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DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260521T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260521T170000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20260428T203123Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260428T203123Z
UID:10001300-1779368400-1779382800@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Prompt Poetry Against Propriety - Anti-Aesthetic Intelligence (aAI)
DESCRIPTION:A workshop exploring the lexicon of forbidden imagery with Adam Zaretsky. \n  \nThis workshop\, led by Adam Zaretsky\, will engage participants in both individual and collaborative experiments in prompt poetry\, followed by critical exchanges around AI‑generated imagery\, video\, and other media. It will examine the combined effects of data glut and human curation when confronted with an overwhelming stream of algorithmic production. \nThese exercises will be followed by discussions on the impacts of AI in relation to authorship\, kitsch\, algorithmic bias\, platform dependency\, antisocial applications\, search‑driven surveillance society\, and censorship. The group will also debate the role of shock aesthetics more broadly\, as well as AI anti‑aesthetics understood as a form of intelligence—situated somewhere between cultural terror and spectacular technology. \nThe workshop will explore connections between the collective unconscious and engineering‑driven biases\, examining how emotional affects intersect with the mathematics of free association and broader psychoanalytic enigmas. It will also address questions of explicit media\, extreme bodily imagery\, and mediated cultures of violence linked to the military‑industrial entertainment complex. \nThe session will conclude with a reflection on Loop Slop AI and the modelling of long‑term feedback effects. \n  \n⚠️ Disclaimer\nThis is a trigger promise\, not a trigger warning. We seek people desiring to go into the forbidden in the art beyond censorship and propriety. Disgust is a goal here. Disgust is an energy. \n  \nABOUT ADAM ZARETSKY: \nAdam Zaretsky\, Ph.D.\, is a former researcher at MIT’s Department of Biology and an experimental bioartist with over a decade of teaching experience. His art practice critically explores the legal\, ethical\, social\, and libidinal implications of biotechnological materials and methods\, with a particular focus on transgenic humans. Known for his engaging\, hands-on bioart labs\, Zaretsky creates dynamic spaces for bioart production. \nHe has led the VivoArts experimental bioart class at institutions including San Francisco State University (SFSU)\, SymbioticA at the University of Western Australia (UWA)\, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)\, The Arts and Genomic Centre (TAGC) at Leiden University\, and the Waag Society. He is the Head of Research at Nadlinc (since 2016) and a Research Consultant at BEAK (since 2022) in New York. Since 2024\, he has been a Visiting Professor at the Department of Audio & Visual Arts at the Ionian University\, where he also serves as the Creative Director of TTTlabs and TTTfellows in the “Rewilding Cultures” project (2022–2026)\, part of the Feral Lab Network\, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. \n  \n  \n  \n                   
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/prompt-poetry-against-propriety-anti-aesthetic-intelligence-aai/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Workshop
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260520T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260520T170000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20260428T201654Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260506T212337Z
UID:10001299-1779289200-1779296400@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:GAIAi: Artificial Infantilism and the Prompt Poetry of Unblocking all Keywords
DESCRIPTION:Focusing on the concept of General Audience Iterations Artificial Infantilism (GAIAi)\, Ian Haig and Adam Zaretsky will examine how contemporary AI systems are shaped by content moderation\, platform governance\, and cultural expectations around safety and accessibility. \nCensorship and AI\, obsolete models\, using AI the wrong way\, ugly AI and the interior body as an antidote to the idealised perfection of exterior bodies on Instagram. AI as haunted images culled from the collective unconscious\, images that don’t belong and are not of this world. AI slop as abject contamination\, algorithmic parasites\, transhumanism gone bad and AI as noise and error in the system of the AI overlords of Palantir and the emerging AI control grid for the Useless eater class. AI as an occult technology invoking  the residue of culture\, the leftovers and the dead. \nFeaturing Ian Haig and Adam Zaretsky\, the discussion will explore how these forces influence both the production and reception of AI-generated media. The speakers will address how algorithmic filtering\, blocked keywords\, and platform policies shape aesthetic outcomes and public discourse. At the same time\, they are considering the unexpected visual forms emerging from AI systems—ranging from polished synthetic imagery to distorted or unsettling outputs that challenge established aesthetic norms. \n  \nABOUT THE SPEAKERS: \nIan Haig is a multidisciplinary artist working across video\, sculpture\, drawing\, installation\, technology‑based media\, and mutant AI. His practice challenges the idea that low or base cultural forms lack value\, and has long focused on visceral\, body‑centred themes. Over the past thirty years\, his work has examined the intersections of contemporary media\, technology\, and the human body\, addressing attraction and repulsion\, fanaticism\, transhumanism\, and the degenerative effects of pervasive technologies. Haig has exhibited internationally at major institutions\, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York)\, Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris)\, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (Melbourne)\, ACMI\, GOMA Brisbane\, and Artec Biennale (Nagoya). His video work has screened at over 200 festivals worldwide. He is also an experienced curator\, notably of Unco and Very Unco\, at the Torrance Art Museum\, Los Angeles. \n  \n  \nAdam Zaretsky\, Ph.D.\, is an experimental bioartist and former researcher in MIT’s Department of Biology. His work critically examines the legal\, ethical\, social\, and libidinal dimensions of biotechnology\, with a particular focus on transgenic humans. Known for his hands‑on bioart laboratories\, Zaretsky creates participatory spaces for experimental bioart production and discourse. He has taught internationally at institutions including San Francisco State University\, SymbioticA (University of Western Australia)\, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute\, Leiden University\, and the Waag Society. Since 2016\, he has served as Head of Research at Nadlinc\, and since 2022 as a Research Consultant at BEAK in New York. Since 2024\, he is a Visiting Professor at Ionian University\, Creative Director of TTTlabs and TTTfellows\, and part of the EU‑funded Rewilding Cultures project.
