BCNM Around the Web April 2022
Check out the great work of our students, faculty, and alumni around the web this April 2022!
Edgar Fabián Frías and Emma Fraser
They were featured in the roundtable of Art, Life, and Data in the Metaverse on Mar 18, talking about the challenges and opportunities awaiting our curious explorations in this emerging space of critical data futures. Urgent questions emerge about who owns our virtual bodies as they move through the metaverse, from work to play and home. At the same time, new modes of expression through online personas, animations, digital art, simulations, and machine learning promise to reveal new modes of cultural production and ways of living together.
To review this event, please visit here.
Ra Malika Imhotep
Imhotep was the panelist in the event "Then You Don't Want Me": Canonizing Gayl Jones, a virtual symposium , discussing Disability and Mad Studies on MAY.14.This virtual symposium is dedicated to the life and work of African American novelist, poet, and critic Gayl Jones.
Check here for more information.
She was also featured in the panel "Pause and Black Feminist Thought(s)", engaging Black feminist thought/Black feminism(s) and practices as a vehicle to share her Black diaspora.. This panel discusses core questions raised by the SSMF theme: For whom is pause a privilege? For whom is it a need for existence? How do our (media and other) practices respond to the notions of pause?
Please visit here for more information.
Jaclyn Zhou
Zhou moderated the conference "K-Pop Ecologies", focusing on exploring how K-pop as a kind of ecology is marshaled, transformed, operationalized, and deployed across seemingly disparate contexts and zones on MAR.3. Those panelists tried to untangle the complex and multiple layers of politics and populism, science and medicine, digital media and technology, and racialized and gendered embodiment that animate the K-pop ecology.
To look for this event, please visit here!
Camille Crittenden
She was involved as the panelist for CITRIS's Panel "Guiding the University of California’s Responsible Use of AI" on MAR.2. While AI can bring significant benefits, ill-conceived deployments risk imposing disproportionate harms. This panel discussed its final report and next steps to guide UC’s responsible AI strategy.
To learn about this CITRIS Research Exchange Series, please visit here.
Jacob Gaboury
Jacob held a seminar about "Digital Image as Material Object: Archaeologies of Computer Graphics" on MAR.10, sharing his understanding of virtual representation, the theory of computing, and the practice of procedural calculation, which all played a significant role in the development of the computer as a technical medium, and shaped our modern understanding of what computers are for and can do.
To review the event, please visit here.
Hannah Zeavin
Hannah shared her understanding of John C. Lilly's work in a one-day symposium with Jeffrey Mathias (Cornell University). She mainly focused on “The Immersible Family” by John Lilly, which traces the utilization of theories of family communication, mid-century notions of the effects of domestic architecture on family, and psychoanalytic theories of immersive re-mothering as they contributed to the infamous experiments at the Human-Dolphin Center, and later in John C. Lilly’s work with his third wife, Toni Lilly (a family therapist).
For more information on this symposium, please check out here.
Alenda Chang
Alenda Chang was featured in the virtual roundtable hosted by the Liberal Arts Collective at Penn State on MAR.24, sharing her views on the "(Co)Figurations of Future: Ecocritical Approaches to Virtual Worlds".
You can check out this past event here.
Noura Howell
Noura held the panel "Designing For Emotional Meaning-Making With Data" about designing for emotional meaning-making with data on MAR.29. They discussed what role design research can play in imagining and striving for more hopeful, just, and affirmative biopolitical possibilities with biodata.
For more information, please read it here.
Jane McGonigal
On MAR.8, Palo Alto-based game designer Jane McGonigal led a seminar event in ABA's Snow Days online conference, warming up with more than 500 participants in a few rounds of “mental time travel."
On MAR.15, she shared her views on approaches to gaming addiction: guiding responsible gaming habits for children and parents in the WED Forum, which host acclaimed global and local experts and leaders across the public and private sector to explore regional ECD issues and international stakeholder relationships.
On MAR.22, McGonigal's new book was featured in Porchlight as the new release that they are most excited about. According to their marketing team, Imaginable teaches us to be fearless, resilient, and bold in realizing a world with possibilities we cannot yet imagine—until reading this transformative, inspiring, and necessary book.
On MAR.26, Gibson's Bookstore was pleased to join Books & Books, the Miami Book Fair, and indie bookstore partners across America to present Jane McGonigal, in conversation with Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit), discussing McGonigal''s new book, Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything - Even Things that Seem Impossible!
On MAR.29, Jane was in conversation with Felicia Day on LIVE TALKS LOS ANGELES, discussing her book, “Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything―Even Things that Seem Impossible Today”.
On APR.7, Jane McGonigal discussed "How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything" with Margaret Morris from Town Hall Seattle. They reviewed her new book as showing us how to train our minds to think the unthinkable and imagine the unimaginable.
On APR.12, McGonigal held a talk introducing her new book "Imaginable" on Book Passage. This world-renowned future forecaster and game designer teaches the audience to envision the future before it arrives—and gives them the tools to help shape the world they want to live in.
On APR.20, she will lead a 90-minute, introductory-level online learning experience that will teach the audience how to get started with their own creative foresight in the event "IFTF Fast Futures". Foresight is the ability to think effectively about how the future might be different, so you can prepare for anything, and start to make changes in your own life, and in society, for the better. To RSVP, please visit here!
What's more, she also published her concept of Urgent Optimists and established an Institute for the Future's first individual membership program. They’re bringing together people who want to feel authentically hopeful about the future, and who are working to create positive transformation in society and in their own lives.
Kyle Booten
Kyle is guest editing Taper#7, an online literary journal for computational poetry and literary art published twice yearly by Bad Quarto.
To see the call, please visit here.
Tiffany Ng
Tiffany was the panelist in "Tools of Decolonial Art: Languages and Bells" and "‘Your Rhythm Is Rebellion’: Ringing in Postcolonial Carillon Solidarity" presented by Germanic Languages & Literatures at the University of Michigan on MAR.31 and APR.1. The events are part of the event series, Dutch Studies: A Decolonial Revision, celebrating 50 Years of Dutch Studies at the University of Michigan.
To review the events please visit here for the former one and here for the latter one.
Bo Ruberg
Ruberg's "Video Games Have Always Been Queer" was elected as the "top 10 Books About Gaming History That Gamers Will Love" on SCREENRANT. Gamers can get a better appreciation for the gaming industry by learning about its history and the backstories of popular games thanks to these books.
To read the full article, please visit here.
Sonia Katyal, Ken Goldberg, and Trevor Paglen
They held a lecture on artificial intelligence and human values on MAR.3, mainly discussing the topic of excavating "Ground Truth” in AI: Epistemologies and Politics in Training Data with Kate Crawford.
For more information, please read it here.
Janaki Vivrekar
Janaki was one of the speakers in "The Women of Amplitude Present: Building a Career in Product Analytics" on MAR.23, offering an introduction to Product Analytics complete with trivia, prizes for women students exploring a career in tech.
To review the event details, please check them out here.