GVU Center Brown Bag: Jer Thorp — Living in Data

Abstract:

To live in data is to be incessantly extracted from, to be classified and categorized, statisti-fied, sold and surveilled. Data (our data) is mined and processed for profit, power and political gain. Our clicks and likes and footsteps feed new digital methods of control. In this talk Jer will propose a variety of answers to a crucial question of our time: how do we stop passively inhabiting data, and become active citizens of it?

Speaker Bio:

Jer Thorp is an artist, writer and teacher living in New York City. He is best known for designing the algorithm to place the nearly 3,000 names on the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan. Jer was the New York Times' first Data Artist in Residence, is a National Geographic Explorer, and in 2017 and 2018 served as the Innovator in Residence at the Library of Congress. Jer is one of the world's foremost data artists, and is a leading voice for the ethical use of big data.

Jer’s data-inspired artwork has been shown around the world, including most recently in New York’s Times Square, at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, at the Ars Electronica Center in Austria, and at the National Seoul Museum in Korea. His work has also appeared in a wide variety of publications, including Scientific American, The New Yorker, Popular Science, Fast Company, Business Week, Popular Science, Discover, WIRED and The Harvard Business Review.
 
Jer is a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, and an alumnus of the World Economic Foundation’s Global Agenda Council on Design and Innovation. He is an adjunct Professor in New York University’s renowned Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), and is the Co-Founder of The Office for Creative Research. In 2015, Canadian Geographic named Jer one of Canada’s Greatest Explorers.

Jer’s book 'Living in Data’ is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and is in bookstores now.

Watch via BlueJeans Event: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/xevxxyap 

Schedule of Brown Bag Speakers Fall 2021