I had exciting things planned for this year; events and exhibitions in America, Ireland, Rotterdam, Cardiff, London, Dundee, Germany and even a show at the Edinburgh Fringe. There was much to look forward to, but then came that week back in early March when things began to fall apart, and the volume of cancellation emails became almost unbearable. I know I’m not alone in this, … Continue reading Critique in a time of crisis
Arcadia (2020) : Benjamin at the Mall Fruitmarket Gallery Bookmarket, Waverley Mall, Edinburgh EH1 1BQ 6th Feb – 29th March 2020 / Preview 5th Feb 6-8pm Arcadia (2020) comments on the role of digital capitalism in the virtual and physical spaces of modern consumerism. Text from Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project (1939) is fed through Google’s advertising platform and displayed as if the words were commodities … Continue reading Arcadia (2020)
Installation by PIP THORNTON & RAY INTERACTIVE at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, August 2019. Part of DATA LATES, the installation ran periodically throughout the festival in the hours of darkness, with one complete run through on 26th August 2019, the final day of the Edinburgh Fringe, which took around 20 hours to complete. Video credits: Lucas Chih Peng Kao 高智鵬 http://lucaskaophotography.com (additional clip: Michael Sturrock) Photo … Continue reading NEWSPEAK 2019: Edinburgh Festival Fringe, August 2019
Continue reading NEWSPEAK 2019: Edinburgh Festival Fringe, August 2019
Linguistic capitalism. Has Google become an all powerful usurer of language? I was interviewed by Régine Debatty for her wonderful We Make Money Not Art blog. It was a great opportunity to talk about the new iterations and directions of my research into linguistic capitalism and the monetisation of language by Google’s search and advertising platforms. Full interview can be found here: https://we-make-money-not-art.com/linguistic-capitalism/ Thanks Régine! Continue reading We Make Money Not Art: Interview
NEWSPEAK 2019 is the latest iteration of my ongoing intervention into linguistic capitalism and the economic, cultural and political effects of the monetisation of language by Google’s search and advertising platforms. The installation was a collaboration with Ray Interactive as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival Data Lates program. FULL DETAILS OF NEWSPEAK 2019 HERE Full details for the project can be found in the … Continue reading NEWSPEAK 2019
I’m talking ‘Linguistic Capitalism: Critique and Intervention’ as part of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie graphic design department’s Opening Lecture series this Friday in Amsterdam. It’s open to the public – 18:30pm at Butchers Tears, Karperweg 45, Amsterdam. The amazing invite GIF is by design students Benedikte Hindstedgaard & Pernille Knudsgaar. Also speaking is Danah Abdullah from Brunel University – I am very much looking forward … Continue reading Guest lecture in Amsterdam this friday
This is my first Edinburgh Festival, and I find myself right in the bubbling middle of it. I’m doing three things: 1. as part of the Fringe Design Informatics ‘Data Play’ program, my {poem}.py printer will be churning away in the most amazingly designed Pavilion space from 2nd – 26th August, along with a specially curated collection of poem-receipts. Robbie Burns, Jackie Kay, Frightened Rabbit, … Continue reading new (and old) work at the Fringe
I passed my PhD viva a couple of weeks ago, so can now post the finalised version here if anyone wants to read any of it (but please cite accordingly): THORNTON_THESIS_FINALFINAL. Language in the Age of Algorithmic Reproduction: A Critique of Linguistic Capitalism will also be available from my Royal Holloway PURE page, but I want to keep monitoring the price of the thesis over … Continue reading Language in the Age of Algorithmic Reproduction: A Thesis
While searching for other stuff I came across this paper – the first academic paper I ever wrote and presented – which I gave at the Uncanny Landscapes conference in London in March 2013. It seems like the right time of year, so I thought I’d let it out in to the light… Unknown Soldiers: Building Bodies in(to) the City Abstract On 11th November 1920, … Continue reading Unknown Soldiers: Building Bodies in(to) the City
My article A Critique of Linguistic Capitalism: provocation/intervention has now been published online first in GeoHumanities : https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2373566X.2018.1486724 There were 50 free eprints available at https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/9Nm9BBmHdwdFYRxjqejh/full, but for anyone without institutional access, the accepted manuscript is attached below (as per Taylor and Francis guidelines). I can share the published PDF privately on request. A_Critique_of_Linguistic_Capitalism_GEOHUMS_final_PT_edit_JC2_PT_73 A critique of linguistic capitalism: provocation/intervention Abstract Language has always been … Continue reading New GeoHumanities article – A Critique of Linguistic Capitalism: provocation/intervention
