Creativity, technology and social good with CCI

Technology and creativity can be powerful forces for good, but to transform communities they need to be accessible, equitable and inclusive. UAL Creative Computing Institute (CCI)’s social mission explores the ways that creative computing can help transform existing technologies and make new ones that contribute to positive social change.

These talks will highlight and demonstrate the power technology holds to change our visions for the future when working hand in hand with human creativity and a commitment to equality. We look forward to sharing the work that artists and practitioners at CCI are developing to challenge and change the way we see and design fairer, more inclusive and accessible worlds. And there is more to inspire at our afternoon workshop, where you can see how creative tech, more specifically Augmented Reality (AR), can be used in engaging and playful ways for activism.

These events are part of the UAL Tech for All Conference, February 1-5. Book your space below and join us for this inspirational exploration!

Schedule

10:00am – 10:15am Opening talk with Professor Mick Grierson

10:15am – 10:45am Bespoke videogame controllers with Phoenix Perry

10:50am – 11:20am Algorithmic bias as an organisational rather than an ethical problem with Dr Peaks Krafft

11:20am – 11:50am The Great Black Hack with Alex Fefegha

12:00pm – 12:30pm Queering AI with Andrew Mallinson

12:30pm – 1:30pm Rewriting narratives through code: Empowerment, education, activism and outreach with Jazmin Morris

2.30-3.30pm Tech and Activism workshop with Ricebox Studio.

• Book your place for the morning talks
• Book your place for the workshop

Bespoke videogame controllers

This talk investigates the creation of bespoke alternative controller (alt ctrl) games in the alt ctrl game community, arguing that bespoke controllers made for small audiences at exhibitions and performances can be understood as examples of a critical, feminist praxis and an approach to interface design that creates new audiences, experiences, and circuits of expression. It will begin with a discussion of feminist praxis and its critical relationship with ableist approaches to interface design that produce gaming peripherals for mass markets. Then it situates the authors experiences and work in the in the alt ctrl community at the intersection of feminist praxis, mass manufacturing and craft epistemologies, and the coming together of a variegated, multidisciplinary set of artists interested in applying hardware, software design, play, and user experience skills to the production of handmade cultural objects. Finally, it uses the authors experiences in the alt ctrl community to insist that bespoke controllers can provide a starting point for thinking about the roles that handmade cultural objects can play.

Phoenix Perry (she/Zie) creates embodied games and installations. As an advocate for women in game development, she founded Code Liberation Foundation. She leads the MSc in Creative Computing at the CCI. Twitter: @phoenixperry

Algorithmic bias as an organisational rather than an ethical problem

This project has the goal of addressing organisational issues in higher education and the tech industry that contribute to perpetuating bias and inequality in artificial intelligence (AI) and other software applications. Bias and inequality in information technologies are exemplified by cases such as the disparate impacts of predictive policing on minoritised groups or the class-biased results or Ofqual's 2020 A-levels algorithm. Such problems create and reinforce social inequalities in society. In contrast to much of the work on algorithmic bias and tech ethics—which has focused on the roles of state policy, the tech industry, and ethics pedagogy—this project seek's to identify the roles of organisational structures and practises in failing to create an inclusive and justice-oriented tech innovation landscape.

Dr Peaks Krafft (they/them) is Senior Lecturer and MA Internet Equalities Course Leader at the CCI. Dr Krafft undertakes critically-oriented computer science research, academic organising, and community organising, especially recently on four issues in higher education and tech: social impacts of technology; personal and institutional accountability; anti-racism in organisations, and conflicts of interest from tech funding. Dr Krafft participates in several tech justice groups including NoTechForTyrants, United Tech and Allied Workers, and the Movement for Anti-Oppressive Computing Practices.

The Great Black Hack

A talk on a speculative provocation exploring the attack on human agency and autonomy by facial recognition technologies.

Alex Fefegha (he/him) is the co-founder & director of creative technology at London based design studio COMUZI working with the likes of Samsung, ASOS, Waltham Forest Council, Southwark Council, Wellcome Trust, BBC R&D, Mozilla, Nike, Uber, Google + more on interaction design and product innovation. He is currently an artist in residence at Google AI in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture, working on a music and machine learning interactive experience launching in 2021. Alex is also an associate lecturer at the CCI, teaching a module on computational futures and artificial intelligence. Alex holds a Masters degree in Innovation from Central Saint Martins, UAL.  Instagram: @lexmakethings.fun