In this talk for NULab's "Feminist Methods in Digital Spaces" panel, I cover three ways in which my work intersects with feminist practices. 1) Through its inherently interdisciplinary (or perhaps anti-disciplinary) nature breaking down historical barriers in academia. 2) Through critiquing computationally creative systems (algorithms and data) for their embedded politics. 3) Through highlighting the shared history and practices of computation and textile arts via new projects in computational craft.

1. GENERATIVE AESTHETICS
FEMINIST METHODS IN DIGITAL SPACES
Gillian Smith
@gillianmsmith www.sokath.com

2. feminist perspectives on computing
➤ working outside disciplinary boundaries
➤ critiquing software through a feminist lens
➤ creating computational systems that
intersect traditionally feminine practices

3. about me
➤ computer science
➤ artificial intelligence
➤ human-computer interaction
➤ beyond computer science
➤ fiber arts
➤ jewelry
➤ history
➤ language
➤ play
➤ music

4. computational creativity
designing software that (semi-)autonomously creates art
hoopla
collaboration
viv

5. procedural
politics
generative systems as
formal theory

6. computational creativity and formal modeling
➤ specification of desirable content, attained via:
➤ underlying data
➤ algorithmic structure
➤ notions of human creativity
➤ embedded meaning
➤ novelty and value
➤ historical, cultural context

7. we escape culpability because software is “rational”

8. embedded biases
➤ generative systems produce a
specification of sample
artifacts
➤ explicit
➤ implicit
➤ what are the constituent parts?
➤ what are the probabilities
they’ll be chosen? seen?
➤ how is information organized?
www.icongenerators.net

9. Courtney Toder, work-in-progress
software should support richer identity models

10. cultural knowledge
➤ human creatives act within
their own cultural context
➤ software alternatives
➤ crowdsourcing
➤ “expert” system
➤ what is ground truth?
➤ what is subjective truth?
➤ how is it contextualized?

11. content filtering is insufficient

12. computational
craft
computation as craft
craft as computation

13. threadsteading: strategy gaming for embroidery machines

14. generative design through gameplay

15. machine-constrained aesthetics

16. shared history of craft and computation

17. working outside disciplinary boundaries

18. GENERATIVE AESTHETICS
FEMINIST METHODS IN DIGITAL SPACES
Gillian Smith
@gillianmsmith www.sokath.com