Speculative Futures in Practice: Afroditi Psarra
In advance of our event on February 24th — Speculative Futures in Practice–we asked our panelists to answer three questions about their work and interests.
Afroditi Psarra, PhD is a multidisciplinary artist and an Assistant Professor of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington.
Her research focuses on the art and science interaction with a critical discourse in the creation of artifacts. She is interested in the use of the body as an interface of control and the revitalization of tradition as a methodology of hacking existing norms about technical objects. She uses cyber crafts and other gendered practices as speculative strings and open-source technologies as educational models of diffusing knowledge.
How did you first get started or interested in design futures?
I think that from a very young age I was interested in world-building. I was a tinkerer and an inventor of games, an experimenter of anything related to art and technology I could get my hands into (painting, theater, traditional dancing, MS-DOS, Logo, QBasic etc.).
I think the moment it became intentional was when I decided that my PhD dissertation would be about Cyberpunk literature and New Media art. The research process made me participate in some very inspiring ventures:
- participating at a series of workshops on the idea of the extended body with media performance artist Stelarc and queer theorist Sandy Stone and on hacktivism and Electronic Disturbance Theater with Ricardo Dominguez
- assisting interdisciplinary artist and post-porn film director Shu Lea Cheang on her project UKI
- interviewing critical engineer Julian Oliver
- participating in an art science workshop with Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand on how to create a cloud chamber and convert it into a particle accelerator to observe subatomic aesthetics through diffused laser light.
I also must admit that I did have a eureka moment the first time I experimented with electronic textiles by using conductive thread and making it into a capacitive touch sensor. I think that the realization that technology could be made to look and feel soft, fragile and personal, made me realize that there is incredible power in being able to imagine and realize such ideas.
What inspired your most recent project?
I am between three projects at the moment. The first one Listening Space was initiated last year with e-textile designer Audrey Briot and it is inspired by open source space research (specifically using software-defined radio to pick up satellite transmissions) and the use of knitting/ knotting as a form of archiving.
The second one was initiated in September together with interaction designer Audrey Desjardins and speaking percussionist Bonnie Whiting from UW. Everyday Voices and Voids which exploits voice assistants to create performative artifacts.
And lastly, the Ventriloquist Ontology (working title) inspired by Alejandro Jodorowsky’s theatrical play “The School of Ventriloquists” which deals with involuntary movement controlled by a ML system using soft-circuits.
What is something interesting you have read, listened to, or discovered recently?
Two weeks ago, I attended Transmediale and CTM festivals for a research workshop on Hacking AI and I got a chance the see and hear a lot of great things. Here are the most fascinating ones:
- Animals of Distinction “Frontera”
- Geert Lovink “Sad By Design”
- “Alternative Reinforcement Learning” for AI models
- Peli Grietzer “A Theory of Vibe”
- Nora Al-Badri “NefertitiBot”
- Tega Brain, Julian Oliver, Bengt Sjolen “Asunder”
Learn more about Afroditi’s work here: http://afroditipsarra.com/.
Join us on Monday, February 24th to hear from Afroditi and our two other panelists, Regina Lee and Audrey Desjardins: https://www.meetup.com/Seattle-Speculative-Futures/events/268276128/
