Informatics of Domination - Visual Cultures Public Programme Spring 2017
Erika Balsom - Capture and Control in Late Farocki
Thursday March 2, 5.00-7.00pm
Richard Hoggart Building, Room 342
Chair & Respondent: Nadja Millner-Larsen
From its very beginnings, the cinematic apparatus subjected human and animal movement to unprecedented forms of quantification and analysis, serving as a technique for the management of life itself. And yet at the same time, it opened new realms of visibility by recording the ephemeralities of our world in time – a vocation now under threat as computer-generated images increasingly displace lens-based images. In this talk, Erika Balsom will explore this ambivalence of capture through a consideration of the late works of Harun Farocki.
Erika Balsom is senior lecturer in Film Studies and Liberal Arts at King’s College London. She is the author of Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art (2013) and the co-editor of Documentary Across Disciplines (2016). A frequent contributor to Artforum, she has published in journals including Screen, Cinema Journal, and Discourse. Her next book, After Uniqueness: A History of Film and Video Art in Circulation, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press in April.
Informatics of Domination
Series Organiser: Zach Blas
In 1985, feminist scholar Donna Haraway reconceptualized white capitalist patriarchy as the informatics of domination. Addressing the global impact of science and technology at the close of the 20th century, Haraway argued that power and oppression were now “a polymorphous, information system…scary new networks…constructed by a common move—the translation of the world into a problem of coding.” In 2016, worldwide surveillance, securitization, the militarization of policing, biometric governance, and drone warfare all highlight the persistence and intensification of the informatics of domination. In this programme, we will broadly consider the politics of computational surveillance and digital control, giving particular attention to how artists, academics, and curators are grappling with these challenges today.
The event is free and no booking is required.
All are welcome!