On Digital Colonialism and 'Other' Futures
with Morehshin Allahyari
Artist, New York
Presented in partnership with the Wiesenfeld Visiting Artist Lecture Series, the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Stanford University and in collaboration with the Berkeley Arts and Design initiative as part of A+D Mondays @ BAMPFA.
This talk requires a (free) seat reservation. Reservations will be made available to book at 10am on 3/08 here. These tickets are first-come, first-served. Please note that this event is part of the Berkeley Center for New Media's Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium, held in conjunction with Arts + Design Mondays @ BAMPFA. All lectures are held in BAMPFA’s Osher theater. Reservations are limited to the amount of seats available in the theater.
SEAT RESERVATIONS POLICY: You are only permitted to reserve one seat at a time (one name per reservation). If you are able to secure a seat reservation, please be aware that if you are not seated in the theater by 6:30pm, we will be opening up the theater to people waiting at the door. We will not be holding seats and will not allow anyone in the theater to save seats for late attendees. At 6:30pm, A+D staff will fill any remaining seats in the theater on a first come, first serve basis with people who have opted to stand in line at the door. Please know that if you choose to stand in line at the door without a reservation, we cannot promise that any seats will become available.
If you would like to receive lecture reminders from the Berkeley Center for New Media, please fill out this form: http://eepurl.com/388ar
Don't forget to book your tickets online through Eventbrite!
For her talk Morehshin Allahyari will discuss some of her previous projects focused on topics such as 3D fabrication, activism, digital colonialism, monstrosity and fabulation. She will use this talk as a platform to show the possibilities of art-making beyond aesthetics or visualization. She will posit and contextualize “a position outside” that asks difficult questions and suggests alternative methods.
About Morehshin Allahyari
Morehshin Allahyari (b. 1985 in Tehran, Iran) is a media artist, activist, educator, and curator who uses computer modeling, 3D scanning and digital fabrication techniques to explore the intersection of art and activism. Inspired by concepts of collective archiving, memory, and cultural contradiction, Allahyari’s 3D printed sculptures and videos challenge social and gender norms. “I want my work to respond to, resist and criticize the current political and cultural situation that we experience on a daily basis,” she explains.
She is developing a new body of work on digital colonialism and ‘re-figuring’ as a feminist and de-colonialist practice, titled She Who Sees the Unknown. Researching female monsters, jinn and dark goddesses of Middle-Eastern origin, Allahyari devises narratives through practices of magic and poetic-speculative storytelling, re-appropriation of traditional mythologies, collaging, meshing, scanning, and archiving. Continued development of the project is supported by a joint commission from The Whitney Museum of Art, Liverpool Biennale, and FACT, as well as a 2018 Rhizome Commission.
Recent accolades include a research residency at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center (2016-17), a sculpture award from the Institute of Digital Art (2016), and Foreign Policy Magazine named her a Leading Global Thinker of 2016. Other outlets featuring her work include Huffington Post, Wired, NPR, National Geographic, Rhizome, Hyperallergic and Dazed Digital. Her work has been part of numerous exhibitions, festivals, and workshops at venues throughout the world, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Centre Pompidou in Paris, France; Venice Biennale di Archittectura; Pori Museum, Finland and Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Germany. Allahyari received her MFA at the University of North Texas, MA at University of Denver and her BA at the University of Tehran, Iran. She is co-creator of the 3D Additivist Manifesto and subsequent 3D Additivist Cookbook.
About the Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium
Founded by Prof. Ken Goldberg in 1997, the ATC lecture series is an internationally respected forum for creative ideas. Always free of charge and open to the public, the series is coordinated by the Berkeley Center for New Media and has presented over 200 leading artists, writers, and critical thinkers who question assumptions and push boundaries at the forefront of art, technology, and culture including: Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, Sophie Calle, Bruno Latour, Maya Lin, Doug Aitken, Pierre Huyghe, Miranda July, Billy Kluver, David Byrne, Gary Hill, and Charles Ray.
Fall 2018 – Spring 2019: Fact & Fiction
What do we make now of this classic opposition? For centuries, artists and critics have placed pressure on both of these terms, often asking us to question how to separate truth from lies, the real from the artificial, and fact from fiction. Addressing a range of political contexts and utilizing an array of creative forms, speakers in this series offer new approaches to these age-old questions.
The Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium is presented in conjunction with Arts + Design Mondays at BAMPFA.
Monday Evenings, 6:30-8:00pm
Osher Theater, BAMPFA, Berkeley, CA
http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/visit/getting-here
Seating free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted
2018
09/10 Roxane Gay: With One N
Roxane Gay, Author, Indiana
Registration required via Eventbrite.
10/08 The Networked Avant-Garde
Kelani Nichole, Director The Current, New York
In partnership with the Wiesenfeld Visiting Artist Lecture Series
10/15 Image and Amnesia
Kerry Tribe, Artist, LA, CA
In partnership with the Wiesenfeld Visiting Artist Lecture Series
10/29 The Good Anthropocene: Terraforming Earth
Kim Stanley Robinson, Author, Davis, CA
In partnership with the Department of Architecture's Studio One
11/19 Daemons Tools Art Tech
Marisa Morán Jahn, Artist, Cambridge, MA
2019
02/11 News of the Future and the Future of News
Kevin Delaney, Editor, Quartz
In partnership with the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
02/25 In and out of the Body and into the Machine
Chico Macmurtrie, Artist, New York
03/04 A Conversation with Nnedi Okorafor
Nnedi Okorafor, Artist, Olympia Fields, IL
In partnership with the Department of Architecture's Studio One,
the Department of African American Studies,
and the Department of English
03/18 On Digital Colonialism and 'Other' Futures
Morehshin Allahyari, Artist, New York
In partnership with the Wiesenfeld Visiting Artist Lecture Series
and the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation
and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies
and Stanford University
Registration required via Eventbrite
04/01 A Body Without Borders
Rhonda Holberton, Artist, Oakland
In partnership with the Wiesenfeld Visiting Artist Lecture Series
04/29 Places in Space
Adam Savage, Mythbusters, SF
In partnership with the Department of Architecture's Studio One
Registration required via Eventbrite
For updated information, maps, please see:
Contact: info.bcnm [at] berkeley.edu, 510-495-3505
ATC Director: Ken Goldberg
BCNM Director: Nicholas de Monchaux
Arts + Design Director: Shannon Jackson
BCNM Liaisons: Lara Wolfe, Laurie Macfee
ATC Home Page (list of speakers, directions, mailing list):
ATC Highlight Video from F10-S11 Season (2 mins)
http://j.mp/atc-highlights-hd
ATC Audio-Video Archive on Brewster Kahle's Internet Archive:
http://tinyurl.com/atc-internet-archive
ATC on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/cal-atc
ATC on Twitter:
https://www.twitter.com/cal_atc
Arts + Design Mondays @ BAMPFA is organized and sponsored by UC Berkeley’s Arts + Design Initiative. The series is co curated by Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium at the Berkeley Center for New Media; Department of Art Practice; Graduate School of Journalism; Townsend Center for the Humanities; The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, and in collaboration with the Headlands Center for the Arts; Fort Mason Center/COAL + ICE; CIEE; Art21; and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
The 2018-19 series of Arts + Design Mondays is made possible thanks to a generous donation from Jacqueline Jackson and other supporters of Berkeley Arts + Design.