13th Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X Dundee
Algorithms and Environmental Concerns: From Game Design to Creative Resistance
Recent design projects critically explore the social deployment of algorithmic technologies in relation to pressing environmental concerns. This article analyses a selection of projects that explore more activist and investigative possibilities. Examples include strategic games based on current climate models, workshops exploring alternative blockchain systems for food justice, and occupations targeting the expansion of tech industries. These projects are analyzed for the way they accommodate diverse strands of eco-literacy and activist awareness. It highlights how design can make use of interventionist tactics and contribute to social investigations. The paper contributes to the developing design criticism to guide (design) research towards actively countering the current devastating environmental impact of new technologies.
13th Midterm Conference of the European Sociological Association (ESA) Research Network Sociology of the Arts
Surrealist strategies for algorithmic resistance
This contribution explores surrealist strategies for creatively resisting and subverting algorithmic systems. It explores the more explicitly defiant and subversive artistic engagements of surrealists to employ them towards current algorithmic applications. Taking inspiration from surrealist ‘scorning of white supremacy, patriotism, religion, colonialism’ (Rosemont & Kelley) it distinguises strategies for traversing art activism, hacking, as well as critical design and creative forms of protest, to counter the social injustices, military deployment, policing and environmental destruction inherent in what is called ‘fascist AI’ (McQuillan). The surrealist promise to “manifest a conscious revolt of artists against the material conditions and morality imposed on humanity” (Paris Surrealist Group) is actualized, not trough re-creating old debates or melting still more watches, but by capturing the energy, commitment, passion and the political action of the movement and adapting it to our present reality (Polizzotti), which is understood here as entangled with the complexities and reprehensibilities of the proliferating algorithmic technologies. Surrealist experiments of symbolic sabotage and disavowel of work (Susik) are recovered in order to understand and devise new ways to subvert current logic of the creative industries.
This promotion research focuses on various contemporary ecological, social, and ethical issues that are involved when using algorithmic technologies. Designers should take these issues into account while working on future developments. This research enables designers to critically deploy algorithmic technologies in various domains the upcoming years.
‘Disrupting our contemporary society can be a serious design goal.’
Eke Rebergen is a researcher within the Cultural and Creative Industries research group and a tutor at the Communication & Multimedia Design programme at Avans University of Applied Sciences in Den Bosch.
The research group Cultural and Creative Industries investigates the role of artists and designers as creative innovators and drivers of social and economic change. Affiliated researchers analyse the cultural and creative industries from a critical point of view and examine the conditions under which timely forms of aesthetic expression and social connectedness can actually take place within the precarious reality of this field. What economic models are required by artists and designers to create a meaningful practice within the aesthetic, social, and economic intentions of the cultural and creative industries? What skills sets are required for those artists and designers who don’t just want to follow movements, but actually shape novel social and economic models of the future?
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