A virtual public program, fellowship, and experimental conference
Winter Intensive: January 22–24, 2021
Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto Mississauga

Guest Presenters: Adwoa Afful, Kristen Bos, Anita Say Chan, T.L. Cowan & Jasmine Rault, Heather Dorries, Ellen Graham & John Kim, Nora N. Khan, Kite, Sean Lee, Kristine Neglia, Ogimaa Mikana Project (Susan Blight & Hayden King), Carmen Papalia, Nicky Recollet, Tiara Roxanne, Caroline Sinders, Bianca Wylie

Research Fellows: Emily Fitzpatrick, Cassandra Gemmell, Kat Germain, Parker Kay, Olivia Klevorn, Matthew Ledwidge, Jordan Loeppky-Kolesnik, Estraven Lupino-Smith, Matt Nish-Lapidus, Jennifer Su, Polina Teif, Pegah Vaezi

Program Respondents: D.T. Cochrane, Emily Doucet, Zinnia Naqvi, Aliya Pabani

Hosted by: Alison Cooley and Fraser McCallum, Blackwood Gallery

Caroline Sinders, Feminist Data Set workshop at Z2X, 2019. Courtesy the artist.

Running with Concepts: The Mediatic Edition, the sixth edition of the Blackwood’s hybrid educational event, bridges recent and ongoing Blackwood programming and publishing on spectatorship, emerging technologies, and media ecologies. Interrogating the contexts, conditions, and forces that modulate, arbitrate, and disrupt knowledge-production and political action, The Mediatic Edition unfolds as an online durational event with a concurrent fellowship program taking place across October 2020–January 2021.

Participants bring expertise from emergent and established media disciplines whose methodologies shape artistic practice: newer movements in data sovereignty, data governance, and citizen science develop models for participation and engagement; decolonial map-makers work within and against existing platforms to create counter-narratives; and critical journalists question the norms and epistemologies on which their discipline is founded. Research fellows present works on a range of topics: accessibility and translation; algorithmic tailoring; queer and feminist digital embodiment; peer-to-peer protocols and network decentralization; mapping and data visualization to artist-AI collaborations. Four program respondents follow the conference, documenting and sharing observations on the Blackwood website.

Across a durational online format, Running with Concepts: The Mediatic Edition asks: how can we intervene in and interrogate the conditions that mediate knowledge production and political action? What intersectional and cross-sectoral approaches to data and data ethics do we need now? How can artistic research engage with the interfaces and platforms that constitute our mediated environment? How can we better comprehend and work within our always-mediated conditions of spectatorship?

Kite, Pȟehíŋ Kiŋ Líla Akhíšoke. (Her Hair Was Heavy), performance at REDCAT, Los Angeles, November 10–11, 2019. Courtesy the artist.

WINTER INTENSIVE (JANUARY 22–24, 2021)

Running with Concepts: The Mediatic Edition continues where the Fall Program (October 7–December 2, 2020) left off, with a Winter Intensive comprising a series of public programs, performances, workshops, and panel discussions.

All Running with Concepts programs are broadcast online, FREE and open to the public. Recordings from the Winter Intensive are time-released and all available to stream until January 27 at 5pm EST, at blackwoodgallery.ca. Closed captioning is provided. Select live workshops require pre-registration.

FULL SCHEDULE
Pre-recorded events are time-released on the schedule below, and all made available until January 27 at 5pm.

Friday, January 22

Levels of Access: Bandwidth, Translation, and Virtual Spaces
11am
Panel Discussion:
Anita Say Chan, Sean Lee, Carmen Papalia

Public Presentations by Research Fellows
2pm
Visual Translation and the Amazing Broken Telephone Kaleidoscope: Kat Germain
Digital Camouflage: A Cyber-Feminist Survival Guide: Emily Fitzpatrick
Channel Surfing: Jennifer Su

(Counter-)Mapping
5pm
Multimedia Presentation and Discussion:
Ogimaa Mikana Project (Susan Blight & Hayden King), Nicky Recollet. Moderated by Heather Dorries.

Saturday, January 23

Feminist Data Set
11am
Workshop:
Caroline Sinders, with respondents T.L. Cowan & Jasmine Rault.
Pre-registration required; registration closes January 18, 5pm EST.

Public Presentations by Research Fellows
2pm
Blockchain and Decentralization: Alternative Models for Artist-Run Culture: Parker Kay
Alternative Protocols: P2P and Data Infrastructures: Pegah Vaezi

Data Governance, Ethics, and Sovereignty
5pm
Panel Discussion:
Adwoa Afful, Nora N. Khan, Kristine Neglia, Bianca Wylie. Moderated by Tiara Roxanne.

Sunday, January 24

Public Presentations by Research Fellows
9am
Disease Narratives and the Visualization of Environment: Cassandra Gemmell
Confidence: Matt Nish-Lapidus

Reading Open Data: Data Visualization, Citizen Science, and Collective Action
11am
Workshop:
Ellen Graham & John Kim
Pre-registration required; registration closes January 18, 5pm EST.

Pȟehíŋ Kiŋ Líla Akhíšoke. (Her Hair Was Heavy)
5pm
Performance:
Kite. Mediated by Kristen Bos.

FOR FULL PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS, VISIT OUR WEBSITE.

Follow the project on social media using the hashtag #RwCMediatic!

FALL PROGRAM ARCHIVE

Select events from the Fall Program of The Mediatic Edition have now been archived for viewing on our website. Visit the Running with Concepts page to access them!

Acknowledgments

The Blackwood Gallery gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, including the Digital Strategy Fund, the Ontario Arts Council, and the University of Toronto Mississauga. Additional support for Running with Concepts: The Mediatic Edition is provided by the Office of the Dean of Graduate Studies and the Department of Visual Studies (UTM) through the Graduate Expansion Fund.

Blackwood Gallery
University of Toronto Mississauga
3359 Mississauga Road
Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6
905-828-3789
blackwoodgallery.ca
blackwood.gallery@utoronto.ca
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Please note: The Blackwood’s gallery spaces are currently closed to the public. All Running with Concepts: The Mediatic Edition events take place online at blackwoodgallery.ca.

Image descriptions:
1) A woman, with dark curly hair, wears glasses and dresses in all black. She places her right hand in the pocket of her clothes, and reaches with her left to a window displaying multi-coloured papers with handwritten notes. Her lips are slightly open in mid-speech. To her right, she is surrounded by a group of people, their bodies in various positions that suggest contemplation. On the wall behind is an amethyst-tinted projection, obscured by shadow and people in the foreground, showing segments of content from the Feminist Data Set.
2) An Indigenous woman performs, spotlit on a dark stage, with an abstract projection behind her. A long, extended braid, made up of hair and computer wire, is connected to her hair, which loops around her feet on the floor. She leans to one side in the midst of performing.