[Air-L] Theorizing the Web Presents: Surveillance of Black Lives

[Tetyana Lokot]

Dear AoIR Community,

As you may have heard, due to the continued impact of Covid-19, we’ve made
the hard decision to cancel Theorizing the Web 2020 at the Museum of the
Moving Image on October 16 & 17. As much as we’d wanted to celebrate 10
years of Theorizing the Web in person, we owe it to you and to all of our
communities not to risk facilitating the spread of the novel coronavirus.

That said, we haven’t given up: Although there won’t be an in-person
conference this year, we’ve come up with something that we hope can fill
the TtW-shaped hole in your hearts and minds. We’re excited to announce *TtW
Presents <https://theorizingtheweb.org/p2020/>*, our new online discussion
series! TtW Presents will feature live video discussions in partnership
with the Museum of the Moving Image. Some of these talks will be in the
style of our evening keynotes, while others will be more like our daytime
sessions.

To kick off *TtW Presents*, we’re launching with a powerful and timely
dialogue: *Dr. Allissa Richardson
<https://annenberg.usc.edu/faculty/allissa-v-richardson>* and *Mutale
Nkonde <https://cyber.harvard.edu/people/mutale-nkonde>* will discuss the
layered and multifaceted impact of surveillance on Black people in the
context of the Movement for Black Lives and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Moderated by TtW Committee member *Dr. Apryl Williams
<https://aprylwilliams.com/>*, this talk will demonstrate how facial
recognition systems used in policing; tracing software associated with the
pandemic; and Black death imagery have created a treacherous
techno-mediascape that extends both state matrices of power and systems of
racialized, anti-Black oppression in the United States. This discussion
will take place on *Thursday, July 16, 2020 at 7PM EDT* and will stream
live both on YouTube <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYaJQAhUEM4>and on
Zoom. A recording will be available on our website
<https://theorizingtheweb.org/p/p2020/video-2/>. You can sign up here
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdVpv43z_TH9YDdj6ZZp0t9-IjlXCPq70Inshr4c3nf-I0gEQ/viewform>
to
receive the Zoom link and reminders about future episodes of TtW Presents.

We also welcome the TtW Presents audience to hang out and discuss the talks
in our new Discord! You can join through this link
<https://discord.gg/4RkEDfK>.

We hope to see you there!

Cheers,
Tanya Lokot (on behalf of the TtW Committee)