Talk
Somerset House Studios

Defrag: The Feminist Internet Digital Clinic

FREE
Mon 04 Dec 2017
18.45 - 20.30
River Rooms
New Wing

A new event series exploring the role technology plays in the development, production and consumption of art and culture.

Memes, video games, social media, post-production techniques and generative algorithms: in 2017, new technologies and internet culture offer artists infinite possibilities and few technical limits. As consumers and remote critics, we click, scroll and like our way through these digital spaces, comforted and besieged by hyperactive content streams which present us with an increasingly fragmented and chaotic view of the world.

Defrag explores confusion, control, creativity, appropriation and resilience, delving into the practice of artists, designers and thinkers utilising and critiquing the latest tools and questioning the realities of our newly augmented human experience. Featuring the work and practices of Somerset House Studios residents and invited guests, the night is structured as a live navigation through artists’ digital footprints, alongside some collective internet browsing.

In the second event, the Feminist Internet collective will present The Feminist Internet Digital Clinic. Online abuse and harassment is a virus infecting the internet. The Feminist Internet Digital Clinic is here to help fight back and initiate a healing process. Visitors will be transformed into antibodies, and empowered to take actions that can neutralise the infection of online harassment.

Feminist Internet is a movement concerned with building an equal and just internet for all. It started as part of UAL Futures, a University of the Arts London initiative bringing staff, students and industry partners together across disciplines to address the social issues they care about. Feminist Internet is generously supported by UAL's Widening Participation team.

Want to join the Feminist Internet movement?

We are pleased to announce the Feminist Internet Digital Clinic panellists:

Cllr Seyi Akiwowo
Founder of Glitch!UK, an online abuse campaign.

Travis Alabanza
Multidisciplinary artist whose practice screams about their survival as a Black, trans, gender-non-conforming person in the UK.

Azmina Dhrodia
Researcher, Technology and Human Rights, Amnesty International, who is investigating the human rights implications of online violence and abuse against women on social media platforms.


Feminist Internet Digital Clinicians:

Helen Brewer
Artist and activist. 

Clara Finnigan
Butcher, baker candlestick maker, Patriarchy dismantler. Bad at rhyming.

Jelly Luise
Art Director and Photographer. 

Conor Rigby
Digital & motion designer. Researching, practicing and sashaying into queer culture.

Caroline Sinders
Machine learning designer, artist, and digital anthropologist obsessed with language, culture and images.

Dr Charlotte Webb
Artist, researcher, Chief Leopard of the Feminist Internet.

Rhiannon Williams
Poet and artist, interested in nature, gender, mythology, film, and the future.

Ania Zoltkowski
Design strategist, culturist & maker. Focused upon creating resilient design futures.

DEFRAG is curated by Jake Charles Rees in association with Somerset House Studios.