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/gaiai-artificial-infantilism-and-the-prompt-poetry-of-unblocking-all-keywords/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Panel Discussion
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260508T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260508T190000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20260428T195650Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260428T195650Z
UID:10001298-1778256000-1778266800@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Environmental Materials and/as Methods: Closing Remarks
DESCRIPTION:Together with the Speculative Life Research Cluster\, the Hexagram Chantier Ecotechnologies warmly invites you to join us for the closing remarks of the knowledge mobilization series Environmental Materials and/as Methods. \nThis series has brought together diverse research platforms—the Concordia University Ethnography Lab\, Machine Agencies\, the Critical Anthropocene Research Group\, and the Speculative Life Biolab—to explore shared questions around material practices\, environmental inquiry\, and interdisciplinary collaboration. As the series comes to a close\, we invite you to take part in a moment of reflection\, exchange\, and celebration of the vibrant research cultures that make up our community. \nThe closing remarks will also highlight the work of the Chantier Ecotechnologies\, a group of seven interdisciplinary artists\, writers\, and researchers currently engaged in a collaboration with the Chaire de recherche municipale pour les villes durables of the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) and SYMBIOSE — Laboratoire intersectoriel en art\, technologie et environnement (UQTR). \nTheir research focuses on ecotechnological approaches that mobilize academic\, industrial\, and municipal communities around pressing environmental challenges facing the Beaudet Reservoir in Victoriaville\, including sediment accumulation and valorization\, and the long-term impacts on access to drinking water. \nPlease join us to learn more about their research outcomes and to conclude this series together. \n  \n                   
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/environmental-materials-and-as-methods-closing-remarks/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Conversation
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Header-closing-remarks-EN-1.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260508T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260508T160000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20260417T100706Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260428T190420Z
UID:10001296-1778230800-1778256000@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Environmental Materials and/as Methods: Student Workshop
DESCRIPTION:How to mediate the banal?\nInspired by Heather Davis’s forthcoming piece\, Banal Violence: Breathing Plastic Air\, this two-day workshop invites participants to investigate materiality as both object and method of study. Together\, we will critically engage with the question of material banality through hands-on investigation and collective creation. \nInspired by Rob Nixon’s seminal concept of slow violence\, Davis switches ‘slow’ for ‘banal’\, to focus the attention not only on the temporality of environmental violence\, as incremental and accretive\, but also on its affective and bodily registers. Toxicity scholars have shown that slow violence is both a direct experience and something needing mediation to be understood. We argue that this hard-to-perceive slow violence is even more difficult to communicate when it is also banal. \nAs part of our commitment to exploring creative strategies for mediating banality\, we invite students\, scholars\, and practitioners to investigate everyday material encounters across Montreal in a workshop. \nParticipants will collaboratively act as gatherers\, employing biomaterial capture methods to identify cues of banal violence across the city. Back at Spec Life\, groups will interpret their collected data using a range of methodologies familiar to different groups in the cluster\, including multimodal ethnography\, CLEAR Lab’s DIY microplastic forensics protocol\, and microscopy/material analysis. Following this\, participants will synthesize their insights through a series of speculative map-making exercises\, attempting to situate their discoveries in relation to time and space. The workshop will culminate in the co-production of speculative analog and digital maps\, making visible some of the manifold forms of banal violence present in the city of Montreal. \n  \n🎟️ Space is limited and requires registration: \n \n  \n  Start-up: May 7 11 AM – 12 PM \n  Workshop: May 8 9 AM – 4 PM \nSpeculative Life EV 10.625
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/environmental-materials-and-as-methods-2/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Header-workshopeco-EN.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260507T123000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260507T180000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20260428T194416Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260428T195256Z
UID:10001297-1778157000-1778176800@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Environmental Materials and/as Methods Keynotes and Roundtable
DESCRIPTION:Program:\nChantier Ecotechnologies and Speculative Life Cluster are pleased to welcome interdisciplinary researcher Heather Davis (United States) and independent curator Juliette Bibasse (Belgium). \n\n\n  \n12:30 – 2 PM | Heather Davis Keynote: Producing Plastic Air\nHeather Davis talk will explore how one plastic cup factory produces plastic air\, and the consequences for how we think about waste\, plastic\, air quality\, and bodily knowledge. Highlighting workers’ experiences in plastic production and decentring narratives of individual consumer choice\, her work draw attention to petrocapitalism’s structural violence\, where harmful environmental conditions have been normalized and integrated into what it means to build a life in the image of the American Dream. She will explore this through the concept of “private air\,” showing how air quality is monitored differently in workplaces than in the general environment. \n\n\n  \n3 – 4 PM | Juliette Bibasse Keynote: Creating at Large – Prototyping off the grid & slowing down\nJuliette Bibasse & Joanie Lemercier crossed the Atlantic in March 2026 aboard a sail cargo vessel\, slowly travelling for two weeks from France to New York without flying — a deliberate choice made in response to the environmental cost of air travel. A series of works has been made on board\, in direct response to the physical experience of wind\, waves\, storms and swell\, ever-changing light\, shadows and reflections\, transcribing moments of the ocean into thousands of ink drops and pixels. \nAt sea\, you cannot trust data\, even on a high-tech vessel full of sensors. You must observe reality. This journey was a wonderful context to question our growing tendency to use technology to sense the world rather than experience it directly: all the computing power in the world will never be sufficient to model a single drop of water. \nIn this presentation\, Juliette Bibasse will share some of their recent works\, the motivations behind this journey and the embodied experience they got from it. Through their studio works and the Concordia University Solar Lab\, their goal is to share a critical understanding of technology and to propose desirable alternatives. They believe the future should not rely on robots and datasets\, as these fragile systems feel more like disposable gadgets than a serious roadmap for the future. \n\n\n  \n4:30 – 6 PM | Roundtable Unsettling Sediments: Site-responsive\, collaborative inquiry\, and public engagement\nThis round table explores the material and methodological dimensions of a collective bio-based book-making process at the Speculative Life Biolab. Since fall 2025\, the group has engaged in an art–science collaboration in Victoriaville\, where sediment accumulation in the Réservoir Beaudet is increasingly threatening access to drinking water. The limited-edition artist’s book is being produced using locally collected sediments\, algae\, and plant matter\, and functions both as a research outcome and a site-responsive medium. The discussion will examine how its fabrication and writing operate as a sensory\, collaborative method of inquiry\, as well as an ecotechnological form of engagement and public knowledge production. \n  \n  \n                   
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/environmental-materials-and-as-methods-keynotes-and-roundtable/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Keynote,Roundtable
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Header-Plastic-air-EN-1.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260507T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260507T120000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20260417T100545Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260428T190545Z
UID:10001295-1778151600-1778155200@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Environmental Materials and/as Methods: Student Workshop
