DISCO Michigan Hub | U-M Digital Studies Institute

July 17, 2023 - July 28, 2023

This iteration of Digital IDEAS focused on the intertwining relations between digital and physical with a focus on impacts to environments, bodies, and space. If, at one time, the digital or virtual was understood to be an immaterial realm distinct from our pedestrian, physical one, much scholarship over the past decade has attuned us to the complex networks of relationships that simultaneously constitute both. The ambient hum of ubiquitous digitality pervades every sphere of life, giving rise to and shaping new forms of physical space and embodiment, while the deficiencies of physical infrastructure and the specter of climate collapse bridle digital access and development. 

During the Summer Institute, we continued critical examinations of these entanglements and focused our conversations on the asymmetrical power relationships and spatial manifestations embedded within. We took a broad understanding of environment, encompassing the places we live and work, IRL and online communities, and climate systems precariously on the edge of collapse. We thought of spaces and bodies as situations of exchange, mutually constituted and transformed by digital and physical structures. Too often, the technological transformations affecting our world and ourselves at a dizzying pace are hidden from clear view, occurring in the black box of the algorithm or the board room. Digital Physical Entanglements brought together eminent scholars, artists, and practitioners working to illuminate the interconnected forces that structure digital technology and its critical impact on our material lives. We were able to engage these ideas through intentional conversation, reflection, workshopping, and community.

BCaT Lab | University of Maryland

April 21, 2023

In this talk, Dr. Walcott defines and locates the emergence of a Black British English discursive style as a fluctuating, hybridised style of English that builds on multiple influences, from the global Black diaspora, to English regional dialects, and is mediated by digital culture.

See the flier on Deep Blue.

DISCO Michigan Hub | U-M Digital Studies Institute

April 20, 2023

Each DISCO Graduate Scholar will give a “lightning talk” on their research affiliated with their DISCO Network lab. The DISCO Graduate Scholars Program is designed for graduate student researchers committed to developing interdisciplinary work in collaboration with our Co-Principal Investigators and postdoctoral fellows.

Watch on YouTube or Deep Blue.

BCaT Lab | University of Maryland

April 19, 2023

Kristan Jones-Scales is Director of Brand Management for Boys & Girls Clubs of America. She is responsible for increasing brand understanding and adoption of national brand campaigns for BGCA's 5000 Clubs across the globe.

See the flier on Deep Blue.

Future Histories Studio | Stonybrook University

April 18, 2023

Miljohn Ruperto is a cross-disciplinary artist working across photography, cinema, performance, and digital animation. His work refers to historical and anecdotal occurrences, and speculates on the nature of assumed facts and the construction of truth. Often involving replicas, modified versions, and enactments, Ruperto takes cultural and historical references and untethers them from their original context to challenge our perception and generate something altogether new. Through a richness and diversity of lenses and preferencing the obscure, mysterious and the magical, his work challenges fixed conceptions of truth and history, and instead speaks of an indeterminacy and subjectivity of experience that renders truth and fiction near indistinguishable.

Future Histories Studio | Stonybrook University

April 11, 2023

Glenn Cantave is an activist, performance artist, and social entrepreneur. Past pieces include running the NYC Marathon in Chains, a slave auction pop/up AR exhibit and a 30 day water fast in Times Square for the duration of Black History Month 2020 calling for a more equitable blueprint of NYC. Glenn was recently named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for education entrepreneurs, he is also a Camelback Fellow, and Eyebeam Alum. His TED Talk on ‘How Augmented Reality is Changing Activism’ was featured on the homepage of TED.com in July 2019. He is also the Co-Founder of Kinfolk, a nonprofit that uses the arts and emerging technology to maximize the impact and accessibility of Black and Brown Narratives. Kinfolk was recently featured at the New York, New Publics Exhibit at the MoMA and recently won the Special Jury Prize at Tribeca Festival.

Future Histories Studio | Stonybrook University

April 11, 2023

Valencia James is a Barbadian freelance performer, maker and researcher interested in the intersection between dance, theatre, technology and activism. Valencia’s work explores remote interdisciplinary collaboration with creative technologists and how emerging technologies like machine learning and computer vision might enhance creativity in her contemporary dance practice and vice-versa. This research has resulted in collaboratively built, novel open-source software tools that push the boundaries of live performance.

PREACH Lab | Georgia Institute of Technology

April 5, 2023

BCaT Lab | University of Maryland

March 31, 2023

The list of African American storytellers whose works contain a multitude of reference points goes on and on. Frederick Douglass. W. E. B. Du Bois. Zora Neale Hurston. Toni Morrison. Colson Whitehead. How might we design animated and digital stories that capture the bibliographic and quantitative narratives that emerge by studying African American artistic culture?

See the flier on Deep Blue.

PREACH Lab | Georgia Institute of Technology

March 29, 2023

The talk will connect the work of Daniels' most recent book Nice White Ladies: The Truth about White Supremacy, Our Role in It, and How We Can Help Dismantle It with the issues and concerns of equity and access addressed by the PREACH Lab.

See the flier on Deep Blue.

HAT Lab | Purdue University

March 29, 2023

A conversation on Blackness, sneaker culture and industry, and community.

