In their web TV series, “Sistership TV,” multimedia performance art trio and research group The Powers envision a world inhabited by animal kin and monstrous creatures, haunted by other-dimensional entities, and erupting with the repressed archetypes of classical myth. Through the media of video, music, story-telling, dance, and ritualistic performance, The Powers present a performance that is both absurd, irreverent, and terrifying, drawing inspiration from mythological trinities of sisters and reconfigurations of hetero-patriarchal myths. The Powers consists of scholar, psychoanalytic therapist, and musician Katherine Kline, Brooklyn/Montreal painter and mixed-media artist Jessica Mensch, and Canada-based artist and filmmaker Emily Pelstring. Sharing the bill is Oakland-based artist Sharmi Basu, who explores themes of vulnerability, accountability, and experiences of millennial diaspora in their electronic and multimedia performances.

This event is part of Digital Alchemy, a series of performances and discussions exploring the intertwined intellectual and ideological histories of art and technology. For admission to the full series, become a member and pick up the Digital Alchemy All-Access Pass.

Discussions of technology and gender usually focus on how gender shapes the design and use of technology—but less-discussed is the way that technology shapes our idea of what gender even is. In this talk, Os Keyes, a researcher and writer at the University of Washington studying gender, technology and (counter)power, will parallel the development of facial recognition systems for gender with the history of attempts to identify and classify trans people. In doing so, they will demonstrate the profound (and violent) threat that AI systems—even those which claim to merely be “observing” or “measuring”—pose for individuals’, communities’, and societies’ understanding of the range of possible human lives.

This event is part of Digital Alchemy, a series of performances and discussions exploring the intertwined intellectual and ideological histories of art and technology. For admission to the full series, become a member and pick up the Digital Alchemy All-Access Pass.