The event is part of the Trajectories II: Technology Never Sleeps project

How have digital infrastructures become an immersive environment in which the physical and informational are intertwined?

The world we live in is filled with visible and invisible infrastructures that we have in most cases no choice than to accept. Wi-fi coverage, social media algorithms, invisible flows, data – can technology reject us? Control us? Are we trapped within a system or – on the contrary –  are we in charge?

Theorists, curators and artists will focus on these subjects through presentation of their research and artistic projects and investigate what are the routes for further exploration.

12:00 START

12:00 Introduction: Klio Krajewska

12:10 Keynote: Christopher Williams “Tower power: The arts of e-coms omnipotence”

12:40 Artist talk: Tendayi Vine “Invisible Vista”

LUNCH BREAK 13:15 -14:15

14:15 Curator talk: Joasia Krysa “Art that exposes: temporalities and hidden layers of technological infrastructures (with projects drawn from Liverpool Biennial)”

14:45 Artist talk: Dani Ploeger “Extreme Everyday Gadgets”

15:15 Artist talk: Nye Thompson “Potted Plant – Human – Universe. The cool objectification of the machine gaze”

15:45 Panel discussion with Q&A “Digital infrastructures and artistic practice” with Joasia Krysa, Nye Thompson, Dani Ploeger and Christopher Williams

16:30 END

This is a FREE Event but you are still required to book a ticket

SPEAKERS

Christopher Williams (AGSM, PhD, FRSA) is an independent academic, and visiting Fellow at the University of London (Institute of Education). He has also held posts at the universities of Bristol (Medical School), Birmingham (College of Social Science), Cairo (Conservatoire of Music), Cambridge (Global Security Programme), London (Education and Development), and the United Nations (Leadership Academy).

Originally a professional trumpeter, his international interests started with a student visit to USSR in 1972 (without his parents’ knowledge), across the Berlin Wall to Warsaw Pact countries in 1973, and then to Communist China. From 1980, he worked at Cairo University, to replace Soviet staff thrown-out in response to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, and experienced the assassination of Sadat and dictatorship of Mubarak. He then broke boycotts to work in apartheid South African, setting up projects for street children. Later he joined the United Nations Leadership Academy in Jordan, but had to leave during the build-up to the US/UK occupation of Iraq.

Joasia Krysa is curator and currently Professor of Exhibition Research at Liverpool John Moores University with a joint appointment at Liverpool Biennial. Formerly, she was Artistic Director of Kunsthal Aarhus, Denmark (2012-15), and served as part of curatorial team for Documenta 13 (2012) and co-curator of Liverpool Biennial 2016. She is series editor of DATA Browser books (Open Humanities Press), Commissioning Editor of Liverpool Biennial Journal Stages, and is currently appointed advisor for Helsinki Biennial 2020. Recent publications include edited books Systemics, or Exhibition as a Series (Sternberg Press, 2017), Writing and Unwriting Media Art History (MIT Press 2015), and chapters in Networks (Whitechapel/MIT 2014) and The Routledge Companion to Art and Politics (2015). She is currently developing exhibition projects Quantum Real: Art and Particles (with Lars Bang Larsen, 2019-20) and The Next Documenta Should be Curated by a Machine (with Ubermorgen, 2020-21).

https://www.biennial.com/about/staff

Dani Ploeger combines performance, video, computer programming and electronics hacking to investigate and subvert the spectacles of techno-consumer culture. Re-purposing, mis-using, and at times destroying everyday devices, his work exposes seemingly banal and taken-for-granted aspects of digital culture as objects of both physical beauty and political power.

Among others, he has worked with traditional metal workers in the old city of Cairo to encase tablet computers in plate steel, attended firearms training in Poland to shoot an iPad with an AK47, made a VR installation while embedded with frontline troops in the Donbass War, and travelled to dump sites in Nigeria to collect electronic waste originating from Europe.

https://www.daniploeger.org/

Nye Thompson is an artist turned software designer turned artist again. Born in 1966 she studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths, before moving into software design with the emergence of web technologies.

She now creates data-generating artist software systems to explore the impact of new technology paradigms. She has exhibited around UK and Europe, including Tate Modern, The V&A, ZKM Karlsruhe and The Lowry. Her first solo show Backdoored.io became global clickbait and triggered a complaint by a major government. Her work has been featured on BBC, C4 News, CNN, the Guardian and Wired, and was guest presenter on BBC Radio 4’s programme ‘The Art of Now: Surveillance’. She was recently longlisted for the Lumen Prize 2018. Nye lives and works in London.

http://nyethompson.co.uk

Tendayi Vine is an artist and designer who investigates the multifaceted identity of our digital landscape and the spatial narratives created by actual and virtual environments. Through research and experimentation, her practice focuses on designing immersive situations in which the effects of new technologies can be discussed.

https://www.tkvine.com/