[May 19]

We the Users

Tim Hwang, Angela Washko, and Cullen Hoback

Organized by Ben Valentine

Doors: 6 pm
Talk: 7–8 pm

This panel will investigate and complicate the “user” — human beings — and their relationship to online platforms and institutions. How do institutions and platforms with millions and even billions of participants allow for diversity, security, and local or international legislation? What design and legislation changes are needed to make the most creative, free, safe, and, online vibrant communities?

Tim Hwang is a Fellow at Data & Society, a NYC thinktank that focuses on issues arising from data-centric technological development. His current work focuses on the policymaking issues surrounding the rise of intelligent systems in the economy. Formerly, he was a fellow at the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Angela Washko is an artist and facilitator devoted to mobilizing communities and creating new forums for discussions of feminism where they do not exist. In 2012, Washko founded The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft as an ongoing intervention on communal language formation inside the most popular massively multi-player online role playing game of all time. She recently created an archive of digifeminist practices called Out of The Kitchen Archive as well as a radio show called A CUPS in collaboration with artist Ann Hirsch. A recent recipient of The Franklin Furnace Performance Fund Grant, a Creative Time Report commission, a Rhizome Internet Art Microgrant, a Danish International Visiting Artist Grant and the Terminal Award, Washko’s practice has been highlighted in Frieze Magazine, Time MagazineThe Guardian (UK),ARTnewsVICEHyperallergicRhizome, the New York TimesThe Creator’s ProjectDazed and Confused MagazineDigicultArtInfoBad At Sports and more. Her projects have been presented nationally and internationally at venues including Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki, Finland), Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, SIGGRAPH, Moving Image Art Fair (London and NYC), the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Institute for Contemporary Art Boston and Foundation Vasarely (Aix-en-Provence, France). Washko’s work will be featured in the upcoming book “Mass Effect: Art and the Internet in the 21st Century” from The New Museum and MIT Press.

Cullen Hoback is an American filmmaker, occasional columnist, and speaker, originally from Los Angeles. His two documentary films to date include MONSTER CAMP (2007) and TERMS AND CONDITIONS MAY APPLY (2013), both which have shown in top festivals and theaters around the world. His most recent film TERMS AND CONDITIONS MAY APPLY (2013), a humorous but chilling documentary about digital privacy, had a significant theatrical release, was picked up by Participant’s PIVOT, and has been viewed by millions. Hoback is considered an expert on issues surrounding digital privacy and has written op-eds for many journals including The Guardian. He’s also presented at The American Bar Association on anti-trust issues, despite not being a lawyer, and has appeared as a privacy expert on shows including MSNBC, CNN, NPR, Stossel, Huffpo Live, The War Room, and The Young Turks. Hoback has been a staunch critic of government and corporate surveillance and has been a leader in the charge to grant immunity to Edward Snowden. He is in the process of completing WHAT LIES UPSTREAM (2015), a documentary that unravels the mystery behind the largest drinking water contamination in US history, and is currently shooting a followup feature to TERMS AND CONDITIONS MAY APPLY.

 

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