ETHOS Lab Newsletter April 2020

April 2020

Living in Pandemic Times..

We are living in what seems like surreal times where we almost overnight were forced to move everything online (see announcement below) and demonstrate that things can be otherwise. Events, workshops, book launches and conferences were cancelled and after several weeks, we are craving social contact and stable working environments.

This calls for the most wonderful news from our co-head of lab Marisa Cohn.

"I want to share the news of a latest member of the extended TiP family. Elias Michael Leavitt Amasia arrived just past midnight (00:08) on March 12. We had a bumpy start - he came into the world with a gasp of liquid in his lungs and spent the first 20 or so hours in intensive care. But he was alert and strong from the start. It was quite an interesting arrival being in delivery during the escalation of the virus protocols that changed day to day during our stay at the hospital. But in many ways we have been insulated from the virus’ upheaval to everyday life by the fact that becoming new parents already involves so much change as well as nesting at home in relative isolation. It is sad that we cannot have family visit to meet him for an unknown period, but I am so grateful for the community we have here and the amazing infrastructure and people that helped him arrive safely home with us. We are sad that we cannot venture to the ITU for a visit in coming weeks but look forward to introducing you as soon as we can! "

Congratulations to Marisa and her family!!!

It is our hope that this message can also be part of our patchwork of stories, pictures and quotes from the pandemic lives of our research community that we are collecting in this unique time of pandemic living. A true 'science and technology ethnographic moment' being explored through our project 'Pandemic Diaries'.

April was planned to be a celebratory month as 17th April 2020 marks the 5th anniversary of the ETHOS Lab. The celebrations have also moved online to mark the day but we have postponed the physical human and material gathering for a later stable moment in time. This is thus AN INVITATION for our network to join our online celebration and for our Junior Researcher alumni and former affiliates to contribute to the collective memory of the ETHOS Lab by sending us a message in a bottle.

Our MetaData blog is hosting the lab's Junior Researchers Marianna Kozányiová in her blog post where she takes us through her navigational experience using tools for analyzing and visualizing empirical and theoretical material. Marianna's overview of methodological modes gives an understanding of the possibilities and pitfalls of tools like NVivo, Atlas.ti, Cortext and MURAL platform. A valuable blogpost for anyone considering the digital process of coding, analyzing and building theoretical frameworks from a large pool of data!

The ERC grants are now official and we want to specifically congratulate Louise Amoore on her advanced grant for Algorithmic Societies: Ethical Life in the Machine Learning Age which -we are very confident will produce work relevant to our community!

In May we are planning a local node for the Biennial Conference of the SCA (May 7-8-9) Distribute2020 and encourage anyone wanting to partake in the planning to contact us. Nodes are central to the conference ethos of decentralizing, democratizing, and internationalizing knowledge production and are thus more relevant than ever in these pandemic times.

Stay safe out there!

Keep up to date with the lab by subscribing to the newsletter and follow us on twitter, facebook or Instagram.

All the best,
ETHOS Lab

www.ethos.itu.dk
Co-heads of Lab: Marisa Cohn & Rachel Douglas-Jones
Post doc: Katrine Meldgaard Kjær
Lab Manager: Marie Blønd

INVITATION TO ANNIVERSARY!

On April 17th, 2015 the ETHOSLab and REAL Lab at ITU hosted a joint launch party. In adjacent rooms on ITU’s 5th floor, these two labs launched into the world with dreams of experimentality and fun. We like to think we have had an excellently experimental 5 years, and to celebrate our fifth birthday milestone, we are hosting a party. Online, given the circumstances.

We invite you to join us on Zoom on Friday April 17th 2020 for an hour of ETHOS fun. We promise quizzes, speeches, Lab mementos and general online good times to celebrate the wonderful work that takes place at ITU through ETHOS.

As a gift to the lab, we are encouraging you all to send us a message in a bottle to collectively celebrate the lab and describe our DNA and add to our collective memory.

Bring your own cake!

When: Friday, 17th April

Where: In Zoom from 14-15.00 - updates will be announced here...

