense-making.

Aragorn's Links:

academia: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Aragorn-Eloff/research

music: http://asqus.bandcamp.com/

Support LEPHT HAND:

Join the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Merch and Design Shop: crit-drip.com

Acid Horizon Links: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon

Emma's Substack: https://elftheory.substack.com/

Sereptie (ambient project): https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/

Acid Horizon Research Commons is now live: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-main

Check out Emma's Substack: https://elftheory.substack.com/

Join Emma for 'Acid Communism: A World That Could Free': https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/2026-classes/p/qny873rafa9ibhcyj2t2x1cwsuvtln

In this episode, Craig is joined by Emma Stamm as LEPHT HAND begins a new chapter in 2026. Rather than centering on a single text, the conversation reflects on early encounters with philosophy and how those formative experiences shape the way thinking is pursued today. Together, Craig and Emma begin to sketch what rigorous philosophical research might look like outside traditional academic institutions, emphasizing collective study, depth, and experimentation. The episode serves as a calibration, setting the terms for how LEPHT HAND will think, work, and research going forward.

Support LEPHT HAND:

Join the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Merch and Design Shop: crit-drip.com

Acid Horizon Links: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon

Emma's Substack: https://elftheory.substack.com/

Sereptie (ambient project): https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/

Acid Horizon Research Commons is now live: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-main

In this end-of-year installment, we’re sharing a conversation originally released on LEPHT HAND as we take a rare and well-earned brief hiatus from regular publishing. This pause marks a moment of transition rather than retreat, as both LEPHT HAND and Acid Horizon continue to evolve beyond the podcast form! Closing out the episode is a reflection on Gianni Vattimo’s essay “Beyond the Subject,” engaging questions of weak thought, interpretation, and the limits of the sovereign self. As we close out the year, we’re also preparing a new slate of courses through the Acid Horizon Research Commons, and we look forward to returning soon, welcoming many of you into the classroom in the weeks ahead.

Support LEPHT HAND:

Join the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Merch and Design Shop: crit-drip.com

Acid Horizon Links: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon

Emma's Substack: https://elftheory.substack.com/

Sereptie (ambient project): https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/

Acid Horizon Research Commons is now live: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-main

Can a genuinely liberatory politics survive without mystery, imagination, or the spiritual experiences that give life its depth?  Sereptie speaks with Graham Jones about Jacobin’s article “The Forgotten History of Socialism and the Occult” and why its knee-jerk rationalism gets the history wrong. We explore the intersections of Marxism, mysticism, occult traditions, utopian thought, and the warm stream of revolutionary desire. The discussion moves through materialist spirituality, political subjectivity, Boycott Watkins, and how radical movements can reclaim the ecstatic and the ineffable.

Graham's Substack: https://sublimerevolutionaries.substack.com/subscribe?next=https%3A%2F%2Fsublimerevolutionaries.substack.com%2F%3Futm_source%3Dglobal-search&later=true&just_signed_up=true&subscription_id=1053278865&referral_token=g501q&requires_confirmation=&utm_source=cover_page&email=sereptie%40gmail.com&skip_redirect_check=true

Boycott Watkins in IG: https://www.instagram.com/boycottwatkins/

Support LEPHT HAND:

Join the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Merch and Design Shop: crit-drip.com

Acid Horizon Links: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon

Emma's Substack: https://elftheory.substack.com/

Sereptie (ambient project): https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/

Acid Horizon Research Commons is now live: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-main

What happens when the very logic we rely on to understand the world becomes the barrier to understanding it? In this episode, Timothy Jackson joins us to rethink rationalism through the lenses of Darwin, Simondon, Deleuze, and Bataille, challenging inherited frameworks across science and metaphysics. We explore variation, excess, and ontogenesis as the forces that precede and destabilize every closed system of explanation. 

To explore more of Timothy’s work, visit his Google Scholar profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vOnot8oAAAAJ&hl=en
.

Support LEPHT HAND:

Join the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Merch and Design Shop: crit-drip.com

Acid Horizon Links: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon

Emma's Substack: https://elftheory.substack.com/

Sereptie (ambient project): https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/

Acid Horizon Research Commons is now live: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-main

Have you ever felt reality glitch, as though the weird was peeking through the cracks of time or the Real? In this episode of LEPHT HAND, JF Martel joins to explore how Henri Bergson’s concept of duration and Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of becoming invite a radically weird subjectivity, one that consumes rhythms, intensities, and habits across time. We discuss how this non-linear conception of time doesn’t just solve problems but also introduces new ones: what does it mean to be a subject in perpetual flux, and is this mysticism, metaphysics, or simply reality hiding behind a theatre of representation? Be sure to check out Weird Studies and JF's course linked below.

Weirdosphere: https://weirdosphere.mn.co/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

The Last of the Last: https://splitinfinities.substack.com/p/the-last-revelation-acephalous-and

The image: https://ifunny.co/picture/acid-horizon-acidhorizonpod-what-i-saw-hiking-in-the-appalachian-qpGW5TdIA

Support LEPHT HAND:

Join the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Merch and Design Shop: crit-drip.com

Acid Horizon Links: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon

Emma's Substack: https://elftheory.substack.com/

Sereptie (ambient project): https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/

Acid Horizon Research Commons is now live: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-main

Subscribe to LEPHT HAND for early access to episodes!

Henri Michaux wrote as if to exorcise himself from existence. His poetry and prose traverse dream, delirium, and the slow undoing of identity, where language becomes both scalpel and spell. In this episode, Garett Strickland joins Sereptie to explore A Certain Plume, Darkness Moves (anthology), and Michaux’s hallucinatory experiments as acts of metaphysical revolt. Together they consider how writing, for Michaux, becomes an art of disappearance—a way of turning life itself into an exorcism.

Acéphalous and Vintagia updates: https://splitinfinities.substack.com/p/acephalous-vintagia-and-new-thresholds?r=g501q

Acéphalous and Vintagia surplus sale coming soon! Keep an eye on acidhorizonpodcast.com and subscribe to this Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Divining Sounds (Open Music + Acid Horizon, November 1st, State College, PA): https://www.instagram.com/p/DP1XfQ1EXEQ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Durations Festival Events

"Five Gates - Disquiet of the Virtual and the Artificial" feat. Jason Bahbek Mohaghegh and Reza Negarastani and Acid Horizon: https://dice.fm/event/v3oy6l-durations-five-gates-disquiet-of-the-virtual-and-the-artificial-8th-nov-public-records-new-york-tickets

Philosophy and Magic w/ Mitch Horowitz, Phil Ford, and Maeg Keane: https://dice.fm/event/bbyrkv-durations-philosophy-and-magic-w-mitch-horowitz-phil-ford-and-maeg-keane-upstairs-7th-nov-public-records-new-york-tickets

Garett Strickland's work

Garett's Substack: portalogy.substack.com

Purchase Garret's Artwork on Instagram: instagram.com/grotstricken

Garett's books:
A Place Beyond: https://asterismbooks.com/product/a-place-beyond
Ungula: https://asterismbooks.com/product/ungula

A Certain Plume: https://www.nyrb.com/products/a-certain-plume
Darkness Moves: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/darkness-moves/paper

Support LEPHT HAND:

Join the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Merch and Design Shop: crit-drip.com

Acid Horizon Links: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon

Emma's Substack: https://elftheory.substack.com/

Sereptie (ambient project): https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/

Acid Horizon Research Commons is now live: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-main