Thinking With | Wendy Hui Kyong Chun | Discriminating Data & the New Politics of Recognition

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, the Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media at Simon Fraser University, who leads the Digital Democracies Institute, will be in conversation with respondents Alexander R. Galloway, Hannah Turner,​​​​​​​ and Evelyn Wan, moderated by Wayne Modest on MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26  | 16.30-18 hours CET.

On the event of the publication of Chun’s most recent book Discriminating Data – Correlation, Neighborhoods, and the New Politics of Recognition (2021, MIT Press), as part of our Thinking With conversation series, we consider how “big data and predictive machine learning currently encode discrimination and create agitated clusters of comforting rage.” As a museum, with extensive histories collecting ‘ethnographically,’ we are interested in how notions of “discriminating data” in the contexts of the digital, which Chun works with, can inform our own collection practices—past, present, and affect how we do so in the future. More generally, in our conversation, we also engage Chun’s overarching question, “How can we release ourselves from the vice-like grip of discriminatory data?”, in order to also ask the same question of ourselves at the museum?

This event takes place virtually, at the Research Centre for Material Culture. More information and registration here.