March 2023

Updates from ETHOS Lab

Hi there,

It’s been a while since we sent out an update from the lab on all of our activities. In fact, it’s been three months. So we’ve got a lot to catch up on. 

On that note I will keep this short, and just say how incredibly excited I am for spring. Copenhagen has been flooded with sunshine the last couple of days, and the longer days and colourful sunsets remind us all that summer is on its way. And for most with summer comes more time spent outside, more time swimming in the harbour, more capacity to do and create and be. And I think we could all use a bit of that after this long winter. 

Here’s to hoping spring sticks around. And I hope you’ll enjoy these updates from the lab as well. 

- Henriette 

 

We’d always love to hear your feedback on the newsletter. Reach us here: ethos@itu.dk 

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What’s new?  

Pitch and Play #2 & #3
On December 6th the Junior Researchers presented at their second Pitch & Play session of the year – and then again just last week on February 21st. We’ve had presentations (and play sessions) on the crisis of masculinity, brilliance bias in academia, critical reflections on predictions of future gender diversity in STEM, accountability and stakeholder mapping in public AI projects, and reflections on privacy as a commodity - and the dynamics that come with it. Since the last newsletter we have also published blog posts from the JRs and I’ll make sure to link those below.  

Even though the semester has only just begun, the students will soon be entering the final stretch, as we work towards their fourth and final P&P in April. Everyone in the lab is excited to see where the projects will end up. 

Warm welcome to Sunniva and Alena
We are very pleased to share that two of our dear colleagues have decided to join the lab.
Sunniva Sandbukt is an Assistant Professor in the TiP group. Her research draws largely from both economic anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS), and critically engages with the digitalisation and private enclosure of social infrastructures, as well as automation and the invisibilisation of human labour.
Alena Thiel is course managing The Digital State on the Digital Innovation & Management MSc programme this semester. Her current work is concerned with the role of (biometric) identification technologies in Ghana. Taking the promise of the current, digital “data revolution” of the Ghanaian population data system as a starting point, the project “Identification Technologies in Ghana” explores how Ghanaian policy makers integrate previously isolated, administrative population registers for new, interoperability-based applications aimed at improving the timeliness and coverage of population data for internationally standardised reporting.

Workshop with the five MADE students
On January 17th Lab Manager Henriette Friis welcomed five Australian students of engineering, planning, and architecture from institutions across New South Wales to a design workshop. The students were visiting Denmark as participants in the MADE by the Opera House programme - a multidisciplinary exchange programme between Australia and Denmark. During the workshop the students were challenged to think of new ways of engaging residents and users when designing new urban environments.

Soft landing - Zine workshop
On February 2nd we gathered in the lab for our second ever soft landing. Regular readers of this newsletter may remember this blogpost from June last year. It was this conversation that lead to our first Soft Landing back in the late summer. And we decided to do it again at the start of this semester to land softly after the exam period, and hopefully be off to a good start.  

Co-director Jessamy Perriam and lab manager Henriette Friis organised a zine workshop for faculty and Junior Researchers alike. It was an informal gathering that allowed us all to get crafty with old magazine cutouts, glue, and glitter. 

Feminist Futures Copenhagen: Applications open! 
In other exciting news, we’ve gotten a real move on our hackathon planning. We’ve brought together a great little team of organisers from ITU and beyond, and we’ve got some really wonderful ideas and plans up our sleeve. You can follow along for more regular updates on the Instagram account @feministfuturescph. 

Applications are now open for anyone 18+ residing in and around Copenhagen (a distance that will allow you to travel to Copenhagen a couple of times a week for three weeks). Please help us spread the word in your networks, we would really appreciate it. You can read much more about the hackathon (and send through your application) on our website

Again, if you’re interested in getting involved, always feel free to reach out to Lab Manager Henriette (hefh@itu.dk).

New shelf!
In news that may seem small to others, but big to those of us frequenting the lab: We have finally, after a year of pleading, gotten a shelf for the solar server! And this is in fact just in time for this Wednesday where Luis Landa will give an update in the lab about the Solar Server project which you can read more about here

Tarot reading for the lab
On February 8th co-director Marisa Cohn did a tarot reading for the lab. There will be a blogpost soon, but until then - here’s a little teaser: 

What does it mean to act as “a lab”? This has been a fundamental question we have faced as a collective of researchers and as an institutional unit within the University. This pertains to the question of our ambitions and our remit. The lab has always been many things - a workers’ collective every Wednesday to discuss the challenges of academic life within and beyond the University walls, a feminist methods lab and space for experimentation, a student lab supporting safe spaces for pedagogic experiences of research exploration and apprenticeship, a community for sharing resources to infrastructure inquiry, a meeting point for critical interventions through writing, maging, and imploding technological worlds. But being so many things, not anchored in a single unified research agenda, also provokes questions on what it means to act as The Lab. What are the lab’s crowning achievements, what does it hope to achieve, and for whom? How do we enable and celebrate the lab’s activities, how do we orient its actions towards certain outcomes, and also recognize the diverse labor that goes into reaching them?

What's next?

Python Study Group is back
As many of you will already know, the Python Study Group offers a self-study environment where programming beginners and wizards are invited to meet up and learn more about the coding language Pythonthrough fun coding sessions.

