Articulating Data: machine listening, vocalisation, and the (in)security of language in a digital age
CALL FOR CREATIVE COMMISSIONS
£2,500 | Deadline: 14th November 2022 (11.59pm UK time)
“An articulation is the form of the connection that can make a unity of two different elements, under certain conditions. It is a linkage which is not necessary, determined, absolute and essential for all time”.[1]
A 2-day single track symposium taking place in Edinburgh on 23rd-24th February 2023, Articulating Data is concerned with interrogating the systems which evidence, process, and profit from our textual and vocal communications in an age of ubiquitous machine learning and AI.
As well as the technologies and devices that capture and monetise vocal data as it is written, uttered and heard, Articulating Data also aims to explore and visualise the resultant reconfigurations of the self, body, home, and received ideas of social and legal relations that are a necessary result of communication in a digital age.
From the privacy and security issues of smart devices such as Alexa or Ring doorbells, to the forensic profiling of voice data, machine translation, accent analysis and the monetisation of linguistic data by social media and search platforms, how articulation is enacted, utilised and controlled is a critical political and ethical concern in terms of accessibility, agency and the (in)security of information.
With keynotes from academia and the critical art world, the symposium will bring together ideas from across disciplines, and provide a platform for early career scholars and artists working in this field.
As part of Articulating Data, commissions of £2,500 (plus travel and accommodation) are available to a limited number of artists or creative practitioners for the development and exhibition of new work (digital or/and analogue) at the symposium which critiques or engages with these issues. Articulating Data is a research project: commissions include a commitment to engage in a maximum of three interviews with the research team, as well as the production of an essay to accompany the artwork which will form part of a project publication. Commissioned artists will also have the opportunity to deliver an artist’s talk at the symposium.
We welcome proposals from artists or creative practitioners who seek to show how articulation – be it textual, (non)verbal, vocal or more-than-human – is enacted in a digital age, or that critically and creatively re-articulate the otherwise quantified data that mediate our lives in an age of ubiquitous machine learning and AI. Please note that for economic and environmental reasons, we can only accept proposals from the European region.
Topics for commissions might include:
- Machine listening & forensic linguistics
- Linguistic capitalism
- Deep fake articulation
- Machine translation & accent analysis
- Vocalisation & AI
- Emojis, unicode & other symbols
- Sign language
- More-than-human communication
- Voice assistants & smart technologies
- Data security, privacy and surveillance
To apply for an Articulating Data commission please click HERE.
Application requirements:
- A brief biographical sketch (no more than 200 words)
- Up to 500-word proposal
- Documentation of your practice – please provide up to 3 links (which include access to CV/Bio and examples of previous work)
- Technical requirements for the proposed installation (e.g., A/V, power, physical display)
Timeline:
- Deadline for creative commission proposals: 14th November 2022
- Decisions: 21st November 2022
- Completed commissions due: 13th February 2023
- Symposium and exhibition: 23rd-24th February 2023
Articulating Data is led by Dr. Pip Thornton, Chancellors Fellow in GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh, in collaboration with, Dr. Murad Khan, Senior Lecturer in Creative Computing at University of the Arts London, Dr. Andrew Dwyer, Lecturer in Information Security at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Martin Disley, Artist and Researcher at Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh. Please direct any questions to pip.thornton@ed.ac.uk
[1] Grossberg, L. (1986). On postmodernism and articulation: An interview with Stuart Hall. Journal of communication inquiry, 10(2), 53
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