News Archives | Alex Taylor / by Alex Taylor Tue, 01 Mar 2022 09:50:55 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.0 “Remaking Digital Futures” — BDFI Panel /remaking-digital-futures/ /remaking-digital-futures/#respond Wed, 19 Jan 2022 09:00:25 +0000 /?p=5910 How will digital technology disrupt traditional patterns of innovation? Discuss and explore at our symposium on 19 Jan #DisruptInnovation #DriveTechnology Please register https://t.co/hjxx3RIii4 @Dsimeo @susanjhalford @JeremyS1 pic.twitter.com/2vCVoo0mmt — Bristol Digital Futures Institute (@DigiFutures) December 22, 2021 Next up Panel 1 for #digifutures22 “Remaking Digital Futures” pic.twitter.com/fysLukHG83 — Bristol Digital Futures Institute (@DigiFutures) January 19, 2022 [...]

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Panelist on “Remaking Digital Futures”, Bristol Digital Futures Institute’s inaugural symposium.

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]]> /remaking-digital-futures/feed/ 0 Panel talk: Prototyping AI ethics futures—Rights, access and refusal /panel-talk-prototyping-ai-ethics-futures-rights-access-and-refusal/ /panel-talk-prototyping-ai-ethics-futures-rights-access-and-refusal/#respond Sun, 20 Jun 2021 11:47:51 +0000 /?p=5848 Panel talk at 1:00pm–2:30pm, 23 June 2021 (BST), in association with Ada Lovelace Institute, The British Academy and The Arts and Humanities Research council. Join us this Wednesday 23th at 1pm BST for the@justainet panel on “Rights, Access and Refusal” with @crystaljjlee @alxndrt and @maramills. Response from @sarahchander and chaired by @anthroptimist and @_louhicky https://t.co/3UUdNNzOsf [...]

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]]> Panel talk at 1:00pm–2:30pm, 23 June 2021 (BST), in association with Ada Lovelace Institute, The British Academy and The Arts and Humanities Research council.

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]]> /panel-talk-prototyping-ai-ethics-futures-rights-access-and-refusal/feed/ 0 Talk: Critical Perspectives on AI Ethics /talk-critical-perspectives-on-ai-ethics/ /talk-critical-perspectives-on-ai-ethics/#respond Thu, 22 Oct 2020 14:00:44 +0000 /?p=5857 Join us next week for an exciting 2‑day conference on Critical Perspective on AI Ethics! 20+ panelists from multiple fields, a poster session, and a stellar speaker line-up: @ShannonVallor @BakitaKK @alxndrt @benzevgreen @UoE_EFI Register here: https://t.co/eJV7nkCqlC — AIES Edinburgh (@aies_edinburgh) October 15, 2020 Brushing up on one of my favourite topics, Clever Hans the horse [...]

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]]> /talk-critical-perspectives-on-ai-ethics/feed/ 0 Covid article in Interactions /life-less-normal/ /life-less-normal/#respond Thu, 30 Jul 2020 12:52:26 +0000 /?p=5783 Happy to have this piece in the ACM Interactions magazine, and part of the special issue Design in the Pandemic. Life Less Normal [...]

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]]> Happy to have this piece in the ACM Interactions magazine, and part of the special issue Design in the Pandemic.
Life Less Normal

Alex Taylor (2020) Life Less Normal, Interactions 27(4), p. 79–82, New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, pdf, doi:10.1145/3406296

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]]> /life-less-normal/feed/ 0 PhD Scholarships at City /phd-scholarships-2020/ /phd-scholarships-2020/#respond Wed, 15 Apr 2020 16:27:24 +0000 /?p=5668 We’d love to haveapplications from prospective students wanting to join the Centre for Human-Computer Interaction Design (HCID). The deadline is 20th May 2020. For details and application process, see here. Topically, I’m very open to suggestions. I’d love to see proposals taking critical and perhaps materialist orientations to technoscience. Feminist, intersectional thinking would also be [...]

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]]> We’d love to have
applications from prospective students wanting to join the Centre for Human-Computer Interaction Design (HCID).

The deadline is 20th May 2020. For details and application process, see here.

Topically, I’m very open to suggestions. I’d love to see proposals taking critical and perhaps materialist orientations to technoscience. Feminist, intersectional thinking would also be high on my wish list.

Whatever the persuasion, if you have friends, students, colleagues, etc. interested in doing something exciting, please put them in touch.

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]]> /phd-scholarships-2020/feed/ 0 Bauhaus Futures Book Chapter /bauhaus-futures/ /bauhaus-futures/#respond Wed, 16 Oct 2019 21:35:48 +0000 /?p=5538   This chapter examines the processes of scaling made visible within the words and work of the Weimer Bauhaus and, particularly, Anni Albers’ careful accounts of weaving. We explore whether threading a feminist precarity into her writing helps illuminate new ways of examining tensions between what we scale up and what we scale down. Reading [...]

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Bauhaus Futures Book Cover Photo of Anni Albers from chapter

This chapter examines the processes of scaling made visible within the words and work of the Weimer Bauhaus and, particularly, Anni Albers’ careful accounts of weaving. We explore whether threading a feminist precarity into her writing helps illuminate new ways of examining tensions between what we scale up and what we scale down.

Reading with Anni Albers:
The weave as a lively involution of scale, affect, and feminist precarity

Moving first over and across, we examine Alber’s discussions of different scales of weaving, from the hand loom to industrial machinery. Traversing then downward and below, we consider Alber’s attention to the body, those fingers and hands interlacing threads along a pliable plane. Shifting around and through, we consider how an affect is present in Alber’s reflections, and especially in how it pulls against the sturdy mechanistic logics visibly organizing her process. Across this writing, we hope to think with Albers, reading her prose somewhat against the grain of conventional Bauhaus accounts by interweaving a feminist positioning.