DESCRIPTION:How to mediate the banal?\nInspired by Heather Davis’s forthcoming piece\, Banal Violence: Breathing Plastic Air\, this two-day workshop invites participants to investigate materiality as both object and method of study. Together\, we will critically engage with the question of material banality through hands-on investigation and collective creation. \nInspired by Rob Nixon’s seminal concept of slow violence\, Davis switches ‘slow’ for ‘banal’\, to focus the attention not only on the temporality of environmental violence\, as incremental and accretive\, but also on its affective and bodily registers. Toxicity scholars have shown that slow violence is both a direct experience and something needing mediation to be understood. We argue that this hard-to-perceive slow violence is even more difficult to communicate when it is also banal. \nAs part of our commitment to exploring creative strategies for mediating banality\, we invite students\, scholars\, and practitioners to investigate everyday material encounters across Montreal in a workshop. \nParticipants will collaboratively act as gatherers\, employing biomaterial capture methods to identify cues of banal violence across the city. Back at Spec Life\, groups will interpret their collected data using a range of methodologies familiar to different groups in the cluster\, including multimodal ethnography\, CLEAR Lab’s DIY microplastic forensics protocol\, and microscopy/material analysis. Following this\, participants will synthesize their insights through a series of speculative map-making exercises\, attempting to situate their discoveries in relation to time and space. The workshop will culminate in the co-production of speculative analog and digital maps\, making visible some of the manifold forms of banal violence present in the city of Montreal. \n  \n🎟️ Space is limited and requires registration: \n \n  \n  Start-up: May 7 11 AM – 12 PM \n  Workshop: May 8 9 AM – 4 PM \nSpeculative Life EV 10.625
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/environmental-materials-and-as-methods/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Header-workshopeco-EN.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260421T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260421T153000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20260407T150228Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260407T150228Z
UID:10001285-1776776400-1776785400@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Cookout session #1: Recipe Methodology in AI
DESCRIPTION:Many\, many Machine Agencies’ Writing Workshop\n  \nAI Chantier of the Hexagram Network brings together maker-thinkers whose work spans machine learning\, interaction design\, and experience design\, to create a community of practice through a publication process. \nPrompting potential contributors with an unusual format\, Many\, Many Machine Agencies asks for recipes\, instructions\, or games that centre the problem of agency and interaction and the importance of new kinds of encounters with machines. This edited collection is indeed a kind of a cookbook for engaging critically with machines\, and as such\, we take inspiration from celebrated cookbook authors\, like MFK Fisher\, who provide recipes and instructions for dishes\, while embedding them in a broader biographical and cultural narrative. \nThis cookout session invites contributors to the AI Chantier publication drive to: \n\nLearn more about the recipe methodology and its relevance for engaging with machine agencies and AI\nTo talk about their writing project (share ingredients) and get feedback\nGet a clearer picture about what the publishing process will look like.\n\n  \nWho can participate?\nProspective authors are invited to contribute to this session. We also invite those who are curious about the project. \nThis activity is produced in collaboration with Machine Agencies and Milieux Institute’s Speculative Life Cluster as part of the 2026 Interdisciplinary Encounters. \n  \n  April 21\, 2026 \n 1 -3:30 PM \nSpeculative Life EV 10.625 \n To register or for any questions\, please contact nicole.debrabandere@gmail.com \n  \n  \n  \n                     \n 
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/cookout-session-1-recipe-methodology-in-ai/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Workshop
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260414
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260415
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20260324T150915Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260325T132218Z
UID:10001284-1776124800-1776211199@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:JenniCam@30: Thirty years of live streaming cultures
DESCRIPTION:April 14th\, 2026\, will mark 30 years since Jennifer Ringley\, then a college student\, mounted a digital camera on top of her computer in her dorm room and began streaming online. Ringley’s webcam\, known as JenniCam\, transmitted nearly uninterrupted for seven years\, becoming the most enduring webcam performance of the early Internet. Despite not being recognized as a pioneer during her time\, Jennifer Ringley made Internet history by pioneering live self-streaming. \nThirty years later\, we will commemorate JenniCam’s anniversary with a day-long event about and through live streaming practices. \n  \nProgram:\nJenniCam in Context\n⏱️ 10:30 AM (doors open at 10:15 AM) \n📍 4TH SPACE \nKeynote lecture by Susanna Paasonen (online)\, plus an in-situ conversation. \n  \nPresentations and in-situ conversations at Speculative Life Cluster\n⏱️ 1 PM \n📍 Speculative Life Cluster (EV 10.625) \nA pop-up live TV studio transmission hosted in collaboration with the Institute of Network Cultures. \nPresentations and in-situ conversations include: Tommaso Campagna on live streaming as a form of publishing (TheVoid.TV); Geert Lovink on the lives of the online self (online); Seska Lee on camming and the construction of liveness; Lotte de Jong on webcam and art (online). There will also be interventions on moderation and monetization strategies\, as well as live and not-so-live performances of live coding\, object theatre\, and music. \n  \nSnacks and beverages will be provided at both locations.  \n  \n🌐 Further details and online transmissions at: Jennicam-at-30.com
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/jennicam30-thirty-years-of-live-streaming-cultures/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Conversation
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260402T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260402T140000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20260312T195715Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260312T202242Z
UID:10001279-1775127600-1775138400@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Cocooning: Dreaming Adaptation
DESCRIPTION:Cocooning is a 3-hour workshop dreaming (climate) adaptation through embodied methods. \n  \n\n\n\n\nABOUT THE WORKSHOP: \nIn a time of ecological instability\, climate adaptation is often organized through techno-economic solutions that map protection onto some geographies while leaving others exposed. These approaches frequently reproduce colonial cartographies and patterns of environmental racism. \nThis gathering opens space to question those limits. Together\, we will dream adaptation as a relational\, embodied\, and collective practice — a process of re-membering frayed relations and re-mapping how we live with one another across borders and boundaries\, between human and more-than-human worlds. \n  \n\nWHAT TO BRING: \n\nParticipants are asked to bring one item they are willing to part with\, to be woven into the installation: \n\nA small meaningful object (e.g.\, a shell\, old necklace\, small keepsake)\, or\nAn old natural fibre in neutral tones (fabric scrap\, clothing\, lace\, sheet\, etc.) to contribute to the collective cocoon\n\nObjects will become part of the installation. \n\n\nNo prior artistic experience is required. Light snacks and coffee will be provided. \n\nThis workshop is organized by the Concordia Ethnography Lab in collaboration with the Youth Climate Lab. \n  \n\n  April 2\, 2026 \n 11 -2 PM \nSpeculative Life EV 10.625 \n🎟️ Reserve your spot \n  \n\n               
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/ccooning-dreaming-adaptation/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Cocooning_Poster-scaled.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260312T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260312T203000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20260217T163649Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260217T163649Z
UID:10001269-1773334800-1773347400@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Speculations in the PARC
DESCRIPTION:Following the success of its first edition\, the Speculative Life Research Cluster and the Performing Arts Research Cluster (LePARC) are teaming up once again to host a second mixer event\, Speculations in the PARC on March 12th\, from 5pm to 8:30pm\, in Spec Life (EV. 10.625) and LePARC Performance Lab (EV. 10.785).  \nOpen to Milieux members and the wider public\, this gathering offers an opportunity to discover ongoing research from both clusters. \n  \n  March 12\, 2026 \n 5 -8:30 PM \nSpeculative Life EV 10.625 / Performance Lab EV 10.785
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/speculations-in-the-parc-2/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260225T143000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260225T160000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20260203T193635Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260203T193635Z
UID:10001261-1772029800-1772035200@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Dr. Jennifer Pybus: Auditing Extractive Infrastructures of Datafication in Mobile Applications
