Reflections on the Workshop "Technologies, Their Creepiness & Desirable Futures - Feminist Insights"
As part of the Technological Futures Now conference, the Feminist AI - Network organized a workshop with Neda Atanasoski. The centerpiece was the presentation of the new book "Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen", which she co-edited with Nassim Parvin.
The book brings together essays and artistic contributions on a wide range of technologies that seep into our most intimate areas of life - from border surveillance and China's social credit system to sex cams and digital voice assistants.
Instead of framing the potentials and dangers of such new technologies in binary contrasting pairs such as visible/invisible or private/surveilled, the volume proposes a feminist analysis of the concept of creepiness. Emerging technologies are often referred to as “creepy” in media and political discourses. Atanasoski and Parvin understand creepiness not only as a mere feeling, but as a reference to power relations, technological limit-pushing and new forms of embodiment, relationship and control.
The workshop opened with coffee and a short speed networking session, which provided space for new encounters and exchanges between academics, students and activists. Afterwards, Atanasoski gave insights into the topics of the book and discussed central theses with the participants.
At the follow-up lunch, the discussion on alternative approaches to the critique of technology was further deepened and new new collaborative links were forged.
The workshop highlighted that Feminist technology critique is not merely analysis. It is also practice, imagination and the collective exploration of new futures.