DECOL Contagious Bodies Seminar Series-1

Network Politics in the Age of Data-Oriented Worlds Seminar Series

Date: October 9, 2015, Friday
Time: 18.30
Place: Akbank Sanat Beyoğlu

Curation: Dr. Ebru Yetişkin (Istanbul Technical University)

“Contagious Bodies: Network Politics in The Age of Data-Oriented Worlds” is a seminar series that focuses on innovative approaches based on digital technologies and it’s spreading political & economical socialization problems. The Seminar Series will host pioneering media theoreticians, activists and artists, who work on digital culture. In every month of 2015-2016 there will be one panel at well-known İstanbul based art space Akbank Sanat. 

The seminar is organized with the support of İstanbul Bilgi University and İstanbul Development Agency.
Organization: DECOL Coop./New Media Lab  

More info: http://www.decol.tv/Brett Scott

Mapping the Frontiers of High Finance: Creative Approaches to Exposing the Invisible World of Money

The financial sector is notoriously opaque and alienating to many people. It is cloaked in different forms of invisibility – either through secrecy and concealment, or through complexity, jargon and obscurity – and we often struggle to conceptualise how it works and how money moves. Making the invisible world of global finance visible is a highly important task and there are a range of exciting projects attempting to do just that. In this talk, I will explore different approaches to unveiling the financial sector, from open data mapping and photography to computer games and digital art installation pieces. We’ll look at new attempts at visualisation and sonification, and consider how money might be accurately represented in an era of digital payment via offshore tax havens. I will also touch on some of my experiences in financial anthropology, an approach to experiencing the deeply human world of otherwise faceless financial institutions. We conclude with an open discussion of potential new creative ideas for mapping high finance, where participants can bring in their own ideas and expertise

The seminar will be in English.

Who is Brett Scott?
Brett Scott is a journalist, campaigner and former derivatives broker. He is the author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money (Pluto Press: 2013). He works on financial reform, alternative currencies, P2P economic systems, corporate transparency and economic advocacy campaigns with a wide variety of NGOs, artists and student groups, including Action Aid, OpenOil, and MoveYourMoney UK. He has written for publications like The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired Magazine and CNN.com, and provides commentary on financial reform and cryptocurrencies on media channels such as BBC and Arte. He also helps facilitate a course on power and design at the University of the Arts London, and facilitates workshops on alternative finance with The London School of Financial Arts. 

He is a fellow of the Finance Innovation Lab, and an advisory board member of the Brixton Pound community currency.
Check out his blog at www.suitpossum.blogspot.com 

What Is DECOL? 
DECOL is a new media arts lab which puts its partners in the centre of it’s organisational structure, and evolves with needs of its stakeholders. DECOL founders community believes in knowledge has to be shared freely.  

DECOL dreams of a society based on information. DECOL resources are sharable and there is no owners except who the ones who share its knowledge.

Decol for artists;
* Supporting artists to let them exhibit their artworks,
* Creating resources through national and international partnerships for the use of artists,
* Supporting technological investments while adapting for new technologies as a laboratory. 

Decol for businesses
* Developing event based marketing strategies through new media arts in the most creative way. 
* Assures the exhibition of new media arts in public places.