Ian Alan Paul (b. 1984, US) is an artist-theorist whose work examines regimes of power and practices of resistance in global contexts.

Ian has developed projects, taught at universities, and lived for extended periods in the United States, Mexico, Spain, Egypt, and Palestine, and has exhibited their work and given lectures internationally. Their practice is formally diverse and influenced by engagements with critical theory, contemporary art, anarchist thought, and digital media studies. They received their PhD in Film and Digital Media Studies from UC Santa Cruz in 2016 and their MFA and MA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2011. Ian presently lives in Barcelona where they are teaching courses at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, finalizing their forthcoming manuscript “The Reticular Society,” and developing an online platform exploring the life and work of the artist Waldemar Cordeiro.

A more extensive biography can be read here, and all inquiries can be sent via the contact form found here or can be mailed directly to elbienmaspreciado at ianalanpaul dot com

Projects & Writing

Are Prisons Computers? ◦ Text ◦ 2022
// a diagram of the historical relationship between the digital and the carceral

Controlling the Crisis ◦ Text ◦ 2020
// an essay that examines the cybernetic policing of migrants in the EU

Notes On Ungovernable Life ◦ Text ◦ 2020
// on life, and its formal incommensurability with governance

Ten Premises For A Pandemic ◦ Text ◦ 2020
// a pandemic isn’t a collection of viruses, but is a social relation among people, mediated by viruses

The Corona Reboot ◦ Text ◦ 2020
// a provisional theorization the new subjectivities in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic

Climate, Capitalism, Control ◦ Video Essay ◦ 2019
// a video essay that diagrams planetary-scale computation, commodification, and climate change

Climate, Capitalism, Control (Script) ◦ Text ◦ 2019
// the script of the video essay “Climate, Capitalism, Control”

The Dis/Appeared ◦ Video Essay ◦ 2018
// a video essay that theorizes colonial regimes of perception in Palestine

The Dis/Appeared (Script) ◦ Text ◦ 2018
// the script of the video essay “The Dis/Appeared”

La Orilla Infinita ◦ Photo Essay ◦ 2018
// a photo essay that explores three histories on the Canary Islands

Negative Monument ◦ Poster ◦ 2018
// an open invitation to engage in the participatory negation of a monument

Ten Preliminary Theses on Trump ◦ Text ◦ 2017
// a set of theses diagramming the significance and consequence of Trump’s election

Conditions of Possibility ◦ Online Documentary ◦ 2016
// an online documentary that theorizes the post-revolution/post-coup period in Egypt

The Guantanamo Bay Museum ◦ Website / Speculative Fiction ◦ 2012-? (Ongoing)
// a critical fiction exploring the legacies of the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities

Texts in Mourning And Action ◦ Electronic Civil Disobedience ◦ 2014
// a networked intervention organized in solidarity with the Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico

A Future Memorial for NAFTA ◦ Public Installation ◦ 2014
// an installation at the Mexico-US Border to mark the 20th anniversary of NAFTA

Bird Migration Authority ◦ Website / Speculative Fiction ◦ 2013
// a critical fiction exploring the aesthetic, ethical, and political policing of migration in the EU

Drone Crash Incident ◦ Performance ◦ 2012
// a drone crash simulated on the campus of UC San Diego

Border Haunt ◦ Electronic Civil Disobedience ◦ 2011
// a collective disruption of the networked policing of the Mexico-US Border