New technologies have penetrated all aspects of our lives and promise a wide range of improvements and efficiencies. Contrary to general perception, though, the algorithms on which these technologies are based are neither neutral nor do they treat everyone equally.
How to Become a High-Tech Anti-Discrimination Activist Collective
They are as biased as the structures, institutions and developers that make them, which means racism and sexism are mostly unconsciously but systematically inscribed in their functions and outputs. The project addresses this problem and asks how discrimination in the development and application of technology can be overcome.
Two lecture-performances by Safiya Umoja Noble and Lisa Nakamura question how digital media (re)shape our perception of ethnicity in particular, and identity in general. They uncover systemic racism and sexism in new technologies and provide perspectives on how we can achieve alternative and equal technological developments. Four participatory workshops with experts from different fields – Adriaan Odendaal, Adriana Torres Topaga, Andrea Maria Handler, Astrid Mager, Doris Allhutter, Hong Phuc Dang, Karla Zavala, Martyna Lorenc, Nushin Isabelle Yazdani – will implement analysis as practice. We would like to facilitate a creative conversation and mutual exchange between experts, facilitators and workshop participants.
Target audience: Activists, software developers, computer scientists, start-up entrepreneurs, students, users of software, databases, programs and various IT tools, amateurs and all interested parties.
Registration required: https://arselectronica.kupfticket.at/ticket-information/
Limited number of participants!
Video
Timetable
Program
Project Credits / Acknowledgements
Project concept and organisation: JKU’s Institute of Women’s and Gender Studies (IFG) is Austria’s only interdisciplinary Gender Studies university department. It is headed by economist Doris Weichselbaumer, who researches racist and gendered discrimination. Philosopher Waltraud Ernst and sociologist Julia Schuster are university assistants with work foci in feminist studies of science & technology, and intersectionality theory, respectively.
