ODI's Data as Culture Programme
In developing fairlyintelligent.tech, I was shocked by the sheer amount of data that is collected about every aspect of our lives. While a great deal of focus has been placed on algorithmic inequality and automated decision-making, it concerns me that the suggested course of action always seems to be to feed the system more diverse data; as if “intersectional” mass surveillance is a good thing. With fairlyintelligent.tech, I wanted to create a speculative algorithm that exaggerated our relationship to automated systems. Though the work is tongue-in-cheek, the fact that it tells you how it works and who designed it, means it is reaching a higher ethical standard than existing technologies. And really, why are we letting just anybody build tech that’s supposed to work for everybody?
A.M. Darke is an artist and game maker designing radical tools for social intervention. Still in the class war. Now in the pandemic. He’s in the combination class war and pandemic. Assistant Professor of Digital Arts and New Media, and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, at UC Santa Cruz, Darke also directs The Other Lab, an interdisciplinary, intersectional feminist research space for experimental games and new media. Darke’s recent work includes ‘Ye or Nay?, a Kanye West-themed game about Black culture, and he is currently developing the Open Source Afro Hair Library, a 3D model database for Black hair styles and textures.
Darke holds a B.A. in Design (2013) and an M.F.A. in Media Arts (2015), both from UCLA. Her work has been shown internationally and featured in a variety of publications, including Kill Screen, Vice, and NPR.
Rules of Engagement
Online 2020 - 2021 at the Open Data Institute
