When: April 13 2022, from 13:30 to 18:00 CET

Where: NU building at VU, NU-2C33 Theater 3

Program:
13:30-13:45 – Welcome and gadgets
13:45-14:45 – Dries Depoorter (Links to an external site.) (artist and TEDx speaker): Surveillance Art, Dying Phones and Fake Likes
14:45-15:45 – Sabrina Verhage (Links to an external site.) (creative technologist): Alternative Technologies
15:45-16:45 – Martin Krzywinski (Links to an external site.) (Staff Scientist): TBD
16:45-17:00 – Closing
17:00 onwards – Networking with borrel

Bios of the speakers:
Dries Depoorter (Links to an external site.) is a Belgium artist working with technology. His catchy and humorous work addresses themes such as privacy, social media, artificial intelligence and surveillance. Among his creations are several products such as apps, games and interactive installations. He studied electronics for six years before making the switch to art school. Today Dries Depoorter is exhibiting and holding talks internationally while working as a freelance concept provider that focuses on digital processes. Dries exhibited at the Barbican London, Art Basel, Mutek Festival Montreal, Bozar, Para Site Hong Kong, Mozilla The Glass Room San Francisco, IDFA Doclab, Mundaneum. FOMU, Ars Electronica, NRW, World Press Photo, WIRED25, HEK. Dries did talks for TEDx, MoMA, SXSW, Chanel, Adidas, Mutek Festival, STRP festival, Dutch Design Week and web2day. Website: https://driesdepoorter.be (Links to an external site.)

Sabrina Verhage (Links to an external site.) works as Technologist at Tellart Amsterdam, an experience design studio known for bringing the digital beyond the screen, into the physical objects and spaces around us. Sabrina is highly fascinated by the influence of modern technology on human behavior. Striving to stimulate diversity and make knowledge more accessible, she co-founded Creative Coding Amsterdam, a meetup for enthusiasts. Besides organizing events she enjoys teaching creative coding workshops as well as performing at live coding events. Website: http://www.sabrinaverhage.com (Links to an external site.)

Martin Krzywinski (Links to an external site.) makes people think and feel good by creating visualization tools and information graphics that combine analytical clarity with an artistic dimension. Real science should look just like in movies. His introduction to genomics was as a system administrator at Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Center, where in 1999 he built its first computing infrastructure, and contributed to IT security, optimized keyboard layouts and created database visualizations. During his work on cancer genomes, he created Circos, now a community standard for displaying information in this field. More recently, he introduced a method for rationally visualizing networks using hive plots. His information graphics have appeared in the New York Times, Wired, Conde Nast Portfolio, and on covers of books and scientific journals, like PNAS, EMBO Journal and American Scientist. He has a weakness for espresso, fashion and abstract photography, and the intersection of spam and poetry. He is a former owner of the world’s most popular rat. Website: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca (Links to an external site.)

More info on the Use-me initiative?

Anybody at the VU is welcome to participate, from students, to researchers and staff members. Participation can be individual or in teams. Click HERE (Links to an external site.) to get more info on the initiative!

Contacts

This initiative is organised and sponsored by the Network Institute (Links to an external site.), the hub for interdisciplinary research on the Digital Society at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.