DESCRIPTION:This workshop introduces an infrastructural mixed method for auditing how health apps embed third-party software development kits (SDKs) and access both personal and health-related data from mobile devices. \nThe method includes: \n\nAn app selection based on relevant criteria\nAn assisted manifest data audit using a large language model (LLM)\nA qualitative examination of corresponding privacy policies and data safety agreements\nA walkthrough method\, established by Light et al. (2018)\, to account for the different kinds of health and personal data that can be input in the apps’ interface.\n\nRather than focusing primarily on user behaviour or consent\, the method centres on qualitative analysis of Android manifest files\, since any personal data an application seeks to access from a user’s device\, or share with third parties\, should be declared there. Participants will also be introduced to the role app events play in personal data tracking\, and to how health-related data are structured in manifest files in ways that make them legible and reusable across a range of actors\, including large platforms. \nBy the end of the session\, participants will have a clearer understanding of how to conduct a static audit of mobile tracking infrastructures and compare back-end findings with front-end privacy policies in order to better infer how personal and health data are extracted\, shared\, and monetised through third-party SDKs\, and how these practices are\, or are not\, communicated to end users. \n  \n🚨 Important: Participants must pre-install software tools in advance of the workshop. Please register early to obtain the installation instructions and recommended pre-reading. Places are limited. \n🎟️ Register for the workshop by sending an email to digslab@concordia.ca with your name\, department\, and level of study. \n  \nABOUT JENNIFER PYBUS: \nJennifer Pybus is a globally recognized scholar whose interdisciplinary research intersects digital and algorithmic cultures and explores the capture and processing of personal data. Her work focuses on the political economy of social media platforms\, display ad economies\, and the rise of third parties embedded in the mobile ecosystem which are facilitating algorithmic profiling\, monetisation\, polarization and bias. Her research contributes to an emerging field\, mapping out datafication\, a process that is rendering our social\, cultural and political lives into productive data for machine learning and algorithmic decision-making. Pybus has cultivated strong European links with public organizations and will use her chair to engage Canadians with innovative tools\, resources and pedagogy for increasing critical data literacy and democratic debate about artificial intelligence. \n  \nThis event is supported by the Canada Research Chair in Data\, Democracy and AI\, the Digital Intimacy\, Gender and Sexuality Lab\, and the Speculative Life cluster at Milieux. \n  \n  \nFebruary 25\, 2026 \n 2:30 – 4 PM \nSpeculative Life Cluster Room EV 10.625
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/dr-jennifer-pybus-auditing-extractive-infrastructures-of-datafication-in-mobile-applications/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/8c1598d3-6219-a046-4ae2-41ca79fb2c7f.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260218T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260218T193000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20260213T161839Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260213T162715Z
UID:10001268-1771435800-1771443000@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:'Making art with other people's live': a workshop on the violence of visual representation
DESCRIPTION:Join the Visual Methods Studio for a workshop led by HUMA Ph.D Candidate Magdalena Hutter. \nThis workshop invites members of the community who work with documentary photography and/or film to come together and ask questions around how we address the violence of visual representation. How can we work with the lives of real people without being extractive or exposing our protagonists to harm\, particularly when working with groups who have historically been victimized – either in the name of science or art – by film and other visual media? How can we work with visual methods in ways that break down hierarchies\, rather than reinforce colonialist structures that equate seeing with knowing? What can protocols of ongoing consent look like? And what artistic approaches can help us to make our work more relational and accountable? \nAn experiment in thinking together\, this is a space to bring our own work and experiences\, ask some uncomfortable questions\, and support each other in committing to intentional\, responsible uses of visual documentary forms. \nMasking is encouraged at this event. Please do not attend if you are feeling poorly or have cold symptoms. \n  \nABOUT THE SPEAKER: \nVMS coordinator and HUMA PhD candidate Magdalena Hutter has been making documentary films for 20 years\, both as a director and a camera woman. In her research-creation dissertation project she uses oral history and documentary film to explore fatness as method in dance and movement art. \n  \n  \n February 18\, 2026\n 5:30-7:30 PM\n Speculative Life Research Cluster EV 10.625
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/making-art-with-other-peoples-live-a-workshop-on-the-violence-of-visual-representation/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Screenshot-2026-02-13-at-11.22.04-AM.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260114T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260114T193000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20260113T145941Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260113T145941Z
UID:10001252-1768411800-1768419000@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Vectors of Visualization: Troubling the Politics of Seeing
DESCRIPTION:Join the Visual Methods Studio to critically unpack ways of viewing research exhibitions\, engaging “Youth United Will Never Be Defeated” and your projects!\n\n\n\nIf you’re interested in learning more about the politics of looking\, join Transform co-investigator Dr. Carolina Cambre at the Vectors of Visualization workshop session. \nCome and engage critically with your own photos and the photos from the Youth United Will Never Be Defeated exhibition. Join us for refreshments and an interactive event where we will critically unpack ways of viewing research exhibitions by engaging the Youth United Will Never Be Defeated exhibition (part 1) and then engage our own projects and questions (part 2) through sharing and feedback. We will wrestle with discomfort and responsibility (of the viewer to the work and to the producers themselves) while attending to nuance\, complexity\, contradiction and possibility. \nWearing masks is welcomed. \n  \n  January 14\, 2026 \n 5:30-7:30 PM \nSpeculative Life Cluster Room EV 10.625
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/vectors-of-visualization-troubling-the-politics-of-seeing/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/https-cdn.evbuc_.com-images-1174495661-2339724480813-1-original.20260110-170552.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251003T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251003T160000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20250925T200702Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251017T164453Z
UID:10001237-1759500000-1759507200@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:The Educational Power of Zines: A Zine 101 Workshop  With an Overview on Zines in Education and Research
DESCRIPTION:Join the Visual Methods Studio and the Concordia Ethnography Lab for an interactive workshop about zines led by Sage Pantony! In this workshop\, we will: \n\nReview what zines are and discuss their history\nReview various examples of zines\nExplore using zines in and outside of classrooms (zines in formal\, non-formal\, and informal education)\nExplore using zines to conduct research and disseminate research results\nDiscuss our experiences with and questions about zines\, their benefits and limitations\, and different ways to create them\nMake zines together (instructions will be provided)\n\nThis workshop will also provide resources for learning about\, teaching with\, and making zines. \n  \nABOUT ZINES: \n“Zines are independently published booklets. They can be on a variety of topics like music\, feminism\, gender\, art\, spirituality or mental health. They tend to be composed of mixed media like text\, illustrations\, comics\, collages\, photographs\, and more… The language they use is usually accessible to a general audience. They come from a do-it-yourself (DIY) culture\, which emphasizes that anyone should be able to make a zine” (Pantony\, 2024\, p. 13). \n“Zines are self-published or published by a small\, independent publisher. Self-publishing allows marginalized voices to express themselves beyond the constraints of mainstream media\, and also lets authors take control of the process of publishing. Zines also present an alternative to the hierarchical and commodified world of mainstream media… Zines provide a vehicle for ideas\, expression\, and art” (Van Leuven\, 2017\, para. 2). \n  \nABOUT SAGE PANTONY: \nSage Pantony is a writer\, poet\, and zinester. They have been making zines since 2019 that have been featured in stores\, libraries\, and fairs across North America. They are currently completing an MA in Educational Studies at Concordia University. The focus of their research is on zines as empowering\, community-building popular education tools for social change. \n  \n🗓 October  3\, 2025\n🕒 2-4 PM\n📍Speculative Life EV 10.625 \n  \nThis workshop is part of the Milieux Experiential Learning Workshop Series\, check out the full schedule here.