Watch on YouTube or Deep Blue.

Future Histories Studio | Stonybrook University

March 29, 2023

Future Histories Studio | Stonybrook University

March 28, 2023

Dorothy R. Santos, Ph.D. (she/they) is a Filipino American storyteller, poet, artist, and scholar. She earned her Ph.D. in Film and Digital Media with a designated emphasis in Computational Media from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor for the Everett Program for Technology and Social Change in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

HAT Lab | Purdue University

March 23, 2023

Over the past year, CRT has been a source of discussion everywhere -in the media, in school board meetings, in classrooms- and has generated many questions. During this session, Taifha Alexander, UCLA Law CRT Forward Project Director, will discuss CRT, its founding, and contributions, and the recent assault on the theory. Audience Q&A will follow.

See the flier on Deep Blue.

Future Histories Studio | Stonybrook University

March 8, 2023

Future Histories Studio | Stonybrook University

March 7, 2023

Born in Poland and based in New York City, Kurant probes the “unknown unknowns” of knowledge and the speculations and exploits of capitalism by integrating elements of science and philosophy, and analyzing certain phenomena—collective intelligence, emergence, virtual capital, immaterial and digital labor, evolution of memes, civilizations and social movements, artificial societies, energy circuits, and the editing process—as political acts. She explores the hybrid and shifting status of objects in relation to value, aura, authorship, production, and circulation. Many of her works emulate nature and behave like living organisms, self-organized complex systems, or bachelor machines.

DISCO Michigan Hub | U-M Digital Studies Institute

February 23, 2023

Join four of our DISCO Network Fellows for short talks on the future of race, gender, disability, and technology with David Adelman (U-Michigan) on “desire”, Aaron Dial (Purdue University) on “algo (rhy) thm”, Lida Zeitlin-Wu (U-Michigan) on “color”, and Coleman Collins (Stonybrook University) on “debt”.

Watch on YouTube or Deep Blue.

DISCO Michigan Hub | U-M Digital Studies Institute

February 16, 2023

DISCO Michigan Hub | U-M Digital Studies Institute

February 15, 2023

DISCO Michigan Hub | U-M Digital Studies Institute

February 7, 2023

Join Lydia X. Z. Brown in conversation with Remi Yergeau and David Adelman. Lydia X. Z. Brown's work focuses on unearthing, examining, and challenging the intersectional harms of algorithmic technologies on disabled people living at the margins of the margins.

See the flier on Deep Blue.

DISCO Michigan Hub | U-M Digital Studies Institute

January 25, 2023

The value of visibility is contingent on a variable, embodyminded social currency. Being seen tends to benefit most the people whose bodies and minds adhere closest to norms structured by whiteness, cisnormativity, and abledness. In their interactive talk, J. Logan Smilges shows how queer and otherwise marginalized populations navigate the risks that subtend their precarious visibility. Centering their analysis on the dating app Grindr, Smilges introduces profile pictures as a digital site for rhetorical quieting--a strategy whereby users regulate how their bodyminds signify to people around them. As part of their talk, Smilges will offer an opportunity for attendees to evaluate how their own social media use is situated within a political matrix of presence and absence.

Watch on YouTube or Deep Blue.

DAF Lab | University of Michigan

December 15, 2022

Meet other disabled or neurodivergent undergraduates and learn about disability resources, classes, and events on campus.

See the flier on Deep Blue.

BCaT Lab | University of Maryland

December 9, 2022

HAT Lab | Purdue University

December 1, 2022

This talk proposes a new feminist media theory that positions the platform as a media object that elevates and amplifies some voices over others while rendering marginal resistance tactics illegible. Singh develops the term “Platform Feminism” to describe an emerging view of digital platforms as an always-already useful form of empowerment. Singh argues that Platform Feminism has come to structure and dominate popular imaginaries of feminist politics.

See the flier on Deep Blue.

Watch on YouTube or Deep Blue.

HAT Lab | Purdue University

Fall 2022

Presentation given by Aaron Dial to Purdue University American Studies graduate students in Fall 2022. This event was hosted by the DISCO Network's Humanity and Technoscience Lab.

See slides on Deep Blue.

HAT Lab | Purdue University

November 22, 2022

Presented at Purdue University. Videogames are powerful tools for imagining new futures. In this talk, Madison Schmalzer explores the potential for articulating and embodying trans subjectivities through "trans play," in particular focusing on speedrunning: the practice of playing videogames as fast as possible. She will show how the communal and individual labor that produces speedrunning also indexes desires and orientations towards technology that center social and technological glitches which have the power to short circuit the technologies around us, allowing for new technological subjectivities to unfold.

See the flier on Deep Blue.

Watch on YouTube or Deep Blue.

DISCO Michigan Hub | U-M Digital Studies Institute

November 17, 2022

Join four of our DISCO Network Fellows for short talks on keywords for the future of race, gender, disability, and technology, with Huan He (U-Michigan) on "myth," Jeff Nagy (U-Michigan) on "emotion," Rianna Walcott (U-Maryland) on "ritual," and Kevin Winstead (Georgia Tech) on "disinformation."

