Attention, Algorithms, and Social Justice
December 6, 2023–May 31, 2024
tropical papers is pleased to announce the launch of its new website, along with a series of new programs as part of the EU-funded project Attention After Technology. We bring together visionary and engaged thinkers and cultural practitioners to address the world’s pressing challenges, guided by the belief that creativity emerges at the intersection of local realities, experiences, knowledge and global issues.
New website
On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of its creation, tropical papers has worked with the fantastic graphic design duo, Caterina Bloise and Victor Ortenblad, and one of the most creative web design companies in Brazil, fluxo, to reimagine a unique digital space in tune with our mission and programs centered on amplifying emerging voices from the Tropics. The modern design of the new website offers a dynamic user experience that is both engaging and delightful, allowing visitors to navigate easily through the rich and thought-provoking programs produced by tropical papers.
Attention After Technology online exhibition
Come have a first-hand experience of the online works our guest artists - biarritzzz, Vivian Caccuri, Shu Lea Cheang, Kyriaki Goni, CUSS Group, Femke Herregraven, and Berenice Olmedo - have specifically conceived for tropical papers! On view here on tropical papers’ website from December 6, 2023, through May 31, 2024.
The Attention After Technology online exhibition examines algorithms with regard to social justice and concerns of equity and inclusion, probing their emancipatory potential as much as how they reinforce existing bias. It resists simple dichotomies opposing technology and attention, but explores attention as a practice, as an embodied technology, and as an evolving aesthetic, social, and political sphere. In bringing attention into debates around algorithmic justice, the exhibiting artists pull back the curtain on the neutrality of technology, while using it to draft new ways of relating.
biarritzzz’s Mountain of Secrets (web version, 2023) homes in on the contradiction between privacy and over-exposure on the internet. Vivian Caccuri’s Voice of Experience (2023) investigates the role of technology for our understandings of the past, ancestry, and close relationships through one of the earliest facial recognition technologies and text-to-speech tools in a sound work. Shu Lea Cheang’s website project explores AI alignment, raising the question of who gets to decide its common ground. CUSS Group’s The Great Awakening (2023) projects an undignified society in an ambient state of disrepair. Kyriaki Goni’s webpoem eyes like flowers (2023) connects the effects of extractive algorithms with the ecological and social fallouts of mining, drawing attention to the links between the colonization of bodies and space, both digital and physical. Through snippets of writings and quotes, Femke Herregraven’s Rewild the Wandering Mind (2023) explores how attention evolved into a moralising and disciplinary force and as a mechanism for social control. Berenice Olmedo’s Caamal (2023) builds on the visualization and the movement of a cranial osteosarcoma, with a specifically-designed sound composition inspired by the noises generated from a CT scanner.
The online exhibition shown on tropical papers’ web platform is one of the multiple iterations of the expansive and diverse project, which includes artist residencies, exhibitions and a symposium. The exhibition Attention After Technology at Kunsthall Trondheim continues until January 28, 2024, then travels to State of Concept Athens in a new configuration (February 24–April 27, 2024). The “Digital Divide” symposium, coordinated by Art Hub Copenhagen, took place on May 4, 2023, can be viewed on tropical papers’ website.
Attention After Technology is a two-year collaboration, spanning from 2022 to 2024, between tropical papers, Kunsthall Trondheim, Art Hub Copenhagen, State of Concept Athens, and Swiss Institute New York, with newly commissioned works from seven international artists exploring the relationships between attention, algorithms, and social justice.
The Attention After Technology online exhibition is collectively curated and produced by tropical papers’s team: María Inés Rodríguez, Yu Hsiao Hwei, Mariana Marcondes, Andrés Sandoval; with Kunsthall Trondheim’s team: Katrine Elise Agpalza Pedersen, curator; Liz Dom, project manager; Kaja Grefslie Waagen, producer and communications manager; and Art Hub Copenhagen: Lars Bang Larsen, head of art & research; Rose Tygat, project coordinator; State of Concept Athens: iLiana Fokianaki, founder and director; Konstantina Melachrinou, production manager and press officer; and Swiss Institute New York: Stefanie Hessler, director.
Public programs
[TV CHANNEL]
Discover our guest artists, their practices as well as their latest projects to date, in the exclusive interviews published in [TV CHANNEL], the archive of cultural practices, production and transmission of knowledge in and from the tropics that progressively constitutes.
[SUNDAY BRUNCH]
Enjoy a delightful and enriching time in the company of artists and curators! Hosted in collaboration with Kunsthall Trondheim, these online talk series will be broadcasted.
Online artist talks: (all times in CEST)
Shu Lea Cheang, November 16, 2023, 6–7pm
In conversation with Stefanie Hessler (Swiss Institute) and her project advisor Whit Pow
CUSS Group, December 3, 2023, 6–7pm
In conversation with Lars Bang Larsen (Art Hub Copenhagen)
biarritzzz, January 28, 2024, 6–7pm
In conversation with María Inés Rodríguez (tropical papers)
Kyriaki Goni, February 29, 2024, 6:30–7:30pm
In conversation with iLiana Fokianaki (State of Concept Athens)
tropical papers is an international inclusive digital platform operating at the intersection of art, architecture, design, scientific research, and social engagement. Our programs and activities are designed to foster dialogue and knowledge sharing, create sustainable work dynamics, increase environmental awareness, and most importantly, build resilient communities.
tropical papers is supported by Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso, under the aegis of Fondation de France.
Our programs receive the kind support of tropical friends.
Attention After Technology is funded by the European Union.