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/the-educational-power-of-zines-a-zine-101-workshop-with-an-overview-on-zines-in-education-and-research/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/AdobeStock_103576107-scaled.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20250604T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20250604T190000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20250512T161742Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250512T161742Z
UID:10001209-1749058200-1749063600@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Epistemological Foundations Conversation 08
DESCRIPTION:Join Abundant Intelligences for Epistemological Foundations #08. This session will focus on policy and governance of AI\, addressing how decision-making structures\, regulatory frameworks\, and governance models shape the development and deployment of AI technologies. Our experienced panelists will consider how their work contributes to uncovering and shaping the conditions under which AI operates. \nIn this discussion\, we will consider how Indigenous epistemologies can inform AI governance\, moving beyond dominant paradigms to embrace relational\, land-based\, and community-centered approaches. What does it mean to govern AI in ways that uphold Indigenous sovereignty\, data governance\, and self-determination? How can policy frameworks integrate principles of relational accountability\, respect for more-than-human intelligence\, and collective consent? \nThe Epistemological Foundations Conversations feature members of the Abundant Intelligences research team sharing how the knowledge frameworks in their field are constructed\, validated\, and employed. This session will provide an opportunity to dive deeper into what it means to bring together Data Sovereignty and AI. \nABOUT THE SPEAKERS: \nFenwick McKelvey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University. He studies digital politics and policy\, appearing frequently as an expert commentator in the media and intervening in media regulatory hearings. He is the author of Internet Daemons (University of Minnesota Press\, 2018)\, winner of the 2019 Gertrude J. Robinson Book Award. He is a member of the Educational Review Committee of the Walrus Magazine. \n  \nKamuela Enos is the director of the Office of Indigenous Innovation at the University of Hawai’i. Enos is a mixed-race Native Hawaiian\, cis male\, raised in the community of Wai’anae within the context of the Hawaiian Renaissance of the 1970s and 1980s—an Indigenous rights movement that continues today. He holds degrees in Hawaiian studies and urban and regional planning from the University of Hawai’i. \n  \n\n\n\n\nMaroussia Lévesque is a CIGI senior fellow\, a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School\, an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Research Center\, and a member of the Indigenous Protocol and Artificial Intelligence working group. Building on previous work on artificial intelligence (AI) and human rights at Global Affairs Canada\, she currently researches AI governance. \nShe previously worked for Quebec’s public inquiry commission on electronic surveillance and clerked for the Chief Justice at the Quebec Court of Appeal\, and holds degrees from Harvard\, McGill and Concordia University. \n\nÉliane Ubalijoro\, PhD is Chief Executive Officer of the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) and Director General of ICRAF. An accomplished leader with a background in agriculture and molecular genetics\, she serves on several boards and has been recognized for outstanding contributions to innovation\, gender equity and sustainable prosperity creation. \nDr Ubalijoro has been a Professor of Practice for public-private sector partnerships at McGill University since 2008. From 2021 to March 2023\, she was the Executive Director of Sustainability in the Digital Age and the Canada Hub Director for Future Earth. She is a member of Rwanda’s National Science and Technology Council and Presidential Advisory Council\, the Impact Advisory Board of the Global Alliance for a Sustainable Planet\, the Science for Africa Foundation\, the Capitals Coalition Supervisory Board\, the External Advisory Committee to the Chief Statistician of Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada on Canada’s first Census of Environment\, Digital Green and Genome Canada\, among others. She is also a fellow of the International Science Council. \nPrior to returning to academia\, she was a scientific director in a Montreal-based biotechnology company in charge of molecular diagnostic and bioinformatics discovery programs. This work led Dr Ubalijoro to undertake consulting work in Haiti and in Africa related to sustainable climate-resilient economic growth. \n\n\n\n  \n🗓: June 4\, 2025\n🕒: 5:30- 7 PM\n📍: Speculative Life Room EV 10.625 \n🔗 : Zoom link \n🎟️ If you’re planning to attend this event in-person\, please make sure you RSVP by emailing: abint-activities@concordia.ca
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/epistemological-foundations-conversation-08/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/image001-1-scaled.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20250411T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20250411T173000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20250318T175410Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250318T190400Z
UID:10001194-1744385400-1744392600@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:[Speculative Life Speaker Series] Malcom Ferdinand: Loving Ourselves the Earth: Undoing the Colonial Inhabitation
DESCRIPTION:Join us for the fourth talk in the 2025 Speculative Life Speaker Series!\nThis new lecture series brings together five distinguished speakers to engage with a range of thought-provoking topics from Caribbean narratives and environmental justice and history to the intersections of colonialism and ecology. \nABOUT THE TALK: \nThe pesticide contamination of the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe has become known as one of the most important environmental scandals of the current French Republic. The historic use of the chlordecone (or Kepone) in particular has caused significant damage to both human and non-human while no one has been held accountable. Based on 15 years of interdisciplinary research as well as a sustained political involvement in the case\, Dr Malcom Ferdinand will present a radical narrative of that scandal\, one that moves away from the technicist perspectives of the French government and many scientists. Loving Ourselves the Earth: Undoing the Colonial Inhabitation\, his recently published book (Seuil 2024)\, tells the story of an ongoing decolonial resistance and\, with a poetic gesture\, offers a conceptual proposition for inhabiting the Earth and engaging the world in the ruins of modern colonization. \n  \nABOUT MALCOM FERDINAND: \nMalcom Ferdinand is an environmental engineer from University College London and doctor in political philosophy from Université Paris Diderot. He is currently researcher at the CNRS (IRISSO/University Paris Dauphine). At the crossroads of political philosophy\, postcolonial theory and political ecology\, his research focuses on the Black Atlantic and particularly the Caribbean. He explores the relations between current ecological crises and the colonial history of modernity. His work has been featured in numerous academic journals and includes the award winning book Decolonial Ecology: Thinking from the Caribbean World (Seuil\, 2019 & Polity\, 2021). He recently published a comprehensive study on the pesticides contamination of Martinique and Guadeloupe in a book called S’aimer la Terre: défaire l’habiter colonial (Seuil\, 2024). \n  \n  \n🗓: April 11\, 2025 |3:30-5:30 PM\n📍: Speculative Life Room EV 10.625 \n🎟️ Please reserve your spot here \n  \nThis event is supported by the Milieux Institute for Arts\, Culture and Technology\, the Speculative Life Research Cluster\, the Department of English at Concordia University\, the Department of Geography\, Planning\, and Environment at Concordia University\, and the CISSC. \n  \n           
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/speculative-life-speaker-series-malcolm-ferdinand-loving-ourselves-the-earth-undoing-the-colonial-inhabitation/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Untitled-19-1920-x-1080-1.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20250410T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20250410T190000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20250313T151456Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250403T202331Z
UID:10001191-1744306200-1744311600@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Book Launch and Talk with Jeremy Stolow
