Feminist Technics, Queer Machines: Inventing Better Futures

The HTMlles Festival 2014

tobias c. van Veen (Vancouver), Ytasha L. Womack (Chicago), Lisa K. Taylor (Sherbrooke), Anna Pringle (Montreal), Mikhel Proulx (Montreal), Holly Hampson (Montreal), Eleanor Dumouchel (Montreal), Li Cornfeld (Montreal), Rosalynn Rothstein (Portland) and Adwoa Afful (Toronto)

CONFERENCE

La Sala Rossa (4848, Saint-Laurent )
Free entrance
Friday, November 7, 9.30 AM–5 PM
One-Day Conference co-organized with the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF)
Followed by a reception at Sala Rossa Restaurant (first floor)

9:30-11:00am Technology and Futurity: Eleanor Dumouchel, Li Cornfeld, Anna Pringle

11:15am-12:45pm Decolonizing the Future: Lisa Taylor, Adwoa Afful

2:00-3:30pm Futures of the Mediated Self: Mikhel Proulx, Rosalynn Rothstein, Holly Hampson

3.45 PM: Keynote/Talk “Afrofuturism as Creative Empowerment” by Ytasha L. Womack (Chicago)
Facilitator: tobias c. van Veen (Université de Montréal)

The conference contemplates the intersecting, hopeful, and dystopian imaginaries of current futurisms, with a particular focus on its queer and feminist trajectories. Blending academic and artistic practice, the day’s events will include three panel discussions on the topics of decolonizing the future, technology and futurism, and futures of the mediated body, followed by a keynote/talk on feminism and Afrofuturism by Chicago-based author Ytasha L. Womack, facilitated by Vancouver-based researcher tobias c. van Veen.

Free and open to the public, but please register at: mcgill.ca/igsf/events/registration

Participants:
Adwoa Afful (York University), Itinerant Futures: Afrofuturist Feminism, African Migrant Subjectivities and Black Countercultural Production
Li Cornfeld (McGill University), “A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow”: Walt Disney, General Electric, and the Failed Promise of Industrial Futurity
Eleanor Dumouchel (Concordia University), Detroit Techno, Afro-Futurism, and Cybernetic Theory: Deconstructing the History of New Media Art from the Warehouse Floor
Holly Hampson (Concordia University), ZERO LOVE: A Virtual Match Made in Heaven – Who Needs a Body When There’s the Internet?
Anna Pringle (Concordia University), Drones, Contaminated Dirt and an Historical Present of Neocolonialism
Mikhel Proulx (Concordia University), Queer Technologies of the Selfie
Rosalynn Rothstein (University of Oregon) Subtle Productivity: Data-Driven Performance in the Reproductive Health App Glow
Lisa Taylor (Bishop’s University), Colonial Futurist Logics in Learning to Teach: Disrupting Intimate Publics in Response to Residential School Testimonial Texts

Programming partners :
Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF)