The Visiting Artist’s Studio (winter 2020) was lead by Sidsel Meineche Hansen:
Virtual Body Politics (A critical study of robots, chatbots and avatars).

In this semester’s Visiting Artist’s Studio, we will discuss the use of humanoid 3D models within gaming, the pornographic and tech-industries and contemporary art. We will analyse the design of programmable bodies such as avatars, chatbots and robots, in order for you to get a contextual understanding of digital bodies and the industries where these bodies are put to work. In our seminars, we will be exploring the following questions: What is a sex robot? Do machines have a reproductive system? What is Artificial Intelligence? How is technology raced and gendered? Why are some machines made to look human? What is ‘Surveillance Capitalism’? What is Afrofuturism? What is automation? The Czech word ’Robota’ means ‘slavery' or ‘forced labour’. Through the work of scholar Louis Chude-Sokei we will understand the historic parallels of automata, robotics, and chattel slavery. We will also examine the legal framework of the end-user licence agreement, to see how colonialism and surveillance is incorporated into software products. We will also discuss the difference in ideology between post-humanism and Trans-humanism. And map out the concept of labour power, information and energy in order to consider the categorisation of tools, machines and technology.

Who is the course for?
This course is aimed at students who have an interest in technology and critical thinking. You do not you have to be academically minded to take part in these seminars. Discussions in these seminars will be based on your reflections on the material that we watch and read together. The aim of this workshop is to strengthen your ability to analyse contemporary art and digital culture, based on intersectional feminism, cultural studies, psychoanalytical methods as well as anti-capitalist, queer and post-colonial discourse.

Commitment:
What I ask from you, in terms of commitment, is for you to attend all of the seminars and for you to prepare for each seminar by reading short texts in English and watch relevant material online such as; a video lecture by Louis Chude-Sokei; a podcast about working conditions in the adult entertainment industry; Netflix documentaries about Cambridge Analytica scandal etc. As a participant, will be asked to make presentations of your own work and I will be offering individual tutorials too.

About:
My name is Sidsel Meineche Hansen. I live and work in London. My work takes the form of sculpture, drawing, woodcut prints, documentary video as well as CGI animations in VR. Selected solo exhibitions include: Welcome to End—used City, Chisenhale Gallery, London; An Artists Guide to Stop Being an Artist, SMK - The National Gallery of Denmark (2019); Real Doll Theatre, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; End-user, Kunsthal Århus, Denmark; OVER,Index Stockholm, Sweden (2018); OVER,Ludlow 38, New York City (2017); No Right Way 2 Cum, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow; SECOND SEX WAR, Gasworks, London (both 2016); ONE-self, Temporary Gallery & Kunstler House Bremen, Germany (2015); and INSIDER,CUBITT, London (2014).
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