DESCRIPTION:Join the Media History Research Centre on April 10th for the last event of their Montreal Media History Seminar. \nProfessor Jeremy Stolow will give a lecture about his latest book Picturing Aura: A Visual Biography (MIT Press). \nThe talk will be followed by a reception. \nThe event is free and open to all! \n  \nABOUT THE AUTHOR: \nJeremy Stolow is Professor of Communication Studies at Concordia University\, where he teaches and conducts research on religion and media\, the history of technology\, occultism and science\, and visual culture. In addition to his latest book\, Picturing Aura (MIT Press 2025)\, he is the author of Orthodox By Design (U of California Press 2010) and Deus in Machine: Religion\, Technology\, and the Things in Between (Fordham u press\, 2013). \n  \n  \n  \n  \nABOUT THE BOOK: \nPicturing Aura (MIT Press\, 2025) offers a historical\, anthropological\, and philosophical study of modern efforts to visualize that hidden radiant force encompassing the living body known as our aura. This book chronicles the rise and global spread of modern instruments and techniques of picturing aura\, from the late nineteenth century to the present day\, exploring how its images are put to work in the diverse realms of psychical research\, esotericism\, art photography\, popular culture\, and the New Age alternative medical and spiritual marketplace. These sometimes complementary\, sometimes conflicting histories – shaped by exchanges among professionals and amateurs\, scientists and occultists\, countercultural artist and entrepreneurs\, metropolitans and hinterland figures – show how the aura operates as a boundary object: something ontologically plural and somehow serviceable to the varying tasks and making art\, healing bodies\, and mapping technologies\, and images migrations\, while also reflecting on the very enterprise of picturing aura and the challenges it poses to settled assumptions about religion\, science and art. \n  \n  \n📅 April 10\, 2025 | 5:30-7 PM\n📍: Now in Speculative Life Room EV. 10.625 (was Milieux Resource Room EV 11.705)\n🔗 Please confirm your attendance here\n 
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/book-launch-and-talk/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Panel Discussion,Reception
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Untitled-25.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20250409T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20250409T140000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20250320T135443Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250320T203737Z
UID:10001193-1744200000-1744207200@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Ethnolab Manuscript Workshop
DESCRIPTION:Join the Concordia Ethnography Lab on April 9th for the second edition of the Manuscript Workshops.\nThe purpose of each workshop is to help the author with a portion of the manuscript for a book they’re working on. The text will be shared two weeks beforehand so that attendees have time to read it and can come to the workshop ready for a constructive and generative discussion of the text. If If you’d like to learn more about writing\, editing and publishing this workshop series is for you! \nThis workshop will focus on Knut Gunnar Nustad‘s latest book: Trout in the post-colony: landscapes\, property and conservation in South Africa. Kregg Hetherington\, Jesse Arsenault\, and Blair Rutherford will lead the discussion. \nABOUT THE BOOK: \nIn the late 19th century\, British settlers released trout into South Africa’s rivers\, seeking to recreate their homeland’s streams and sporting traditions. What seemed a small act of ecological import would ripple across landscapes\, conservation practices\, and cultural imaginations for over a century. Through this seemingly innocuous species\, this book explores how colonial legacies continue to shape environments\, politics\, and landscapes in South Africa and beyond. Trout were spread from their North American and European homes throughout the British Empire in a couple of decades from the mid-1860s. Unlike many other colonial species\, trout were introduced first and foremost for sport and were protected through conservation efforts by colonial authorities. With the turn to biodiversity and concerns over alien species in the 1980s\, many now argue for their eradication. Today\, trout occupy a place in the postcolonial landscape that troubles many of the categories that we use to think about landscapes\, including the distinction between the wild and the domestic\, between science and coloniality\, between politics and nature. The book sets out to critically rethink these categories through a case study of the colonial British transfer of trout to South Africa and what happened to them there. It argues that the story of trout in South Africa offers critical insights into the broader challenges of postcolonial natures. Rather than making an argument for or against trout\, the book shows that to understand how colonial relations continue to shape landscapes in South Africa and elsewhere\, we must take the world-shaping effects of trout seriously. \n  \n📅 April  9\, 2025 | 12-2 PM \n📍: Speculative Life room EV 10.625 \n🎟️ To sign up\, please email the Concordia Ethnography Lab by April 1st. \nAttendance is limited in order to ensure a good discussion.
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/ethnolab-manuscript-workshop-2/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Presentation1.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20250321T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20250321T140000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20250224T160439Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250313T151820Z
UID:10001186-1742558400-1742565600@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Ethnolab Manuscript Workshop
DESCRIPTION:Join the Concordia Ethnography Lab on March 21st for the second edition of the Manuscript Workshops.\nThe purpose of each workshop is to help the author with a portion of the manuscript for a book they’re working on. The text will be shared two weeks beforehand so that attendees have time to read it and can come to the workshop ready for a constructive and generative discussion of the text. If If you’d like to learn more about writing\, editing and publishing this workshop series is for you! \nThis session will focus on Nayrouz Abu-Hatoum’s upcoming book\, The Art of Political Imagination: Shaping Palestinian Epistemologies Amidst Political Uncertainty. \nThis work examines the world of contemporary Palestinian visual artists living in the central cities of the West Bank. It focuses on their utilization of art as a tool for liberation and a craft of insurgent political imagination against settler colonialism. A central argument of the book is that art forms a vital thread within a wider web of Palestinian epistemology. \nThrough their work\, artists create\, retell\, and archive knowledge and shape Palestinian ontology and worldmaking—past\, present and future. They are creators of images and imaginaries that gather communities and contribute to national and political discourses. By highlighting the resilience of Palestinian creativity in the face of colonial oppression and erasure\, the book underscores the importance of rearticulating the role of art in the Palestinian struggle\, by focusing on artists who came of age politically and artistically after the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000. \nSowparnika Balasingham\, Balbir Singh\, and Lisa Stevenson will lead the discussion. This is a brown bag lunch format\, so please bring something to eat if you would like to. \n  \n📅:March 21\, 2025 | 12-2 PM \n📍: Speculative Life room EV 10.625 \n🎟️ To sign up\, please email the Concordia Ethnography Lab by March 7. \nAttendance is limited in order to ensure a good discussion.
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/ethnolab-manuscript-workshop/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Untitled-26.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20250321T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20250321T113000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20250319T193721Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250319T193721Z
UID:10001195-1742551200-1742556600@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:[Speculative Life Speaker Series]: Reading Joni Adamson & Marco Armiero
DESCRIPTION:As Speculative Life research cluster prepares for its upcoming lectures\, be sure to join the reading group this Friday\, March 21st! \nOn March 28\, Joni Adamson will give a talk about the role of climate fiction in shaping environmental discourse followed by Marco Armiero on March 31st who will introduce participants to the “Toxic Narrative Infrastructure”\, a framework which invisibilizes\, normalizes and naturalizes environmental injustices. \nDuring this session\, participants will be invited to read and discuss selected texts by both Joni Adamson and Marco Armiero: \nAdamson\, J. (2016). Networking Networks and Constellating New Practices in the Environmental Humanities. PMLA\, 131(2)\, 347–355. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26158816 \nArmiero\, M. (2021). The Case for the Wasteocene. Environmental History\, 26(3)\, 425-430. https://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/emab014.003 \n  \n🗓: March 21\, 2025 |10-11:30 PM\n📍: Speculative Life Room EV 10.625
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/speculative-life-speaker-series-reading-joni-adamson-marco-armiero/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Conversation
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Untitled-1-8.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20241119T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20241119T173000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20241112T153708Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241112T153708Z
UID:10001147-1732030200-1732037400@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Drawing and Ethnography Workshop
