Jennifer Gabrys, Senior Lecturer and Convener of the MA Design and Environment from Goldsmiths University, London, visits Pixelache events in May. Gabrys gives a Talking Trash(lab) lecture on Thursday 10 May at Aalto Media Factory and is a plenary speaker and facilitator of Camp Pixelache subtheme ‘The art of gathering environmental data‘ on Saturday 12 May at Arbis.
‘The art of gathering environmental data‘ theme at Camp Pixelache covers ecosystem theory, environmental monitoring, and citizen/ participatory science, in the context of open data. How can we support and develop the activities that are already going on in institutions at a more grassroot level, “producing reliable citizen science data”. This sub-theme is designed in collaboration with the Bio Art Society. You can propose a topic for discussion in here.
Jennifer Gabrys' research investigates environments, material processes and communication technologies through theoretical and practice-based work. Projects within this area include a recently published book, Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics (University of Michigan Press, 2011), which examines the material geographies of electronic waste; and a study currently underway on citizen sensing and environmental change, titled Program Earth: Environment as Experiment in Sensing Technology.
Plenary presentation abstract:
The topic of environmental data is often seen as an area of scientific concern. Empirical study produces observations and measurements that enter data infrastructures, which are the basis for scientific understanding and policy decisions. Yet an increasing number of creative practitioners are working with data, not just to visualize or sonify data in the context of arts-sciences collaborations, but also to question what constitutes data, to experiment with how data are produced, and to recast the relationships that are articulated through data. In a complementary approach, researchers working within science and technology studies have suggested there is a greater need for “data diversity,” and for thinking through the contexts that make data relevant and meaningful. From citizen science projects to animals that gather and relay environmental sense data, and from material transformations of data that generate new political encounters with environmental issues, as well as alternative practices, devices and platforms for harvesting data, this presentation will focus on the ways in which creative practitioners are generating diverse approaches to gathering environmental data. These projects raise questions about who or what data is for, what interpretive practices are productive of data, and what new collectives data might mobilize.
