Keynote Speaker: Karen Barad

Karen Barad is Distinguished Professor of Feminist Studies, Philosophy, and History of Consciousness at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Barad is also affiliated faculty in the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies program. Barad’s Ph.D. is in theoretical particle physics and quantum field theory. Barad held a tenured appointment in a physics department before moving into more interdisciplinary spaces. Barad is the author of Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Duke University Press, 2007) and numerous articles in the fields of physics, philosophy, science studies, poststructuralist theory, and feminist theory. Barad’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Hughes Foundation, the Irvine Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Barad was one of the Co-Founders of UCSC’s Science & Justice Research Center and the Director of the Science & Justice Graduate Training Program. See more details here

Discussion Moderator: EL Putnam

Dr. EL Putnam is an internationally recognised digital artist and a lecturer in Digital Media at NUI Galway. Dr. Putnam’s practice discovers new ways of thinking about the relationship between the body and data; her artworks and performances have travelled to the United States, Europe and beyond. Recent experiments have seen the artist create generative animations using biometric data, such as heart rate and oxygen levels. In this interview, Dr. Putnam shares her thoughts on creativity, education and the materiality of technology. See more details here