The talk will be held in Galaxen at Umeå University. You can also join us on Zoom. Welcome!
Contestable systems often present their negotiability on their own terms. Rather than questioning their very use and/or application, there is an assumption that automation is inherently progressive and that we, as humans, should fit within these systems’ constraints and maintain them from inside the loop.
While maintaining a strong advocacy for the benefits of technology, we can also see how some of these systems adversely affect the marginalised and the disadvantaged, while also suppressing these valuable perspectives. In finding ways to address and potentially leverage these imbalances, this research has reimagined contestation as a form of repair - a lens through which to look at how we might contest the digital intangibles by applying the values of physical repair and some of the strategies of the Right to Repair (R2R) movement.
In this presentation we will look at some of the projects and ideas which came out of this exercise and how they might be applied to contestation:
Communities: The Contestation Café
Roles: The Fixer vs The Repairer
Approaches: Agonistic Design.
Robert Collins is an assembler of critical things. Sometimes artist, mostly fabricator. He builds things as a way to understand the social complexities of new technologies and to find ways to subvert and circumvent the generative harms and noise that that often emerge.
He is currently pursuing a PhD at Umea Institute of Design in Designing for Contestable Systems - looking for ways to challenge algorithmic hegemony through Critical, Agonistic and Tactical Design.