CDCI Symposium – Game Over: Subverting the ‘Smart’ City 

Featuring the boardgame Deliverights, designed by alum Lisa Wiesenhaan!

Thursday 26th January 2023 – 10.30am – 3pm
M2 Boardroom, Grand Parade, University of Brighton.
This symposium examines possibilities for direct action in the age of the ‘smart’ city. In the morning participants will engage in radical play through the board game  Deliverights (co-developed by University of Brighton, MA Digital Media, Culture and Society alumni Lisa Wiesenhaan). After lunch  Dr Alison Powell (LSE) explores models of governance embedded within ‘smart’ cities and  Shiri Shalmy (Women’s Strike / Anti-university / Co-operative Towns) will reflect on methods of subverting forms of control through collective action. This in-person event is led by  Dr Kevin Biderman (School of Arts and Media, University of Brighton) and supported by the Centre for Digital Cultures and Innovation. Tickets are free but capacity is limited due to covid safety restrictions.
Please sign up here  for  Game Over: Subverting the ‘Smart’ City.
Image caption: Image by Lisa Wiesenhaan – Deliverights game created by Lisa Wiesenhaan, Josh Stones, Thomas Sibbald and Murray Gordon
Schedule: 
Arrival 10.30 Tea and Coffee
11am Welcome and introduction
11.15 Deliver-rights game play
12.15 Lunch and informal discussion
12.45pm Long table reflection with presentations by Alison Powell and Shiri Shalmy
2pm – Comfort break
2.15 – Closing statements (with Q&A) [3pm finish]
Please circulate. This is a free event and all are welcome

MA DMCS Alumna Emilia Croce publishes journal article in peer reviewed Visual Studies

Congratulations Emilia – on a great and topical research project!

Spaces in between: using the Zwischenraum to explore the archiving practices of young expats in Berlin explores whether living in temporary accommodations affects the management of personal photographs and, vice versa, to which extent archiving practices have impact on the perception of precarious environments.

Article accessible here: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/NYVX9VC5RVUV8QANBC4T/full?target=10.1080/1472586X.2022.2056078

AI: the advent of deus-ex-machina in architecture, city, and…

Wednesday 28th April 14:00-15:00
 
Join the Centre for Digital Media Cultures for the third of four events in this CDMC Seminar Series hosted by Dr Marcus Winter
Research Theme Lead for Public Understanding of Artificial Intelligence
 University of Brighton’s Centre for Digital Media Cultures
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ai-the-advent-of-deus-ex-machina-dr-poorang-piroozfar-tickets-149911522399

The Centre for Digital Media Cultures is hosting an event today, Wednesday, 28 April, 14:00-15:00 on our Public Understanding of AI.

Dr Poorang Piroozfar, University of Brighton

If architecture and urban design are broadly regarded as a subset of problem-solving process, which includes all or a number of its constituents, then some of reiterative processes along the way can be managed through AI and machine-assisted algorithms. AI, in close conjunction with ML with a reiterative and accelerated solution-based learning process enabled through machine operations, is well situated to generate solutions to design problems. However, with special focus of AI on results or solutions, there is very little room left, if any, for non-materialistic values such as ethics. This talk concentrates on issues which may arise as a consequence and facilitates an open discussion on what can/need to be done to prevent or address such potential problems.

Dr Poorang PIROOZFAR is a reader in Architectural Technology and Digital Construction in School of Environment and Technology, University of Brighton where he also leads the Digital Construction Lab. Poorang’s research as an architect, urban designer, and architectural technologist, spans over a variety of areas with a Multi-, Cross-, Inter- and Trans-disciplinary nature. As a designer he is interested in design research both generally and in the fields of architecture and urbanism. As an architectural engineer his research investigates the drivers, requirements, benefits and responses to deployment of advanced technologies in architecture, the built environment, and construction and triangulates people, society, environment, information, and technology to find out the most viable solutions.

Photoworks Festival 2020

Photoworks Festival
2020 Festival Propositions for Alternative Narratives

Photoworks champions photography for everyone. We are an international platform, global in reach, and have provided opportunities for artists and audiences since 1995. We do not have a physical venue, but our online channels are always open. Our programme brings new experiences to audiences and opens up new ways to encounter photography.

Photoworks is a registered charity and the only organisation with a national remit for photography in England. Our work is supported by public funding through Arts Council England’s National Portfolio.

