Join artist Danielle Dean (2015 Grantee) and UT Austin professor Samantha Shorey in conversation with curators Maria Emilia Fernandez, Visual Arts Center, and Robin K. Williams, The Contemporary Austin. The evening’s dialogue will focus on mutual research interests connecting Dean’s artistic practice and Shorey’s work in communications and social sciences—interests including corporate labor practices, workers’ rights, and how media and advertising shape our perceptions of complex realities.

Both Dean and Shorey have pursued these interests in part through research on the technology industry, a sector with a strong and ever-growing presence in Austin. For example, Shorey’s work investigating the invisibility of human labor in maintaining innovative technologies intersects with Dean’s multifaceted Creative Capital proejct Amazon, which combines her research in the Ford Motor Company archives with an intimate investigation of labor conditions within Amazon Mechanical Turk, an online crowdsourcing platform.

Dean’s Creative Capital project is currently on view as part of The Contemporary’s exhibition This Land, which includes her six-channel video installation Amazon, as well as within the exhibition A Well-trained Eye at the Visual Arts Center. Curators Fernandez and Williams will guide the conversation to address themes connecting both exhibitions, including ethical and environmental implications of current developments in technology and artificial intelligence.