[Air-L] CFP: Slow computing: A workshop on resistance in the algorithmic age (Maynooth, Ireland December 14, 2017)

[Kalpana Shankar]

Posting for a colleague:

http://progcity.maynoothuniversity.ie/2017/08/cfp-slow-computing-a-workshop-on-resistance-in-the-algorithmic-age/

*Call for Papers*

*One-day workshop,* *Maynooth University, Ireland, **December 14th, 2017*

* Hosted by the Programmable City project at Maynooth University Social
Sciences Institute and the Department of Geography*

In line with the parallel concepts of slow food (e.g. Miele & Murdoch 2002)
or slow scholarship (Mountz et al 2015), ‘slow computing’ (Fraser 2017) is
a provocation to resist. In this case, the idea of ‘slow computing’ prompts
users of contemporary technologies to consider ways of refusing the
invitation to enroll in data grabbing architectures – constituted in
complex overlapping ways by today’s technology services and devices – and
by accepting greater levels of inconvenience while also pursuing data
security, privacy, and even a degree of isolation from the online worlds of
social networks.

The case for slow computing arises from the emerging form and nature of
‘the algorithmic age.’ As is widely noted across the sciences today (e.g.
see Boyd & Crawford 2012; Kitchin 2014), the algorithmic age is propelled
forward by a wide range of firms and government agencies pursuing the
roll-out of data-driven and data-demanding technologies. The effects are
varied, differentiated, and heavily debated. However, one obvious effect
entails the re-formatting of consumers into data producers who (knowingly
or unwittingly) generate millions of data points that technology firms can
crunch and manipulate to understand specific markets and society as a
whole, not to mention the public and private lives of everyday users. Once
these users are dispossessed of the value they help create (Thatcher et al
2016), and then conceivably targeted in nefarious ways by advertisers and
political campaigners (e.g. see Winston 2016), the subsequent implications
for economic and democratic life are potentially far-reaching.

As such, as we move further into a world of ‘big data’ and the so-called
‘digital economy,’ there is a need to ask how individuals – as well as
civil society organizations, small firms, small-scale farmers, and many
others – might continue to make appropriate and fruitful use of today’s
technologies, but while also trying to avoid becoming another data point in
the new data-aggregating market. Does slow computing offer a way to
navigate the algorithmic age while taking justice seriously? Can slow
computing become a part of diverse strategies or tactics of resistance
today? Just what are the possibilities and limitations of slow computing?

This one-day workshop invites participation from scholars, practitioners,
artists and others who might be exploring these, or other related
questions, about slow computing. Papers might contain explorations of:

   - Slow computing practices (whether using auto-ethnography, ethnography,
   or other qualitative or quantitative methodologies);
   - How slow computing technologies could be designed for private or
   public institutions;
   - The challenges facing actors who try to unplug, shield, or silo data
   or other products of social life from the digital economy;
   - The socio-political possibilities emerging from efforts to avoid
   data-grabbing architectures;
   - Efforts to raise awareness about the privacy implications of
   contemporary data-grabbing technologies.

Confirmed keynote speaker: Prof. Stefania Milan <https://stefaniamilan.net/>,
University of Amsterdam

Those interested in participating should send a proposed title and abstract
of no more than 250 words to Dr. Alistair Fraser – alistair.fraser at mu.ie –
by *September 29th 2017*. Informal enquiries about the workshop can also be
sent to the co-organizer, Prof. Rob Kitchin: rob.kitchin at mu.ie
-- 
Kalpana Shankar
Professor of Information and Communication Studies
Head of School 2015-2018
School of Information and Communication Studies
University College Dublin
Belfield 4
Dublin
+353(1) 716-8359

kalpana.shankar at ucd.ie