First session will be Monday, March 6, at 17.00-19.00 in room 5A14-16.

Read more about the Python StudyGroup and ETHOS Lab here and remember to sign up below.

If you have any questions, please contact ETHOS Lab TA, Edith Terte Andersen at edan@itu.dk.

FFC event with IDA
In collaboration with the IDA Union, one of our hackathon partners, we are organising a pre-event on March 13th where we will share much more about the hackathon and the audience will have a chance to ask questions. The event has already been very popular, and there is therefore now a waitlist. However, if any of you, dear newsletter readers, are interested in joining then please send me (hefh@itu.dk) an email, and I will see what I can do. 

Exploring our machines
We’re very happy to share that our Lab TA Edith Terte, who already runs the Python Study Group, has agreed to take on more work in the lab. Edith will spend time this spring working on activating our 3d printer and embroidery machine in new ways, and documenting the process as she goes. Edith will be developing workbooks for the machines, in which we will explore what role these kinds of machines can play in a feminist lab. 

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Updates from the blog

"Maybe it’s not about gender, but her personality”

"Maybe it’s not about gender, but her personality”

By Chris Aftzidis & Paula Victoria Menshikoff, Junior Researchers   Are you ever out by yourself in public and you start imagining what lives the people around you are living? What their hobbies and interests are, whether they have a partner or kids, or what kind of job they could be working. Often, that is just a way to pass …

Read more.

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An inquiry into music consumption in the 21st century

An inquiry into music consumption in the 21st century

Image from Dall-E 2 By Tristan Massimo Carl Vonet, Junior Researcher     Music has been an integral part of human life since, well, as long as we can remember as a species. It brings forth emotions in us in a way that we can’t quite understand. How we came to enjoy and employ music in our daily lives is …

Read more.

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‘Compassionate Poetry’: Dissecting the rhetoric of online ‘masculinity’

‘Compassionate Poetry’: Dissecting the rhetoric of online ‘masculinity’

Illustration: Lehel Kovacs By Johanne Engel Aaen, Junior Researcher      On a Saturday in October I am sitting at home, in my bed, getting ready to watch a YouTube video. Nothing out of the ordinary in that scenario. Still, I am having this particular YouTube-session for a reason. I’ve been postponing it for some time, everyday struggles of being …

Read more.

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If you were offered a sneak peek into the future of work, what would you expect to see?

If you were offered a sneak peek into the future of work, what would you expect to see?

By Louie Meyer, Junior Researcher   Take a moment to envision your expectations and let the impressions settle. Were your visions based on circumstances in your own field of work? On previous experience or future aspirations? On the latest science fiction movie or something entirely different? One of the most well-known and powerful fortune tellers of our time is data …

Read more.

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Secrecy Sells Part I: What does privacy mean to you?

Secrecy Sells Part I: What does privacy mean to you?

By Ahmet Akkoc, Junior Researcher   Did you know that 1 in 3 people use a VPN? People these days care a lot about their privacy, and they are willing to pay a lot for it. So much so, in fact, that market researcher Cloudworks estimated that that the market for VPNs is expected to surpass $92 billion in 2027 …

Read more.

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An AI Accountability Trail: Mapping the AI Signature Projects

An AI Accountability Trail: Mapping the AI Signature Projects

By Emilie Mørch Groth, Junior Researcher   In marketing there is a saying along the lines; “if you can find the brand in Netto, then you know it has left the trendsetting sphere and entered the realm of mainstream” – for better or worse. I will concoct a similar saying for technology; “if you can find a technology used internally …

Read more.

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2023 Letter from Heads of Lab: Shifting Inevitabilities

2023 Letter from Heads of Lab: Shifting Inevitabilities

As we alluded to in our final ETHOS Lab newsletter of 2022, we left the year on a strange tone; a hopeful tone but a strange tone nevertheless. At the beginning of 2022 we were emerging from two years of on-again, off-again pandemic lockdowns and it set the scene for a routine of welcomes and farewells across the year. In …

Read more.

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A short blogpost about libraries and my new job at Ethos

A short blogpost about libraries and my new job at Ethos

By Luis Landa I had to recently do a lecture for the class Navigating Complexity and the topic was visualisations. Since I was going to use a lot of examples that showcase the diverse uses, messages, and possibilities of visualisations, I tried to google “visualisations” which of course resulted in an endless sight of bar charts, line charts, pie charts …

Read more.

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 Wishing you all a beautiful rest of your day!

Keep up to date with the Lab by subscribing to the newsletter and follow us on twitterfacebook or Instagram.

 

ETHOS Lab

www.ethos.itu.dk 

Co-heads of Lab: Marisa Cohn & Jessamy Perriam
Lab Manager: Henriette Friis

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ETHOS Lab Open Hours 

The Lab has regular opening hours throughout the semester on Tuesdays 10:00-11:30 & Thursdays from 11 to 14, allowing for a lunch break around noon.

The opening hours are co-working time for the Lab staff, as well as an opportunity for impromptu meetings and informal encounters for the community of faculty and students. This is an opening for bouncing off ideas, getting feedback, and work in the LabEveryone is welcome, just pop by!

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