[Air-L] digital subject symposium 12 May London

[Olga Goriunova]

Dear all,

I am organising the event below. Places are limited, so please make sure
you email me to book a place if you'd like to attend.

best,
olga

Senior Lecturer
Media Arts
Royal Holloway University of London


*Digital Subjects*



*12 May 2016, Senate House, London*



*Organiser:* Olga Goriunova, Royal Holloway University of London

Digital subjects can be many things: a nested set of abstractions assembled
by algorithms; a dynamic data aggregate feeding upon the movement of bodies
in space and time; an experiential, sensuous presence and performance
online. Digital subjects are the subjects of profiles, video channels,
search query histories, inboxes, logs of GPS coordinates, traded data of
financial transactions or travel card usage.



The reason why it's worth calling them subjects are the new ontological and
epistemological demands placed by the rapid development of computational
infrastructures and our cyborgian lives. The question of the digital
subject is a political question wielded by the disciplinary lines of
differentiation. These lines are cut in the thick distance that joins
together human, posthuman, nonhuman and the digital (Goriunova). Some
humanities regard digital subjects from the point of view of the operation
of representational data surveillance (data gathered forms a shadow of the
human (Raley)) and a political/legal question (Rouvroy); some data sciences
ignore the distance and claim that data gives direct access to, in this
case, humans (people are equal to their tweets). Many contemporary art
practices, especially feminist performances online, explore the distance as
a thick field of production that is not fully determined (Scourti).

The aim of the event is to rethink the subject and think the digital
subject from the point of view of different genealogies, reasons,
expressions and logics. What we aim to work towards is not a return to any
previous form of unity, but a way to construct an understanding of
computational kinds of subjects and their ways of generation, production,
and sustenance.

*This is a Royal Holloway’s Humanities and Arts Research Centre event in
cooperation with the Department of Media Arts*





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*PROGRAMME*



*12 May, **Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU*

*ROOM BSQ-SH264*



9.30 Registration

9.45 Introduction



Chair: *Silvia Mollicchi*
10.00 – 10.50 *Lisa Blackman,* Data are Us?  The challenges of
computational cultures for theorising the subject(s) of digital mediation
10.50 - 11.40 *Luciana Parisi,* The Alien Subject of AI



*Coffee break* 11.40 – 11.50



Chair: *Nathan Jones*

11.50 - 12.40 *Katerina Kolozova*, Subjectivity without physicality



*Lunch break* (lunch not provided) 12.40-13.30



Chair: *Scott Wark*

13.30 - 14.20 *Andreas Bernard, *The Knowledge of the Profile. Conceptions
of the Self in Digital Cultures

14.20 - 15.10 *Christoph Engemann,* Declarative & Procedural Identity -
Governmediality after Snowden



*Coffee break* 15.10-15.30



Chair: *Giles Askham*

15.30 - 16.20 *Rózsa Zita Farkas, *Feminist Performance on the Web

16.20 - 17.10 *Erica Scourti, *Evasive Actions: on the Limits of
Intelligibility







*Attendance: free. Please register by emailing Olga Goriunova at
olga.goriunova at rhul.ac.uk <olga.goriunova at rhul.ac.uk>*




Longer description, abstracts and bios can be found online at:

https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/harc/events/eventsarticles/digital-subjects1.aspx