|
|
Conformity, Process and Deviation: Digital Arts as 'Outsider' |
Btihaj Ajana (King’s College London, UK)
Digital Poiesis and the Everyday
The proposed contribution revolves around my current art project Autopoiesis. The project consists of an experiment which reveals how different people from the Gulf societies think and feel about the culture and identity of their region. If they were given the chance to curate these themselves based on their experiences, narratives and memories, what would the picture look like? How different would it be from an ‘officially’ curated version? A digital platform has been created as a space to test this idea. autopoiesis.io is the project’s website which acts as both a submission portal and a platform for an online exhibition. This space provides an opportunity for members of the public as well as artists who are from, living in or transiting through the UAE to express how they feel, relate to and experience life in the region. In my talk, I will discuss the background and inception of the project and how it emerged from a marked need to provide ordinary people with a platform, beyond the constraining walls of official institutions, for intimate and unique self-expression. I will link this discussion to wider issues of digital (sub)cultures and identities, the limits of cultural governance and development, and the role of digital media and technologies in creating spaces for meaningful and alternative interventions.
Biography
Btihaj Ajana is Lecturer at the Departments of Media, Culture and Creative Industries, and Digital Humanities at King’s College London. Her teaching, writing and research interests are concerned with the areas of culture and identity, ethics and politics, and the philosophy of digital media. She is the author of Governing through Biometrics: The Biopolitics of Identity (Palgrave, 2013), a book that provides a critical analysis of the various socio-political and ethical implications of identity systems and the policies of immigration and citizenship. Btihaj is currently developing projects on cultural and creative processes with a particular focus on the emerging cultural and museum initiatives in Arab states, and how these are reconfiguring narratives about culture and identity, heritage and memory in the region.