We’re drowning in an ocean of data, or so the saying goes. Data’s “big”: there’s not only lots of it, but its volume has allowed for the development of new, large-scale processing techniques. Our relationship with governments, medical organisations, technology companies, the education sector, and so on are increasingly informed by the data we overtly or inadvertently provide when we use particular services. The proverbial data deluge is large-scale—but it’s also personal. Data promises to personalise services to better meet our individual needs. Data is often construed as a threat to our person(s). Not every person predicated by data is predicted the same. The intersection between data and person isn’t fixed: it has to be figured.
This conference brings together an interdisciplinary group of researchers to explore how the person—or persons, plural—are figured in/out of data. Figuration might encompass any or all of processes of representation, calculation, analogisation, prediction, and conceptualisation. It cuts across multiple scales, epistemological modes, and disciplinary areas of enquiry. It tackles problems that cross into disparate disciplines. Our proposition is that it can help us think and study our increasingly datified present.
What methodological, conceptual, and/or empirical potential do ‘figurations’ offer to researchers working at the intersection of the person and data today? Over two days, more than 50 presenters and 4 keynote speakers will address how the ‘figure’ and its variants—figuration, figuring, to figure, and so on—is being developed and used in disciplines including the medical humanities, the social sciences, media studies, art history, literary studies, philosophy, science and technology studies, urban studies, and geography.
To register, please follow this link.
Confirmed keynotes:
- Professor Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Simon Fraser University
- Professor Jane Elliot, University of Exeter
- Professor John Frow, The University of Sydney
- Professor AbdouMaliq Simone, The University of Sheffield
Where and when:
9.30am – 6pm, Monday 16 and Tuesday 17 December, 2019
Professor Stuart Hall Building, Goldsmiths, University of London, 8 Lewisham Way SE14 6NW
The conference programme will be available shortly. Keynote addresses will take place at 10am and 5pm each day.
Registration is free. Lunch and coffee will be provided for attendees. When registering, we ask that you please indicate if you’re only attending one of the two days or, if your plans change, that you cancel your registration as soon as possible – we don’t like wasting food!
Figurations is organised as part of the ‘People Like You: Contemporary Figures of Personalisation’ Project, which is funded by a Wellcome Trust Collaborative Award (205456/Z/16/Z). It is organised by Prof. Celia Lury and Dr. Scott Wark from the University of Warwick’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, in collaboration with PLY researchers from Goldsmiths, University of London and Imperial College.
To register, please follow this link. If you have any questions about the conference programme, please email Scott Wark: S.Wark@warwick.ac.uk. If you have any questions about Goldsmiths, including questions about access requirements, please email our project administrator, Yael Gerson: Y.Gerson@gold.ac.uk