DESCRIPTION:Join the Visual Methods Studio for an engaging workshop on November 19th\, where we will explore the intersection of drawing and ethnographic research\, examining how the act of visual representation can deepen our understanding of observation\, detail\, and meaning-making in anthropological practice. \nThe process of visual recreation from memory or observation has been a part of our sense-making from a very young age. Drawing is one of the first things many of us learned how to do\, even before forming full sentences. \nHow does the practice of drawing mingle with our practices as researchers? Kuschiner (2016\,105) says: “Both anthropology and drawing are ways of seeing and also ways of knowing the world. Placing these two universes in dialogue helps shed light on some of the important issues faced by anthropological practice today.” \nDuring our workshop\, we will be doing various exercises and get a chance to reflect and share back on our experience with the guidance of the following questions: \n\nWhat are some ethnographic insights in paying attention to the technique of drawing as a practice?\nWhat is a structure\, what is a detail?\nWhat is in the background and foreground of a scene or encounter?\nHow can these distinctions inform our observation\, representation and research?\n\nThe workshop will be co-facilitated by Irmak Taner and Pelin Karaaslan. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nParticipants are encouraged to mask for the duration of the workshop. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  \n📅: November 19 | 3:30 – 5:30 PM \n📍: Speculative Life Room EV 10.625 \n🎟️: Make sure to register here. \n\n  \n 
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/drawing-and-ethnography-workshop-2/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Workshop
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://milieux.concordia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Drawing-Workshop-.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20241108T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20241108T140000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20241017T194843Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241017T200030Z
UID:10001143-1731067200-1731074400@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Community Engaged Ethnography
DESCRIPTION:On November 8\, the Concordia Ethnography Lab will be hosting a workshop on Community Engaged Ethnography with special guests Jennifer Cardinal and Brandon Costelloe-Kuehn from the Department of Science and Technology Studies at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.\n\n\n\nABOUT THE EVENT:\n\n\nThis workshop invites scholars\, teachers\, and community members to share experiences with community engagement\, both in their research and in the classroom. Bringing together experiences from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Department of Science and Technology Studies\, where community engagement has been increasingly included as part of undergraduate education\, and the Concordia Ethnography Lab\, who have conducted a number of engaged ethnographic projects since its foundation\, this workshop will provide a space to exchange experiences\, problems\, and expertise. Participants will discuss how to conduct community engagement ethically and responsibly\, how “non-academic” work can be recognized within the university\, and other related questions from the participants. We welcome community members to join the conversation. No experience or preparation is necessary to participate.\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT THE GUESTS:\n\nJennifer Cardinal is a cultural anthropologist who studies community-led sustainable development and climate justice. Her ethnographic research extends a political ecology approach to questions about the precarious relationships\, practices\, and discourse at the intersection of community and sustainability. She teaches methodological and conceptual tools to understand local meanings and practices in the context of global systems. This attention to the local within the global frame includes a commitment to support inclusive sustainability initiatives.\nJennifer’s recent publications examine the relationship between consumption-driven migration\, environmental conservation\, agriculture\, nonprofit organizations\, and community development in small town on the southern Jalisco\, Mexico coast. This stretch of coast is experiencing a transition as much of the beach-front land is being privatized for luxury resort development with claims of environmental sustainability. In the community Jennifer worked with\, on the other hand\, the concept of sustainability is materializing in an alternative locally-directed community development. This research explores how different environmental ideologies converge and produce frictions in divergent sustainable development practices.\nThe local and international collaborative research projects Jennifer has designed in the US\, Iceland\, and the UK bring a commitment to inclusive community engagement that integrates teaching with research on human/environment relationships. At Earlham College in Richmond\, Indiana\, Jennifer’s multidisciplinary student/faculty collaborative research team assessed local needs and assets\, and designed an interactive resource guide in a project funded through the Earlham Center for Social Justice. Student researchers took the leading role in directing the project to ensure that it would be inclusive\, accessible\, and useful to community residents. This project built on research into local sustainability initiatives in the UK and using a model team members explored in London\, resulted in a proposal to open a free Library of Things in collaboration with the municipal library in Richmond.\nJennifer’s current research interests in Troy\, NY include care\, community\, precarity\, and disaster. She is studying viable community networks for maneuvering climate insecurity with a focus on water and food. This local research also includes questions about how well-resourced institutions can better support local needs\, and the role of community-engaged work and learning in building mutually supportive networks including transitory student populations and rooted community organizations. This local ethnographic research will build on a larger comparative project integrating research on grassroots sustainable development in sites in Mexico\, the United Kingdom\, and the United States.\n\n\n\n\nBrandon Costelloa-Kuehn is an anthropologically-oriented STS scholar working at the intersection of community engagement\, design research\, pedagogy\, and environmental justice. \nHis scholarly work on the contexts that enable effective collaboration\, communication\, and engagement is rooted in interdisciplinary research that centers both STS and non-academic perspectives. \nFor the past decade\, building on his early ethnographic research on how environmental scientists at the EPA approach communication as a task of “context production\,” he has designed and developed contexts for collaborative data analysis (the Platform for Collaborative Experimental Ethnography)\, public data sharing (the Jefferson Project Data Dashboard)\, and community-engaged pedagogy (Volunteer Troy and Vasudha Living & Learning). \nHis most recent research\, while rooted in local community-engaged methods\, aims to impact national policy and practices around nuclear waste\, leading to more just and equitable processes and outcomes. \n\n\n\n📅: November 8\, 2024 | 12-2 p.m\n📍: Speculative Life Room EV 10.625
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/community-engaged-ethnography/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Workshop
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20241025T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20241025T150000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20241003T153549Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241023T193036Z
UID:10001134-1729868400-1729868400@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:#Gamergate\, Extremism\, and Disinformation in Games
DESCRIPTION:Join us at TAG Lab on October 25th for a Panel discussion with David Wollinsky\, Rachel Kowert and Mia Consalvo. \nPrompted by David Wolinsky’s new book The Hivemind Swarmed: Conversations on Gamergate\, the Aftermath\, and the Quest for a Safer Internet\, this panel discusses developments\, disasters\, and stagnations within games culture in the ten years since #Gamergate began. David Wolinsky is joined by psychologist Dr. Rachel Kowert and game studies scholar Dr. Mia Consalvo\, who will share their recent work on extremism and disinformation within gaming spaces to discuss how various spheres of games culture have (or have not) developed over the last decade\, and how we continue to deal with the aftermath of #Gamergate.   \n  \nABOUT THE SPEAKERS: \nDavid Wolinsky is a Chicago-based oral historian and documentary researcher. Since 2014\, he’s been unraveling complex questions about online culture wars\, fandom\, and entertainment labor issues through his independent interview series\, Don’t Die. Using videogames as a Trojan horse\, the series examines how these conflicts resonate across industries like TV\, film\, VFX\, architecture criticism\, and even supply-chain activism. His work reveals the broader societal impact of these digital tensions and offers a living archive of over 500 interviews on the evolving relationship between technology and society. \n  \nThis archive\, preserved by Stanford\, has informed exhibits at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture\, case studies by Cornell Worker Institute\, and reporting by the Wall Street Journal. His interviews also led to his first book\, The Hivemind Swarmed: Conversations on Gamergate\, The Aftermath\, and the Quest for a Safer Internet (Beacon\, August 2024). \n  \nIn addition to collaborations with the University of Washington’s Information School\, Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute\, and Northeastern University\, David’s earlier journalism career includes award-winning work for The Onion A.V. Club and NBC\, as well as receiving the New York Videogame Critics Circle’s journalism award in 2017. His interviews continue to bridge industries\, creating a comprehensive resource to understand early 21st-century digital life. \n  \nRachel Kowert\, Ph.D is a research psychologist\, award winning author\, and globally recognized leader facilitating global policy and product development with non-profit\, governmental\, and non-governmental agencies for more than 15 years through data-driven research focused on mental health and trust and safety in digital games. She has spoken about her work to thousands of people across the globe\, including the United Nations and the United States Congress. She has published a variety of books and scientific articles relating to the psychology of games and\, more recently\, the relationship between games and mental health specifically. \nRachel is also the founder of Psychgeist®\, a multimedia content production studio for the science of games and pop culture. \n \nIn addition to holding a research chair at Concordia University in Digital Game Studies and Design\, Mia Consalvo is a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies\, and is the current director for the Technoculture\, Art & Games Research Centre (TAG). She is the author of several key game studies texts\, including Atari to Zelda and Cheating.  \n \n  \n  \n: October 25\, 2024 | 3 PM \n: TAG Lab EV 10.625 \n🔗 Register here
