<unlike-us> Datapoiesis Fall School in Ivrea, Italy

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Dear friends and colleagues,

please excuse me for any crosspostings, we're getting ready for a very
important thing for us: the Datapoiesis Fall School in November 25-30 2019
at the ex Olivetti factories in Ivrea, Italy.

https://datapoiesis.com/home/?page_id=225

"Datapoiesis" is a neologism: it points in the direction of the fact that
data (and the computation needed to process it) can bring into existence
"things" that did not exist before.

Probably the only way in which we can gather understandings about the
planet's complex phenomena (climate change, migrations, markets, energy,
health...) is through enormous amounts of data.

But these data are, most of the time, very far from us, living in the
separation of data centers, in the spectacularization of dataviz, or at the
center of the seriously extractive processes performed by the current data
industry.

Datapoiesis explores the possibility to transform these dynamics. In
Datapoietic processes, we use art and design to create objects and artworks
which are the embodiment of science/tech/art collaborations aimed at using
data to approach complex phenomena.

These objects are totemic, meaning that they are designed to be places
around which people can gather for discussion, collaboration, solidarity
and participatory action, describing neo-rituals for public space, homes,
schools, offices, hospitals etc, in which data and computation become the
occasion for augmented, performative sensibility to the world's complex
issues, individually and as communities, organizations, institutions.

The first object explicitly created to trigger the Datapoiesis phenomenon,
named "Obiettivo", deals with the conditions of extreme poverty and uses
data from the UN, World Bank, OECD. It also questions all of these data
sources, and the strategic, ideological and geopolitical implications of
the ways in which these data are collected, interpreted and represented.
For example, among the data-rituals which we promote around the artwork, is
the possibility to create other copies of it, in which poverty is measured
in different ways, or regarding different territories, etc, to enable forms
of understandings and awareness that are highly enhanced.

After being presented in May 2019, Obiettivo was acquired by the
contemporary art collection of the Farnesina, Italy's Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Cooperation, as an example of "diplomacy through art".

In the Datapoiesis Fall School, we will bring these concepts to Ivrea,
inside Olivetti's ex-factories.

Olivetti is Italy's best historically known example of the ways in which
business can co-exist together with a positive social and community impact.
Furthermore, Olivetti had really interesting strategic intersections with
art and design, focused towards these goals. Currently, a series of
entrepreneurs are restoring Olivetti's ex-factories to explore the forms in
which contemporary businesses can welcome these social and community
impacts within their strategies.

The first project which will inhabit these factories is Datapoiesis,
promoting a new model for the data and computation industry which is not
extractive, but, rather, aimed at creating rich relational ecosystems which
are able to promote and support people's and communities' rights, freedoms
and well being.

During the Datapoiesis Fall School, people will come together from a
variety of different disciplines to understand what form could be assumed
by an organization that "does Datapoiesis for a living". What is its legal
form? What is its business/sustainability model? What materials, forms of
energy, technologies does it use? What is its process? What kind of
products/services/experiences does it produce? What approaches does it use
to preserve people's rights and freedoms in relation to data, AI biases,
data and AI opacity ..., and to enable people and communities to decide how
their data is used?

We will also design Obiettivo's next step: the first line of datapoietic
objects, which will form a permanent exhibit in the spaces of Olivetti's
factories.

The people who will participate to the Fall School will also be the first
in line, if they want, to be taken into consideration for joining the
Datapoiesis organization, which will form in the beginning of 2020.

The Fall School is free: you only need to come to Ivrea and pay for your
accomodation and food.

Feel free to contact me or the team for any further information.

https://datapoiesis.com/home/?page_id=225

Thank you very much
Best wishes
Salvatore Iaconesi
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