Library teaching and events
PGR Lunch in the Lab - The art of opening up the future
That change can begin with art is repeated often by scholars of every persuasion, from Ursula K. Le Guin speaking about resistance to capitalist realism to Byung-Chul Han reflecting on how to regain the world-changing powers once possessed by philosophy. Harnessing this potential for change seems as pressing as ever, as we observe in real time what Mark Fisher and Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi have called the “slow cancellation of the future”, or what Bernard Stiegler has examined as the erosion of our common horizon of a shared future. Can art in its varied forms be an antidote to the data-driven collapse of social cohesion we witness at present, to preserve an open future not predetermined and narrowed by predictive digital mechanisms and algorithmic governmentalilty?
This event series taking place at the Sussex Digital Humanities Lab takes as its starting point the art created in response to the technological advancements of our digital present to explore creative digital methodologies, how culture and politics merge in digital environments, and the ways digital tools might be creatively deployed to generate and amplify modes of resistance against the enclosure of an open future.
In the first of this event series, join us for lunch and lively discussions on art, politics, and technology amongst PGRs. Get fed whilst helping us shape the events to come, both in the series and beyond.
We're also looking for mini presentations on the topics at hand, from any and every angle that might be relevant. If your research is directly or tangentially linked to the proposed topics, or if you have any side quests that relate, we'd love to hear more. Please contact Sandy at dy84@sussex.ac.uk if you’d like to give a 3 - 5 minutes-long presentation for this event.