Doublethinking AI: artistic imaginaries & intersectional approaches to AI

  • 7. Donald Rodney, AutoIcon 1997-2000

    Donald Rodney, AutoIcon 1997-2000

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Thu 20 Feb, 6.30pm

Gallery 2

Monday Closed
Tuesday 11am–6pm
Wednesday 11am–6pm
Thursday 11am–9pm
Friday 11am–6pm
Saturday 11am–6pm
Sunday 11am–6pm

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Panel Talk
Doublethinking AI: artistic imaginaries & intersectional approaches to AI

Tracing the intersections of AI and critical race theory, join us for a conversation interrogating new technologies and their wider social, cultural, and political impacts on artistic production and more-than-human futures.

Ramon Amaro, Maria Dada, and Maya Indira Ganesh will use Donald Rodney’s Autoicon as a springboard, situating Rodney’s work in the social and political landscape of the time, and drawing connections to the historical legacies of AI up to the present day.

In a critical examination of the power dynamics and Western-centric models of knowledge enabled by recent advancements in technology, we will interrogate how these factors come into tension with how we conceive creativity and futurity. In mediating on Autoicon as a precursor to digital immortality and transhumanism, this conversation will tease apart the resulting fractures and disjunctures that these ideas and complex technologies have given rise to.

Can we unlock the transformative possibilities of AI by centring more intersectional approaches? And what artistic and more-than-human futures lie ahead of us with continuing advancements in new technologies?

This panel talk accompanies our current exhibition Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker.

Attendees to this event can access an exclusive 20% discount on Donald Rodney: A Reader – the accompanying book to the Visceral Canker exhibition. The Reader brings together crucial perspectives from leading art historians, artists and peers, illuminating Donald Rodney’s enduring influence on contemporary art and cultural discourse.

To redeem this discount, please select the “Admission + Book” option when purchasing your ticket – your Reader will be available to collect from the info desk on the night of the event. 

This event is organised in collaboration with the Digital x Data Research Centre at London South Bank University.

About Dr Ramon Amaro

Dr. Ramon Amaro is Senior Researcher for Digital Culture and Lead Curator of -1, the testing ground and innovation hub for new tools, methods and public uses of digital culture at Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. His writings, research and artistic practice emerge at the intersections of Black Study, digital culture, psychosocial study, and the critique of computational reason. Ramon holds a BSe in Mechanical Engineering, an MA in Sociology and a PhD in Philosophy of Technology. Before joining Nieuwe Instituut, Ramon worked as Lecturer (Assistant Prof.) in Art and Visual Cultures of the Global South at UCL (London), Lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, Engineering Program Manager at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and Quality Design Engineer at General Motors Corporation. His recent book, The Black Technical Object: On Machine Learning and the Aspiration of Black Being (Sternberg, 2023) contemplates the abstruse nature of programming and mathematics, and the deep incursion of racial hierarchy, to inspire alternative approaches to contemporary algorithmic practice.

About Maria Dada

Maria Dada is the Course Leader for MA Interaction Design at London College of Communication. Her work is placed within the fields of design, continental philosophy and visual cultures. She examines the way in which computational modelling and the simulated image have become the aspirational standard, reshaping societal norms and institutional frameworks. She has degrees in both continental philosophy from the Centre for Research in European Philosophy and Computer Science from the Lebanese American University. Maria has exhibited and lectured widely, most recently as a Research Fellow in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths University, at the Transmediale Festival in Berlin, at Birkbeck’s Film, Language and Culture Studies department and at CRASSH in Cambridge.

About Dr Maya Indira Ganesh

Maya Indira Ganesh is Associate Director (Research Culture and Partnerships), co-director of the Narratives and Justice Program, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge. From October 2021- July 2024 she was an assistant teaching professor co-directing the MSt in AI Ethics and Society at the university. Maya has degrees in Psychology, Media and Cultural Studies, and a Drphil in Cultural Studies. Her doctoral work took the case of the ‘ethics of autonomous driving’ to study the implications of ethical decision-making and governance by algorithmic/AI technologies for human social relations. Her monograph based on this thesis, Auto-Correct: The Fantasies and Failures of AI, Ethics, and the Driverless Car, will be available on March 10, 2025 and can be pre-ordered here. Maya’s most recent project, with Louise Hickman and others, is AI in the Street, a project about AI in public and AI’s marginalised and expert publics.

About the Digital x Data Research Centre

Digital x Data Research Centre at London South Bank University addresses local, national, and global opportunities and challenges related to digitalization and datafication, with a focus on the latest advancements in AI and data science. LSBU’s global reputation for reducing inequalities underscores our commitment to conducting research that not only advances knowledge but also promotes social justice and equity.