FREE

Joichi Ito, Director, MIT Media Lab (USA)

Enabling Emergent Voices And Expression Through Technology

Respondent: Brendan Mcgetrick, Independent Writer & Designer (China)



Moore’s law and the Internet have dramatically reduced the cost of producing and distributing information. This has greatly lowered the cost of collaboration and has empowered a qualitatively different “public” to think, express, and act without, or in spite of, central authority. These changes and advances in technology enabled interventions such as low-cost video cameras in the case of WITNESS; blogs (Global Voices); or open hardware and software used to build, distribute, collect and visualize data from geiger counters (Safecast). Ito will discuss how these trends relate to media, citizenship, academics, and conflicts. Joichi Ito was named Director of the MIT Media Lab in April 2011.



Part of the Zones of Emergency: Artistic Interventions – Creative Responses to Conflict & Crisis Fall 2011 lecture series.



The Zones of Emergency: Artistic Interventions – Creative Responses to Conflict & Crisis Fall 2011 lecture series investigates initiatives and modes of intervention in contested spaces, zones of conflict, or areas affected by environmental disasters. The intention is to explore whether artistic interventions can transform, disrupt or subvert current environmental, urban, political, and social conditions in critical ways. A crucial question is how can such interventions propose ideas, while at the same time respecting the local history and culture.



The Fall 2011 lecture series is directed by Ute Meta Bauer and is part of the courses 4.365/4.366 Zones of Emergency: Artistic Intervention – Creative Responses to Conflict and Crisis (instructors Ute Meta Bauer/Jegan Vincent de Paul), 4.330/331 Intro to Networked Cultures & Participatory Media (instructor Gediminas Urbonas), and 4.360/4.361 Performance Workshop (instructor Joan Jonas).



The Fall 2011 ACT lecture series is free and open to the public, and is funded in part by the Council for the Arts at MIT.