“Beyond the logic of commensurability:  a cultural analysis of media artworks and digital media in information capitalism”

1. Abstract

The proposed presentation will examine the pedagogical potential of media artworks that interrogate the big data economy within contemporary information society. The study begins by establishing the socio-political landscape within which it is situated, one that recognizes the pervasive utopic myth and exploitative algorithmic activities of informatics, and asserts that media art needs to address digital media by examining the underpinning logic of information within the wider landscape of information capitalism. Guided by a framework that pulls together theories of media and art, the paper argues that media art has the capacity to subvert normalized and entrenched ways of knowing through its potential to foster ways of 'knowing differently' in relation to information and communication technology. To substantiate the argument, the paper will position information as an epistemic model through which one comes to make sense of the world – and precisely that which visual/media art should tackle and question.