[csaa-forum] Fwd: CFP - Figurations: Persons In/Out of Data Conference

[Scott Wark]

*CFP: Figurations: Persons In/Out of Data Conference*


*16-17 December, 2019 *

*Goldsmiths, University of London*



*Abstract deadline: **July 1st, 2019*. *Submit here
<https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/cim/events/figurations/figurations>.*





*Keynotes*:

Professor Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Simon Fraser University

Professor John Frow, The University of Sydney

Professor Susanne Kuechler, University College London

Professor AbdouMaliq Simone, The University of Sheffield




We’re drowning in an ocean of data, or so the saying goes. Data’s “big”:
there’s not only lots of it, but its volume has allowed for the development
of new, large-scale processing techniques. Our relationship with
governments, medical organisations, technology companies, the education
sector, and so on are increasingly informed by the data we overtly or
inadvertently provide when we use particular services. The proverbial data
deluge is large-scale—but it’s also personal.



Data increasingly characterises what it means to be a person in the
present. Data promises to personalise services to better meet our
individual needs. Data is often construed as a threat to our person(s). Not
every person predicated by data is predicted the same. The intersection
between data and person isn’t fixed: it has to be figured.



The aim of this conference is to bring together an interdisciplinary group
of researchers to explore how the person—or persons, plural—are figured
in/out of data. The figuration of a person might encompass any or all of
processes of representation, calculation, analogisation, prediction, and
conceptualisation. It cuts across multiple scales, epistemological modes,
and disciplinary areas of enquiry. It tackles problems that cross into
disparate disciplines. Our proposition is that the conceptual language of
‘the figure’ and its variations—figuration, figuring, to figure, and so
on—can help us to apprehend what the person is and how it is processed in
the present.



We invite proposals for *20-minute presentations *that take up or respond
to the question of how the person is figured in/out of data. We are
interested in presentations that address the conceptual, methodological,
analytical and/or empirical challenge of figuring the person in the
present. Conversely, we are also interested in papers that take up the
concept of the figure—broadly construed—as an heuristic for producing
knowledge about the constitution of person(s) in the present.



Our proposition is deliberately interdisciplinary. We encourage proposals
from researchers working in disciplines for whom the figure is central.
These might include, but are not limited to: the social sciences, art
history, media studies, the medical humanities, literary studies,
philosophy, science and technology studies, urban studies, or geography.





The themes that papers might address could include:

-      The figuration of person or persons in/out of data;

-      Techniques of personalisation and the figuration of the person or
persons;

-      Approaches that address the interrelation of visual, numerical,
statistical, metaphorical, and/or philosophical modes of figuring the
person or persons in the present;

-       Conceptual languages for apprehending persons in relation to
data—e.g. the subject, identity, user, data double, individual, dividual,
etc.;

-       The relationship between collective categories and/or category
production—like persons, population, distributed reproduction, homophily,
etc.—and techniques of figuration;

-       Figure as a concept for thinking gender in, e.g., science and
technology studies;

-       The art-historical/psychological/media-theoretical concept of
“figure/ground” and persons/data;

-       The relationship between visual and numerical modes of figuring and
the constitution of persons;

-       Literary/linguistic uses of figuration in e.g. metaphor, analogy,
simile, the icon, etc. in relation to the person or persons and data;

-       Figuration as a means of thinking the relationship between
image/text/number or media and code;

-       Related concepts—like the diagram or pattern—as complements to or
substitutes for the figure;

-       Conceptualising figuration in relation to resemblance, similarity,
seriality, difference, etc.



Please submit abstracts of *300 words*, including your institutional
affiliation(s) and a short biography (a line or two is fine) by following
this link and filling out the online form:
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/cim/events/figurations/figurations/.
The CFP can also be found here
<https://peoplelikeyou.ac.uk/activities/figurations/>. The deadline for
abstract submissions is *July 1st, 2019*.


If you have any enquiries, please direct them to *Scott Wark *at
S.Wark at Warwick.ac.uk.




*Figurations *is organised by the People Like You: Contemporary Figures of
Personalisation <https://peoplelikeyou.ac.uk/> project. People Like You is
a group of scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, and artists who
explore how personalisation actually works. We research personalisation in
four areas: personalised medicine and care; data science; digital cultures;
and interactive arts practices.



People Like You is funded by a Collaborative Award in the Medical
Humanities and Social Sciences from The Wellcome Trust, 2018-2022. It
involves researchers located at Goldsmiths College, University of London;
Imperial College London; and The University of Warwick.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.cdu.edu.au/pipermail/csaa-forum/attachments/20190517/931a92c5/attachment.html