IAS faculty and students speak at Allied Media Conference in Detroit

allied media conference

IAS faculty member Scott Kurashige will speak in the Opening Ceremony of the 2017 Allied Media Conference (AMC). Kurashige, author of The Fifty Year Rebellion, will ground the work of AMC in the context of Detroit as an international model for survival, resistance, and solidarity.

IAS faculty member micha cárdenas and Master of Arts in Cultural Studies graduate student Frances Lee presented their Boundaries Project, from the Poetic Operations Collaborative, in the AMC plenary on “Data and Power.” The slides for the “Data and Power” presentation are available online.

The plenary description follows: State surveillance, biometrics, racist algorithms, and more – it is easy to become fearful and overwhelmed when it comes to data. And yet, our communities are resilient and full of genius. Beyond the many hands-on tools of circumvention and protection we share at the AMC, we need creativity and inspiration when it comes to data too. This plenary will highlight the work of three artists who transform the fear of data and surveillance into power and healing: instagram poetry that makes security culture accessible and compelling; a father’s FBI file reclaimed and transformed into art; an open source software for surveilling the surveyors and fostering cross-movement collaborations.

More information is available on the conference website.

Image from Boundaries Project, 2017, courtesy of micha cárdenas and Frances Lee.