Photoworks is led by Shoair Mavlian, Director.

Link to events:

https://photoworks.org.uk/festival2020/events/

 

Working with Datasets: digital Programme Photographers Gallery London

https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/talks-and-events-digital-project/working-datasets

Working with Datasets:

Thursday 15 October
18.00 – 20.00 BST
Pay what you can, Book now

An online roundtable discussion concluding Data / Set / Match, a programme exploring the crucial role of photographic datasets in the development of machine vision and artificial intelligence.

While the first symposium, What Does The Dataset Want?, focused on the significance of the digitised image, this conversation will consider the acts of closely looking and working with datasets. Analysing the ways in which data has been collected, configured and signified, the event aims to help understand how the rise of machine learning is both exacerbating and unveiling inherited historic structures of power

This discussion will first consider the scale, accessibility and politics of image datasets that the artists experienced while working on their projects. Following this, the conversations will widen to a broad set of questions around datasets, looking, labour, language, categorisation, parameters, precarity, and futures.

Speakers include:

Philipp Schmitt, artist, designer and researcher.
xtine burrough, media artist and educator
Sabrina Starnaman, a professor at humanities department at The University of Texas at Dallas US
Everest Pipkin, drawing and software artist
Ramon Amaro, lecturer in Art and Visual Cultures of the Global South, Department of History of Art, UCL
Nicolas Malevé, visual artist, computer programmer and data activist.
Anna Ridler, artist and researcher
And more to be confirmed.

Recommended readings

An Introduction to Image Datasets, Nicolas Malevé
On Lacework: Watching and entire machine-learning dataset by Everest Pipkin
Recovering Lost Narrative In Epic Kitchens, by xtine burrough and Sabrina Starnaman
Tunnel Vision, by Philipp Schmitt

Biographies

Everest Pipkin is a drawing and software artist currently based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who produces intimate work with large data sets. Through the use of online archives, big data repositories, and other resources for digital information, they aim to reclaim the corporate internet as a space that can be gentle, ecological, and personal.

xtine burrough is a new media artist. She regularly participates in international festivals of digital art and has authored or edited several books including Foundations of Digital Art and Design (2013, 2nd Edition 2019), Net Works: Case Studies in Web Art and Design (2011), and The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies (2015). She is Professor in The School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication at UT Dallas.

Sabrina Starnaman is Associate Professor of Instruction in Literary Studies. Her research focuses on Progressive Era (1880-1930) American texts about social settlements and women’s activism, urbanism, and disability. Dr. Starnaman’s research explores how nineteenth-century activists remediated exploitative labor practices, racism, and poverty. She is interested in finding ways that their historical solutions, often implemented locally, can be brought to bear on similar problems in the twenty-first century.

Philipp Schmitt is an artist, designer, and researcher based in Brooklyn, NY. His practice engages with the philosophical, poetic, and political dimensions of computation by examining the ever-shifting discrepancy between what is computable in theory and in reality. His current work addresses notions of opacity, and the automation of perception in artificial intelligence research.

Dr Ramon Amaro is Lecturer in Art and Visual Culture of the Global South at UCL. He is a former Research Fellow in Digital Culture at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam and visiting tutor in Media Theory at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, NL (KABK) and thesis at Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE). Dr Amaro completed his PhD in Philosophy at Goldsmiths, while holding a Masters degree in Sociological Research from the University of Essex and a BSe in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has worked as Assistant Editor for the SAGE open access journal Big Data & Society; quality design engineer for General Motors; and programmes manager for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). His research interests include machine learning, the philosophies of mathematics and engineering, Black Study, computational reason, and philosophies of being. Dr Amaro is under contract from Sternberg/MIT Press to write a monograph on machine learning, race, and the philosophy of being, provisionally titled Machine Learning, Sociogeny and the Substance of Race. He is also co-founder of Queer Computing Consortium (QCC), which investigates the “languages” of computation and its role in shaping locally embedded community practices.

Nicolas Malevé is a visual artist, computer programmer and data activist who lives and works between Brussels and London.  Nicolas is currently working on a Phd thesis on the algorithms of vision at the London South Bank University. He is a member of Constant and the Scandinavian Institute for Computational Vandalism.

