On 11 February 2021, Ian Alan Paul gave the talk “The informatics of Resistance” within an online afternoon event organized by the MA in International Studies in Media, Power and Difference. Dr. Paul discussed the informatics of resistance in opposition to the informatics of domination and suggested a number of ideas and examples to cultivate the former, including, amongst others, opacity versus transparency and disruption. A challenging talk that we strongly recommend to anyone missing it.

Abstract: In a world where our economic, political, cultural, and intimate lives are increasingly digitized, surveilled, and networked by nation states and corporations, how might we imagine new practices of resistance taking shape? Charting the historical movement from disciplinary societies to control societies, or to what Donna Haraway succinctly described as the "informatics of domination", this talk will give an overview of digitized formations of power in order to speculatively diagram a corresponding "informatics of resistance." Case studies from global activisms, films, and artworks will be mobilized to help theorize the emancipatory politics that arise from within, and ultimately against, our networked present.

Bio: Ian Alan Paul (b. 1984, US) is an artist-theorist whose work examines enactments of power and practices of resistance in global contexts. Their transdisciplinary practice is formally diverse, often involving writing, coding, photography, and video, and is situated at the intersections of critical theory, contemporary art, and digital media studies. Ian has developed projects and taught at universities in the United States, Mexico, Spain, Egypt, and Palestine, and has exhibited their work and given lectures internationally. They received their PhD in Film and Digital Media Studies from UC Santa Cruz in 2016, and their MFA and MA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2011. A comprehensive overview of their work can be found online