Matt Ratto, Daniela K Rosner, Yana Boeva, Alex Taylor (2019) Special issue on hybrid pedagogies editorial, Digital Creativity 30(4), p. 13–217, url, doi:10.1080/14626268.2019.1699576

Daniela K Rosner, Alex S Taylor (2019) Reading with Anni Albers: The Weave as a Lively Involution of Scale, Affect, and Feminist Precarity, Bauhaus Futures, Laura Forlano, Molly Wright Steenson, Mike Ananny (ed.), p. 201–212, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pdf

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]]> /bauhaus-futures/feed/ 0 A changing academic life /a-changing-academic-life/ /a-changing-academic-life/#respond Wed, 31 Jul 2019 09:02:04 +0000 /?p=4890 [...]

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So grateful to Geraldine Fitzpatrick for spending the time talking to me and giving me the chance to put words to my still ill-formed thoughts on living an academic life. Such a privilege to be part of her podcast series, Changing Academic Life.

In talking to Geraldine, I’ve tried to be honest, finding space between my naivety and the intellectual environment I’d love to help build with the many amazing academics I work with. Find the podcast and abbreviated transcript here (along with some other great interviews: I highly recommend Ali Black’s).

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]]> /a-changing-academic-life/feed/ 0 Are you Research Excellent? /are-you-research-excellent/ /are-you-research-excellent/#respond Fri, 05 Apr 2019 13:53:42 +0000 /?p=4761 The UK’s national Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment is looming. The formal deadline is in 2021, but many will be already feeling the pressures in their institutions and departments to be making sense of their work in terms of REF’s metrics and procedures. I’ve found myself entangled in this world of REF recently and wanting [...]

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The UK’s national Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment is looming. The formal deadline is in 2021, but many will be already feeling the pressures in their institutions and departments to be making sense of their work in terms of REF’s metrics and procedures.
I’ve found myself entangled in this world of REF recently and wanting to be able to make comparisons between institutions and their “Units of Assessment” (REFs classification of research disciplines and fields).
Using this publicly available data, I’ve built a little tool to see how an institution’s unit of assessment did in the last assessment (circa 2014) and view this against other UoA results.

screen grab of REF comparison tool

For now, I’m just visualising data from two units of assessment, Sociology and Computer Sciences and Informatics.
You can compare your own institution’s Sociology or Computer Science scores against others’ in terms of Outputs, Impact and Environment (the REF assessment profiles).
I post this sensitive to the troubles and complications that come with enacting academic life using these systems of accounting. I’m grateful to Effie Le Moignan for reminding me of the troubles.

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]]> /are-you-research-excellent/feed/ 0 From the Picket Line /the-picket-line/ /the-picket-line/#respond Mon, 19 Mar 2018 22:34:16 +0000 /?p=3997 For those of us in UK academia, it’s been impossible to miss the strikes over the last four weeks, with academics from across the country standing their ground for a fair and equitable pension. There are many incredibly detailing the developments and explaining how this is about for a walk of life that just doesn’t [...]

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For those of us in UK academia, it’s been impossible to miss the strikes over the last four weeks, with academics from across the country standing their ground for a fair and equitable pension. There are many incredibly detailing the developments and explaining how this is about for a walk of life that just doesn’t have to be subject to the warped values of the Neo-liberal project.

Personally, what I’ve found inspirational is the coverage from the picket line and the industry of others. Naturally, there have been the marches, the banners, and the teach-ins. But, with such generative care and warmth, what has brought special cheer to me have been the many outstanding examples of creative impulse: of craft (like that recorded by Jacob Phelps below), of design (from Katja May, Kat Jungnickel, etc. at Goldsmiths), and of poetry (no less from the fabulous Michael Rosen).

Given it would be hard to add to all the amazing commentary on the pension strikes, what I want to pay special homage to here is the dance (and a little song) from the picket line. Browsing the not-so-distant twitter archive, I’ve tried to dig out a few out the highlights from the last few weeks that can’t help bring a smile to my face. It must be said, that among all the wonderful examples, Lancaster goes gold hands down for the PEF (Picket Excellence Framework), and Imogen Tyler deserves a special award of excellence for her unwavering commitment to impact dissemination, Twitter-wide.

Here’s to all the dancers (and musicians) on the picket line


For example, from Jason Hickel, David Kernohan, via Medium, etc. Karen Gregory has put together a list of UCU Strike Readings. Lucy Robinson’s strike scrapbook also deserves a special mention.
See by Six points on the eve of the UCU strike Jamie Woodcock


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]]> /the-picket-line/feed/ 0 PhD studentships at City /phd-studentships-city/ /phd-studentships-city/#respond Tue, 06 Feb 2018 22:30:41 +0000 /?p=3954 Just trying to promote as widely as possible: My School has just announced ten PhD studentships. I’d love to have strong applications from prospective students wanting to join the Centre for Human-Centered Design (HCID). There’s a list of research topics here. The deadline is 25th April 2018. For the full advert, see here. Personally, I’m [...]

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]]> Just trying to promote as widely as possible:

My School has just announced ten PhD studentships. I’d love to have strong applications from prospective students wanting to join the Centre for Human-Centered Design (HCID).

There’s a list of research topics here. The deadline is 25th April 2018. For the full advert, see here.

Personally, I’m very open to suggestions on topic. It would be thrilling to see proposals for critical and perhaps materialist orientations to technoscience. Oh, and feminist, intersectional thinking would be high on my wish list.

Whatever the persuasion, if you have friends, students, colleagues, etc. interested in doing something exciting, please put them in touch.

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]]> /phd-studentships-city/feed/ 0