Held as part of the programme for Kara Chin’s exhibition Concerned Dogs, this conversation between Angela YT Chan and Avery Delany will unpack both the emancipatory capacity of digital storytelling and its problematic entwinement with capitalist structures.
Their discussion will question who is considered within cyber cultures? Which bodies are centred and how can digital environments be mobilised as spaces to reject entrenched social hierarchies and posit alternative futures?
Building on the content of Chin’s installation, the speakers will examine the ethics of the spectacle and the prevalence of apocalyptic aesthetics within popular culture. They’ll unpick what role digital technologies can play within climate catastrophe and they’ll reconsider the relationship between ancient narratives and digital realms.
BIOGRAPHIES
Angela YT Chan is an independent artist, curator and researcher specialising in climate change in relation to people, colonial histories, data technologies and justice. Her projects consider climate framings and span water scarcity, military and everyday experiences. Angela has held research and artistic residencies with FACT, Abandon Normal Devices, Sonic Acts, Primary and more. She co-directs the London Science Fiction Research Community and is also an educator (games, fine art). As a research consultant, Angela has worked in international climate and cultural policy and on climate and sustainability projects for major cultural institutions. angelaytchan.com
Avery Delany is disabled, queer, non-binary and polyamorous writer, social justice activist, educator and worldbuilder from South London. They are an ESRC funded PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths University whose thesis explores questions of “what it means to be human (and non-human)” vis-a-vis science fiction video game narratives about artificial intelligence. Beyond academia, Avery works part-time at a charity on a county lines project and writes fiction about queer relationships, futures and technologies. They are a member of the Beyond Gender queer and feminist research collective, a podcaster for Lore Party Media, and an ex co-director of the London Science Fiction Research Community. You can find them on Twitter @redrocketpanda.