Anna Ridler is an artist and researcher who lives and works in London.  She is interested in systems of knowledge and works with new technologies, exploring how they are created in order to better understand society and the world. Her process often involves working with collections of information or data, particularly self-generated datasets, to create new and unusual narratives in a variety of mediums and how new technologies, such as machine learning, can be used to translate them to an audience. Her work has been exhibited widely at cultural institutions worldwide including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Barbican Centre, Centre Pompidou, HeK Basel, The Photographers’ Gallery, the ZKM Karlsruhe, and Ars Electronica.

Virtual Ticket

In light of this unprecedented and challenging time, The Photographers’ Gallery remains committed to its community of photographers and artists, freelance staff, and those involved in our youth programmes. Given the varying pressures some individuals may be facing, we are introducing the virtual ticket, asking people to pay what they can.

Get your virtual tickets through the book now button above.

By booking for this event you agree to our Terms & Conditions

working with data sets
Photographers Gallery event

Data Setes#DataSetMatch

 

SHIELDING: A sculptural installation by internationally renowned artist Anna Dumitriu 9 October 2020 13:00 – 14:00

Online launch of the virtual exhibition of SHIELDING: A sculptural installation by internationally renowned artist Anna Dumitriu, in collaboration with the domestic abuse charity RISE. Commissioned by the University of Brighton research project ART/DATA/HEALTH: data as creative material for health and well being, and supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.Join us for a Q&A with Anna Dumitriu and Dr Aristea Fotopoulou (PI ART/DATA/HEALTH), about the production of the artwork, about how art can help create meaning from complex health data and uncover hidden narratives, and about the impact of the COVID-19 quarantine on women facing domestic abuse.

Send us your questions in advance at info@artdatahealth.org or Twitter @artdatahealth1 using hashtag #shielding

To watch the film visit: https://www.artdatahealth.org/shielding/

Shielding
Anna Dumitriu – ART DATA HEALTH

 

www.riseuk.org.uk
www.annadumitriu.co.uk

Dr Tanya Kant (University of Sussex) Making It Personal: Web personalisation, selfhood and algorithmic tactics 

The School of Media at the University of Brighton

is delighted to be hosting the first in a series of online research seminars:

Wednesday 13th May 2020 4.00pm-5.30pm

Attend via web browser here: https://tinyurl.com/y7vc2zus

Dr Tanya Kant (University of Sussex)

Making It Personal:

Web personalisation, selfhood and algorithmic tactics 

Targeted advertisements, tailored information feeds, and recommended content are now common and somewhat inescapable components of our everyday lives. With the help of searches, browsing history, purchases, likes, and other digital interactions, technological experiences are now routinely “personalised.” Companies with access to this information often downplay the fact that users’ personal data serves as a key form of monetisation, and their privacy policies tend to use the terms ‘personalisation’ and ‘customisation’ to legitimise the practice of tracking and algorithmically anticipating users’ daily movements.

This presentation explores the socio-cultural implications of this commercial drive to personalise, especially in relation to web users’ autonomy, knowledge production and performative identity practice. Drawing on the lived experiences of web users who confront personalisation as a market-driven everyday encounter, I explore how platforms’ efforts to personalise online engagements creates epistemic uncertainties for those anticipated by algorithms, produces a struggle for autonomy between the dividuated user and ‘personalised’ system, and imposes tense formations of identity configuration capable of performatively reconstituting users’ sense of self.

 

Tanya Kant is Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies (Digital Media) at the University of Sussex, UK. She is author of Making It Personal: Algorithmic Personalization, Identity and Everyday Life (2020, Oxford University Press) and is Co-Managing Editor of the open access, multimedia publishing platform REFRAME.

Contact: Gemma Cobb g.cobb@brighton.ac.uk

All welcome, no booking required

Maria Amidu Art Installation

From the Socially Engaged Art Salon Brighton
Maria Amidu’s installation is now available as an online exhibition –

You can virtually visit the exhibition here: 

https://gilmdoron.wixsite.com/somewhere
Maria will talk about her project and about socially engaged art in the time of social distancing.
More info here:
https://www.mariaand.co/maria-amidu/
SEAS Brighton is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
 

Saturday, May 9th, 14:00. Please bring to the meeting / the table your favourite dessert.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/76831220281?pwd=a1pwTUFvTjdkcUtBK2dGaDNnejVOQT09

Meeting ID: 768 3122 0281
Password: seas09