Watch on YouTube or Deep Blue.

BCaT Lab | University of Maryland

November 11, 2022

HAT Lab | Purdue University

November 10, 2022

Presented at Purdue University Applying for funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) can be difficult at best. In this workshop, geared toward graduate students and researchers, we will demystify the NSF by discussing the various types of funding opportunities, the format and structure of the application, the internal review process, and the meanings and interpretations of intellectual merit and broader impact. After the workshop you should have a comfortable working understanding of how to most effectively apply for NSF funding.

Watch on YouTube or Deep Blue.

DAF Lab | University of Michigan

November 10, 2022

Meet other disabled or neurodivergent undergraduates and learn about disability resources, classes, and events on campus.

See the flier on Deep Blue.

BCaT Lab | University of Maryland

November 9, 2022

This Black Communication and Technology (BCaT) Lab Applies Session will help attendees think through the process of preparing their first manuscript for publication. This session is geared toward early career scholars whose research focuses on Digital Studies, Communication, Race, and/or Black studies.

See the flier on Deep Blue.

Watch on YouTube or Deep Blue.

Future Histories Studio | Stonybrook University

November 8, 2022

An artist, filmmaker, and transmedia producer of Ecuadorian and Chinese descent, Marisa Morán Jahn’s work redistributes power, “exemplifying the possibilities of art as social practice” (ArtForum). Codesigned with youth, new immigrants, and working families, Jahn’s civic-scale projects have engaged millions both on the street and at venues such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Venice Biennale of Architecture, the United Nations, Tribeca Film Festival, and Obama’s White House. She has received grants and awards from National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, Creative Capital, Open Society, Tribeca Film Institute, Anonymous Was A Woman, and more.

PREACH Lab | Georgia Institute of Technology

October 29, 2022

DAF Lab | University of Michigan

October 26, 2022

This workshop asks us to consider what it means to crip the classroom. What does it mean to teach crip? What does it mean to learn or teach while crip? Panelists will offer a series of short lightning talks that consider: strategies for teaching in ableist environments, how to provide support and build community for disabled students, resisting digital patchwork approaches for accommodating neurodivergent learners, and how to do access labor without sacrificing your own wellbeing.

Watch on YouTube or Deep Blue.

DISCO Michigan Hub | U-M Digital Studies Institute

October 20, 2022

Asiatic interchangeability is made, not born. In her talk, Michelle N. Huang discusses how dystopian clone narratives challenge notions of individual racialized identity at both the genetic and generic levels. Drawing on Saidiya Hartman’s concept of racial fungibility, Huang will examine Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005) and Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl (2002) to trace how Asian American interchangeability is produced through reproductive control as well as an economy of character. In rearticulating, rather than rejecting, notions of shared subjectivity, hivemind, and fellow feeling, Asiatic clones ask for experimental alternatives to the ethnic bildungsroman and demonstrate the novel form itself to be a racialized technology of identity.

Watch on YouTube or Deep Blue.

Future Histories Studio | Stonybrook University

October 19, 2022

Johann Diedrick is an artist, engineer, and musician that makes installations, performances, and sculptures for encountering the world through our ears. He surfaces vibratory histories of past interactions inscribed in material and embedded in space, peeling back sonic layers to reveal hidden memories and untold stories. He shares his tools and techniques through listening tours, workshops, and open-source hardware/software. He is the founder of A Quiet Life, a sonic engineering and research studio that designs and builds audio-related software and hardware products for revealing new sonic possibilities off the grid. 

DISCO Michigan Hub | U-M Digital Studies Institute

September 30, 2022

(Co-sponsored with the Black Beyond Data Reading Group and Diaspora Solidarities Lab) Catherine Knight-Steele, Associate Professor of Communications at University of Maryland-College Park and Director of the Black Communication and Technology Lab (BCaT) on digital Black feminism, social media, and Black discourse online.

See the flier on Deep Blue.

Future Histories Studio | Stonybrook University

September 29, 2022

In her research Rhee analyzes artificial intelligence and robotics technologies in relation to race, gender, and labor. More specifically, she examines the different visions of humanness that shape AI technologies and bring these technologies into conversation with theorizations of AI in speculative fiction and art. Her scholarship and teaching are in the areas of speculative fiction studies, literature and science, feminist science and technology studies, critical AI studies, and ecocritical media studies. 

PREACH Lab | Georgia Institute of Technology

September 21, 2022

Future Histories Studio | Stonybrook University

September 14, 2022

Mother Cyborg grows out of more than twenty years as a musician, technologist, community organizer and educator. I am motivated by a vision of the future where the greatest possibilities for collective liberation, art and technology merge. I develop music, art, and educational tools to reveal the complexities that occur where technology intersects with social spaces, economies, and relationships.

Future Histories Studio | Stonybrook University

September 2022

Morehshin Allahyari (Persian: موره شین اللهیاری‎), is a NY based Iranian-Kurdish artist using 3D simulation, video, sculpture, and digital fabrication as tools to re-figure myth and history. Through archival practices and storytelling, her work weaves together complex counternarratives in opposition to the lasting influence of Western technological colonialism in the context of MENA (Middle East and North Africa).