Counteralgorithms and Visual Design is a seminar and workshop-based course including practice-based projects with data and creative coding, readings in related critical theory, and writing exercises. The course explores technologies that utilize computer vision and artificial intelligence, and other contentious uses of algorithms in high-stakes environments. We will consider how the structures and senses of algorithmic technology visually represent the world in new ways and how that informs human space, society, and our agency within it. We will investigate the emerging role of data ethics and algorithmic decision-making applied to socio-political issues, including frameworks such as data feminism, decolonizing data, and the politics of machine learning. Finally, we will reflect on and critique this new algorithmic gaze’s corresponding shifts in power and accountability. Throughout the course, we will analyze the work of artists, designers, and activists working in this space to understand how they use visual strategies to formulate critical positions when developing visual design projects.
The goal of the course is to thoughtfully engage with critical ideas from the intersection of artificial intelligence and social justice within the context of hands-on proximity to the technology itself.
No prior coding experience is required.