Pandemic Diaries

We are dwelling on a
A Unique Moment in Time

The covid-19 pandemic is changing everything. The way we work, the way we socialize, our practices and tools.

It is a true STS moment

The lab community decided to collect our encounters with inspiration from A Journal of the Plague Year: An Archive of COVID19 in a project called 'Pandemic Diaries'.

The collection is a patchwork of short stories, pictures or diary logs/outtakes from our current experience and encounters with living in pandemic times.

We are hoping to create A Unique Time Capsule specific for our lab community and interests.

You are welcome to share your short stories or send quotes, pictures or outtakes from your everyday pandemic life to Luuk lubl@itu.dk – please state if you are comfortable with us publishing these on our website and if you want them anonymized.

Read the ongoing development of Pandemic Diaries here

Navigating qualitative research in a data-intensive world

Blogpost by Marianna Kozányiová, Junior Researcher in ETHOS Lab and student in MSc Digital innovation & Management

Digitalization and globalization escalated academic research by providing new possibilities for the academic inquiry in order to navigate the complex realities (Ang, 2011, p. 779) we face today in a digital world that is inherently data-intensive.

However, while the new possibilities were formed, the complexity of the research itself has also elevated. Access to and governance of data has changed and the academic inquiry has spread over the data worlds of (1) practices (empirical data), (2) social media and (3) academic journals on a global scale including the digital environment. The researchers, therefore, face the challenge of navigating the complexities of research opportunities offered by the different data worlds through appropriate methodological modes (Ang, 2011, p. 788).

Read the blog post...

VIRTUALIZING THE LAB

Given the situation of the Covid-19 lockdown, the lab decided to immediately virtualize most of the lab activities that do not necessarily require a physical presence.

Unfortunately we have had to cancel or postpone some of our events. Both the Future Histories of Water booklaunch with Andrea Ballestero and workshop with David Ribes planned for April are postponed.

The Python Study Group running for 8 weeks was moved to discord and the last 3 sessions will also happen there on Thursdays from 17:30 - 19:30. The last session is on the 30. April. If you haven't already joined, then see how to connect here.

Meetings are also moved online and bi-weekly meetings are now happening twice a week to support the lab's Junior Researchers.

Opening hours are handled through e-mail where you can also book an online session. Please send us and e-mail on ethos@itu.dk

Other News & Info

Digital Magic: A conversation on the Cyber Spellbook
For further pondering in these abnormal times, we recommend a blog post on https://themonsternetwork.com/

Pandemic data and visualizations
In times like these, data and visualizations become highly geopolitical in their sociotechnical scripts. This dashboard made in ArcGis by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University shows the global cases of the coronavirus COVID-19 based on numbers from The World Health Organization. Notice the category of 'Cruise Ship'.

PhD/Job Calls

Postdoc / PhD intern /Research Assistant to research interactive cheat sheets for data visualization in the context of online teaching for data visualization and general activities for visualization literacy - see here

2 PhD Fellowships in Innovation & Regional Studies at University of Stavanger from 1. September 2020 - see here

Two Postdoctoral Research Fellowships at the Department of Archaeology, History, Religious Studies and Theology at UiT – The Arctic University of Tromsø. Read more

PhD positions at The Department of Communication and Arts at Roskilde University. Read more..

Three PhD positions and 1 Postdoc position with CoFutures (ERC) and Science Fictionality (NFR): Chinese Science Fiction/Sinofuturism (PhD-ERC), Latin American Science Fiction/Latin@futurisms (PhD-ERC), Nordic and European Futurisms (PhD-NFR), and Museum Studies with an Environmental focus (Postdoc-NFR). Read more..

Five PhD studentships at The Edinburgh Futures Institute supporting research into the ethical challenges posed by the growing use of data and artificial intelligence. Funded by global investment firm Baillie Gifford. Read more..

PhD scholarship in Public Communication of Artifical Intelligence in the Responsible Technology Group at DTU. Read more..

---------------------------------------------------------------

Opening hours are Tuesday and Thursday at 12.30-16:00 in 3A30 - please e-mail us at ethos@itu.dk until ITU is open again.