Academic ethics and the lives of data
Title: Academic ethics and the lives of data
When: Thu, 17 Aug 2023, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM AEST
Speaker: Danny Butt
Format: 30 minute presentation & 30 minute open discussion via Zoom
Abstract
“Only capital and data globlalize. Everything else is damage control.” — Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
This seminar discusses ethical approaches to public “human data” in a world of networked social media platforms, automated information aggregation and large scale modelling. In concert with Ravn et al.’s observation that social media users have “diverse, and sometimes contradictory, understandings of what is ‘public’”, requiring a situated approach to considering social media use as publication for the purposes of academic study, this seminar also looks to situate transformations in the public domain in the context of Internet platforms that operate on an extractive commercial paradigm. The question of ethical engagement with online content from an academic research perspective should therefore situate itself within the infrastructure and business model of the neoliberal university, amplifying questions about the structural locations of researchers and the natural beneficence of research activities.
About the speaker
Dr. Danny Butt is Senior Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Practice at Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, where he is also Graduate Research Convenor for Design and Production. His book Artistic Research in the Future Academy was published by Intellect/University of Chicago Press in 2017; he is on the Editorial Board of the Journal for Artistic Research; and is co-convenor of the Asia Pacific Artistic Research Network. He works with the Auckland-based art collective Local Time, and co-Chair of the board of experimental sound arts organisation Liquid Architecture.
HADES Seminar Series: Humanities in the Digital Age
From the Humanities and Diverse eResearch Scholars group (HADES), this series brings together a wide range of interdisciplinary research at the intersection of Humanities and digital scholarship. We will hear from speakers on topics ranging from digital ethics and machine learning through to architecture and literary studies, but always with a focus on the crucial role that the Humanities play in helping to explain and shape complex human experiences. The series aims to challenge and extend understandings of digital research in the Humanities and present new and emerging work by scholars working across and between disciplines.
Seminars will usually be held monthly on the third Thursday of every month at 3:30pm.
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