Researching the Digital Human in Archives 

23rd Mar 2023 11:00am-1:00pm 

Techne Conflux: Rethinking Archival Research, Methods and Practice

Researching the Digital Human in Archives

With Professor Tobias Blanke, University of Amsterdam and Kings College, London 

 

Thursday 23 March, 11-1.00, University of Brighton Grand Parade, room (tbc) and online via Zoom

The digital human has in recent years emerged as a new subject of research. This lecture will introduce the ideas behind the digital human, the new research field associated with it and what archives have to do with it all. We will focus on how we can combine research perspectives around issues in AI and digital culture. This contribution includes novel ideas such as algorithmic criticism but also the study of datafication. 

 

Speaker bio:

Tobias Blanke is Distinguished University Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Humanities at the University of Amsterdam and Professor of Social and Cultural Informatics at King’s College London . His academic background is in moral philosophy and computer science. Tobias’ main research interests are in the development and research of artificial intelligence and big data devices as well as infrastructures for research, especially in the humanities. Among Tobias’ monographs is Digital Asset Ecosystems – Rethinking Crowds and Clouds, which offers a fresh perspective on human-computer collaboration in global digital workflows. His latest book – together with Claudia Aradau – on the socio-economic position of AI entitled “Algorithmic Reason – the Governance of Self and Other” was published this year by Oxford University Press in Open Access.

 

Lunch and refreshments are provided. 

For further information about the programme’s events, contact: D.Madden2@brighton.ac.uk and r.rich@brighton.ac.uk 

 

To book a place in person, please register here.

You can also join via Zoom, please register here. 

The Zoom link will be sent ahead of the workshop on the day.

 

About the Conflux programme: the Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories secured Techne funding for a Conflux programme that will address key methodologies and historiographies associated with archival research, practices and critical perspectives.

The archive’s authoritative status has come under increasing pressure across the arts and humanities in the last thirty years or so. This richly diverse programme of workshops will provide a framework to explore bigger questions about the ways in which the archive has been critiqued, problematised and de-centred in a range of academic disciplines, cultural contexts and professional settings.

Examining topics such as ‘living archives’, post-conflict community archives, AI and the archive, as well as what it means in practice to decolonise the imperial archive, the programme aims to highlight the extent to which differing approaches and methods can further enhance the generative possibilities of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives.