Masterclass – Authorship, Algorithms and Access in the Digital Commons
When: 11AM-3.15PM, Saturday 25 July
Where: Brunswick Mechanics Institute & streamed online
Tickets: Book here from $35
The Emerging Writers’ Festival and Next Wave are thrilled to team up for this Masterclass on digital writing and censorship.
Authorship, Algorithms and Access in the Digital Commons
A masterclass presented by the Emerging Writers’ Festival & Next Wave
As digital technologies increasingly mediate how we communicate, create and understand the world, how do we as writers respond or rebel with curiosity and criticality? How can art and language resist exploitative systems, expand access, and open up new ways of seeing, sharing and making meaning, particularly in the current climate of distortion and coercion in the digital space? In this half-day masterclass presented in partnership with Next Wave, join artists and writers exploring the creative possibilities of writing in networked culture through experimental, expansive and vital practices.
Read on for the full program, and book your tickets before they sell out.
11am – 12pm
Touchy Texts: the immersion and submersion of queer words | Keynote by James Nguyen
Reflecting on how the public exhibition of a multilingual LBGTQIA+ glossary instigated by Budhi Sudarto and many others can encourage a more vigilant reading of queer literary emergence and suppression.
12pm – 1pm
Agency & The Cloud, a panel with: Rory Gillen, Ximena Jiménez & Tom Sulston
Join a panel of artists, writers, and creative technologists in a discussion surrounding alternative writing tools and technology that decouple writers from extractive corporations and subscription fees.
In the wake of the wholesale theft of creative work used to train generative machine learning models and the increasing surveillance of our digital lives, it has never been more important to maintain our own agency with the digital tools we rely on. But crucially, it has also never been easier to make the switch.
Event continues for Full Pass ticket holders only – full info here
2.15 – 3.15pm
Generating Access: Alt(er)text
A workshop with Jon Tjhia & Fayen d’Evie – Access Lab and Library
Engage with networked culture through the framing of access, with Access Lab & Library (Jon Tjhia and Fayen d’Evie). Why is alt text a contested space? How can we sustain critical positions in the mediated platforms we use to communicate? And how can practises like image description extend and expand the craft of writing?
Drawing on discourses around agency, authorship and knowledge creation, and through conversation, solo and collaborative practise, undertake a round of exercises that query authorship, speak to position and perspective, and recognise the generative significance of emergent knowledge.
MASTERCLASS PRESENTERS
James Nguyen
James Nguyen (he/him) was born in Bảo Lộc, Việt Nam, 1982. He lives, makes and writes in Murrumbeena, Naarm.
James often works with his family and friends to find fleeting moments of intimacy, play, and poetic justice. Leaning on the tropes of cinema, the false exceptionalism of diaspora and broken languages, James creates aetc encounters that could be described as incisive, irreverent and broadly irrelevant.
He has exhibited at institutions including the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, ACCA, the Sydney Opera House; and received the UNSW Dean’s Award for his PhD and the ABC Top5 Researcher for the Arts.
Tom Sulston
Tom’s 25-year career in software consultancy helped commercial and not-for-profit organisations develop and deploy software that is proven reliable, secure, and delightful. He is is one of the co-founders of Digital Rights Watch and is now Head of Policy at DRW, where he brings technical realism and social justice to digital policy aims.
Rory Gillen
Rory Gillen (he/him) is a narrm based early career Australian contemporary artist, writer, and educator specialising in the politics of labour and technology. His practice spans screens, code, essay, and e-waste, and centres around networks, lost futures, and speculative hype cycles. It is anchored by a sense of optimism for humanities capabilities but deflated by its present reality.
His installations (digital and physical) have been exhibited by the Perth Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), Canberra Contemporary Art Space, and Solar Protocol, and his writing has been published by Artlink and Cordite Poetry Review.
Access Lab & Library (Jon Tjhia and Fayen d’Evie)
Access Lab & Library, or ALL, is a collaboration of artists and writers Fayen d’Evie and Jon Tjhia. Emphasising experimental, social and relational tactics, they develop and nurture artist-led and disability-led access in creative settings.
Ximena Jiménez
Ximena Jiménez is a Peruvian multidisciplinary artist and designer based in Melbourne. Working across writing, graphic design, photography, and illustration, their practice explores how meaning and identity are translated and reshaped across media and communities. With a focus on code-switching and the politics of communication, they move between artistic and community contexts, including contributions to Accent of Women at 3CR Community Radio. They share stories as a living record of collective care and representation beyond institutional framing.
TICKETING INFO
Tickets for this Masterclass, presented in partnership by the Emerging Writers’ Festival and Next Wave, with Composite as tech partner, are now available!
Full Passes are available for the full, in-person event including the Keynote, Panel and Workshop. Full Passes are strictly limited due to capacity limitations for the Workshop portion of the masterclass, get in quick!
Half Passes are available for those wish to attend in-person for the Keynote and Panel. Note, a Half Pass does not include the Workshop which is strictly limited to Full Passes.
Digital Passes are available for those who are unable to attend in-person and includes the Keynote and Panel, streamed digitally.
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