Sonic Acts 2019: Flavia Dzodan – The Coloniality of the Algorithm

SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL 2019 – HEREAFTER

Flavia Dzodan – The Coloniality of the Algorithm – Introduction by Juha van 't Zelfde

23 February – De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

The topic of Flavia Dzodan’s talk is the coloniality of the algorithm or how contemporary technologies became a tool of racial, gender and class exclusions that can be traced back to the foundational moment of modern capitalism in the eighteenth century. The databases that feed algorithms of both corporations and the surveillance state operate through the logic of resource extractives to classify us as voters, consumers, friends, foes, love interests, sex partners, suspects, criminals or potential perpetrators. Each of the steps that leads to these classifications has been informed by centuries old ideologies converging to assign us a role, a place in the database. These taxonomies, or systems of classification, have been in use since colonial times and cannot be detached from a history of racial, gender, sexual or class hierarchies.

Flavia Dzodan is an Amsterdam-based writer, media analyst and cultural critic. She is a lecturer and research fellow at the Critical Studies Department at Sandberg Institute. Her research is focused on the politics of Artificial Intelligence and algorithms at the intersections of (neo)colonialism, race and gender. She is the editor of the blog This Political Woman, where she has written about the rise of the alt-right, Big Data, networks, algorithms and community surveillance. She has been published at Dissent Magazine, The Guardian and The Washington Post, among others.

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