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/gamergate-extremism-and-disinformation-in-games/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Roundtable
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20241025T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20241025T143000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20240925T191434Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241023T193203Z
UID:10001133-1729861200-1729866600@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Working with Friendship Round Table
DESCRIPTION:Join us on October 25th for Working with friendship\, a round table discussion about ceramics and the power of artistic collaboration. This event takes place as part of the 5th Virginia McClure Ceramic Biennale and the Ceramic Friends exhibition (October 25 – November 30). This discussion will bring together 5 artist duos to discuss their experiences and methods working collaboratively\, particularly through the medium of clay. \nParticipating artists :  \n\nEmii Alrai / Eve Tagny\nMarie-Michelle Deschamps / Celia Perrin Sidarous\nHeather Goodchild / Margaux Smith\nAugust Klintberg / Benny Nemer\nMeredith Carruthers / Susannah Wesley\n\nCeramics Friends highlights community building\, friendship and creative interrelation through clay. This edition of the biennale expands the notion of ceramics beyond produced objects to present the works of five artist duos who work in friendship\, engaging with clay as a shared conceptual material to bring forward communal aspects of ceramics work within a studio setting\, and the care\, resilience\, and collaboration this generates. The McClure Gallery thanks the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for their support of this project. \nABOUT THE ARTISTS: \nEmii Alrai (Leeds\, UK) and Eve Tagny (Montreal) worked collaboratively for two years developing the concept\, conversation and framework for Sutures (2022). Alrai is an artist and trained museum registrar whose practice subverts the traditional visual language of museum displays. Tagny’s multidisciplinary practice explores spiritual and embodied expressions of grief and resiliency in correlation with nature’s rhythms and materiality. \nMeredith Carruthers (Montreal) and Susannah Wesley (Montreal) have worked together under the name ‘Leisure’ since 2004. Their research-based art project The Ceremony (2021) is inspired by a document entitled “The Ceremony\,” found in the personal papers of local ceramicist Wanda Rozynska Staniszewka (1929-2007)\, which describes a series of objects\, costumes\, gestures and forms intended as “symbols for the renewal and healing of friends\,” between herself\, her husband Stanley Rozynski\, and her friend Gail Lamarche. This project was developed as part of the Foreman Art Gallery’s ArtLab residency and further supported by the Rozynski Art Centre\, the artist’s former home and studio. \nMarie-Michelle Deschamps (Montreal) and Celia Perrin Sidarous (Montreal) began working together in 2020 when they shared a studio. Marie-Michelle Deschamps’ practice focuses on language as an inhabitable space where aesthetic forms reside. Celia Perrin Sidarous is an image-based artist indebted to sStill lLife\, whose artworks present assemblages following an internal and associative logic. Both artists have featured in numerous solo and collective exhibitions in Canada and abroad. \nHeather Goodchild (Toronto) and Margaux Smith (Toronto) have been collaborating informally for two years. Goodchild is a multidisciplinary artist exhibiting internationally and throughout Canada since 2001. Recurring themes in her work include symbolism\, rituals\, personal development\, and the collapse of the hierarchy of artistic disciplines. Smith uses layers of paint\, drawing\, and collage to convey the body’s state of constant transformation. She is represented by Clint Roenisch Gallery\, Toronto. \nAugust Klintberg (Calgary) and Benny Nemer‘s (Paris\, FR) collaborative work articulates itself through participatory gestures involving acts of hospitality\, floral gift giving\, and paper wrapping\, alongside artistic research into the œuvre and legacy of Montreal potter Rosalie Namer (1925-2006). Their projects have been presented in galleries\, flower shops\, and community gardens in Canada\, the United States\, Germany\, and Scotland. \nLeisure is a conceptual collaborative art practice between Montreal-based artists Meredith Carruthers and Susannah Wesley. Working together under the name “Leisure” since 2004\, they engage with cultural historical narratives through research\, conversation\, published texts\, curatorial projects and art production.   \nThe Milieux Institute is a leading graduate research center for arts\, culture and technology.  Established in 2016\, it houses several research clusters across various disciplines\, and serves as a platform for creative experimentation and collaboration. \n  \n📅: October 25\, 2024 | 1-2:30 p.m \n📍EV 10.625
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/working-with-friendship-round-table/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Roundtable
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20241003T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20241003T183000
DTSTAMP:20260826T022405
CREATED:20240918T143421Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240930T144435Z
UID:10001131-1727974800-1727980200@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Alternative Medicine and Infernal Alternatives: On the Modern Fear of Being Duped
DESCRIPTION:Join us on October 3rd for a captivating lecture about of complexities of alternative medicine where belief and skepticism often clash. This discussion invites us to critically examines the implications of alternative therapeutic practices and explore the consequences of navigating a world filled with misinformation and inadequate knowledge. \n\nABOUT THE EVENT: \n\nWhen it comes to alternative medicine\, we are called upon to make clear decisions: Either you believe (in them)\, or you know (better). Either you adhere to evidence-based science or you let yourself be seduced by the mere placebo effects of quackery. This talk starts from the hypothesis that such alternatives must be taken for what they are: infernal\, in the sense that they are all too often unable to inform good practices. Going back to the debates around charlatanism in the USA around the end of the 19th century\, Solhdju will re-examine legal efforts to restrict therapeutic practices to those holding medical degrees\, focusing especially on testimony provided by the psychologist and philosopher\, William James. Following in James’ footsteps\, Katrin Solhdju will explore some of the contexts in which the “horror of being duped” is able\, not only to produce ignorance\, inaccurate knowledge\, or inadequate therapeutic practices but worse\, to generate a “thinning out” of reality itself. The question then is the following: What might the antidote to this multilayered modernist nightmare look like and what might it be made of? \n  \n\n\nABOUT THE SPEAKER: \n\n\nKatrin Solhdju is a Senior Researcher at the Fonds national de la recherche scientifique (FNRS) and a professor at the Institute for Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Mons in Belgium. She is a member of the Groupe d’études constructivistes (GeCo) at Université Libre de Bruxelles\, as well as a co-founder of the collective Dingdingdong. Institute for the co-production of knowledge on Huntington’s Disease. She is the author of two monographs: Testing Knowledge. Toward an Ecology of Diagnosis (2021) and Selbstexperimente. Die Suche nach der Innenperspektive und ihre epistemologischen Folgen (2011). \n\n\nThis event is co-sponsored by Concordia’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture (CISSC)\, the Media History Research Centre\, the Milieux Institute for Arts\, Culture\, and Technology\, and McGill University’s Department of Social Studies of Medicine. \n  \n\n: October 3\, 2024 \n: Speculative Life Cluster Research EV 10.625 \n For inquires\, please contact: jeremy.stolow@concordia.ca
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/alternative-medicine-and-infernal-alternatives-on-the-modern-fear-of-being-duped/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Lecture
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