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PLASMA presents Derek Curry and Jennifer Gradecki
May 8, 2023 @ 6:15 pm - 8:00 pm
MONDAY MAY 8th, the Department of Media Study’s PLASMA (Performances, Lectures, And Screenings in Media Art) presents an IN-PERSON lecture by artists and UB PhD alumni JENNIFER GRADECKI & DEREK CURRY at 6:15 pm EST in the Center for the Arts, Room 112.
Jennifer Gradecki (US) is an artist-theorist who investigates secretive and specialized socio-technical systems. Her artistic research has focused on social science techniques, financial instruments, technologies of mass surveillance, intelligence analysis, artificial intelligence, and social media misinformation. She received her MFA in New Genres from UCLA in 2010 and her PhD in Visual Studies from SUNY Buffalo in 2019. Derek Curry(US) is an artist-researcher whose work critiques and addresses spaces for intervention in automated decision-making systems. His work has addressed automated stock trading systems, Open Source Intelligence gathering (OSINT), and algorithmic classification systems. His artworks have replicated aspects of social media surveillance systems and communicated with algorithmic trading bots. Derek earned his MFA in New Genres from UCLA’s Department of Art in 2010 and his PhD in Media Study from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2018. Both Derek and Jennifer are currently Assistant Professors at Northeastern University in Boston.
Working together, they have presented and exhibited at venues including Ars Electronica (Linz), New Media Gallery (Zadar), Media Art History (Göttweig), NeMe (Cypress), The New Gallery (Calgary), ISEA (Vancouver), ADAF (Athens), and the Centro Cultural de España (México). Their research has been published in Leonardo, Big Data & Society, Visual Resources, and Leuven University Press. Their artwork has been funded by Science Gallery Dublin, Science Gallery Detroit, the Puffin Foundation, and the NEoN Digital Arts Festival. Recent collaborations include Crowd-Sourced Intelligence Agency; Infodemic; Going Viral; and Boogaloo Bias.
Mark Shepard, Associate Professor of Media Study and Architecture, will introduce the artists. He discusses Jennifer and Derek’s collaborative work in his recently published book, There are No Facts: Attentive Algorithms, Extractive Data Practices, and the Quantification of Everyday Life (MIT Press, 2022).
As always, PLASMA lectures are free and open to the UB community and the public. For remote access to the series, use Zoom Meeting ID: 933 1482 2173 with PASSWORD: PLASMA2023.
PLASMA is sponsored by the University at Buffalo’s Department of Media Study and funding is provided by the Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. The series is taught and organized by Dr. Paige Sarlin, Assistant Professor of Media Study, in collaboration with Sylvie Fortin, UB Art Gallery, Ekrem Serdar, and Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center.
