Aesthetics of Postdigital Extremism - One Day Symposium

Programme Overview
Wednesday 13th May 2026  - UEL USS Campus Stratford

09:30 – Registration & Coffee
10:00 – Welcome & Introduction

10:30 – Panel 1: Crisis, Normalisation, and Hope/lessness
11:30 – Break

12:00 – Workshop
13:00 – Lunch

13:45 – Keynote 
14:30 – Panel 2: What can Theatre do about it?
15:30 – Break

15:45 – Workshop
16:45 – Workshop

17:45 – Refreshments
18:00 – Panel 3: Beyond the Manosphere
19:00 – Closing Statement
19:15 – End

Plus installations running throughout the day

This free-to-attend, one-day symposium at The University of East London in collaboration with Rose Bruford College aims to bring together researchers, performance makers, charity organisations, and game designers to examine the aesthetic and performative dimensions of contemporary extremism in digital culture. The event builds on ongoing research into the relationship between performance, participation, and political radicalisation in networked environments as part of Dr Tom Drayton and Dr Joseph Dunne Howrie’s Gaming Democracy research network, and their current co-authored book project - Performance and Postdigital Extremism: Conspiracy, Influencers and Gaming.

Across the past decade, extremist movements have increasingly adopted the cultural logics of participatory media. Conspiracy communities operate through collaborative narrative construction; influencer cultures circulate ideological identities through stylised self-performance; and gaming platforms provide interactive environments in which political world-building, role-play, and forms of ideological rehearsal can take place. These developments suggest that contemporary extremism cannot be understood solely through existing frameworks in extremism and radicalisation research. They also require attention to aesthetics, performance, and the participatory infrastructures of digital culture.

The symposium therefore asks how extremist ideologies are developed, rehearsed and staged through the hybrid media environments that structure everyday life. It also explores how performance artists, theatre-makers, game designers, and cultural practitioners are responding to these conditions through participatory, immersive, and experimental forms.

Rather than a conventional academic conference organised around paper presentations, the event will consist of panel discussions, practice-based workshops, and media installations. These formats are intended to facilitate dialogue between fields that do not often share space: theatre and performance studies, extremism and radicalisation research, digital culture studies, game design, and civic advocacy organisations.

Participants will consider questions including:

• How do contemporary extremist movements mobilise aesthetics, play, and participation to generate belief and community?
• What role do influencers, memes, and algorithmically amplified media cultures play in shaping ideological identities?
• How do gaming environments and virtual platforms enable forms of political world-building and rehearsal?
• What forms of artistic or cultural intervention might help expose, disrupt, or reimagine these dynamics?

The symposium aims to create a collaborative space in which scholars, practitioners, and civic organisations can share perspectives, develop new conversations, and explore the role of creative practice in responding to the evolving landscape of postdigital extremism.

We are especially keen to support early career researchers and PhD students to attend. A small number of access funds are available to contribute towards travel costs. If this would make a difference to your ability to attend, please do get in touch -  Joseph.dunne-howrie[at]bruford.ac.uk and t.drayton[at]uel.ac.uk.

This symposium is supported by The University of East London and Rose Bruford College, as well as UEL’s Centre for Social Change and Justice.