[Commlist] CFP: Figurations: Persons In/Out of Data

*CFP: Figurations: Persons In/Out of Data Conference*


*16-17 December, 2019 *

*Goldsmiths, University of London*

*Abstract deadline:**July 1^st , 2019*.

*Keynotes*:

Professor Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Simon Fraser University

Professor John Frow, The University of Sydney

Professor Susanne Kuechler, University College London

Professor AbdouMaliq Simone, The University of Sheffield


We’re drowning in an ocean of data, or so the saying goes. Data’s “big”: 
there’s not only lots of it, but its volume has allowed for the 
development of new, large-scale processing techniques. Our relationship 
with governments, medical organisations, technology companies, the 
education sector, and so on are increasingly informed by the data we 
overtly or inadvertently provide when we use particular services. The 
proverbial data deluge is large-scale—but it’s also personal.

Data increasingly characterises what it means to be a person in the 
present. Data promises to personalise services to better meet our 
individual needs. Data is often construed as a threat to our person(s). 
Not every person predicated by data is predicted the same. The 
intersection between data and person isn’t fixed: it has to be figured.

The aim of this conference is to bring together an interdisciplinary 
group of researchers to explore how the person—or persons, plural—are 
figured in/out of data. The figuration of a person might encompass any 
or all of processes of representation, calculation, analogisation, 
prediction, and conceptualisation. It cuts across multiple scales, 
epistemological modes, and disciplinary areas of enquiry. It tackles 
problems that cross into disparate disciplines. Our proposition is that 
the conceptual language of ‘the figure’ and its variations—figuration, 
figuring, to figure, and so on—can help us to apprehend what the person 
is and how it is processed in the present.

We invite proposals for *20-minute presentations*that take up or respond 
to the question of how the person is figured in/out of data. We are 
interested in presentations that address the conceptual, methodological, 
analytical and/or empirical challenge of figuring the person in the 
present. Conversely, we are also interested in papers that take up the 
concept of the figure—broadly construed—as an heuristic for producing 
knowledge about the constitution of person(s) in the present.

Our proposition is deliberately interdisciplinary. We encourage 
proposals from researchers working in disciplines for whom the figure is 
central. These might include, but are not limited to: the social 
sciences, art history, media studies, the medical humanities, literary 
studies, philosophy, science and technology studies, urban studies, or 
geography.

The themes that papers might address could include:

-The figuration of person or persons in/out of data;

-Techniques of personalisation and the figuration of the person or persons;

-Approaches that address the interrelation of visual, numerical, 
statistical, metaphorical, and/or philosophical modes of figuring the 
person or persons in the present;

-Conceptual languages for apprehending persons in relation to data—e.g. 
the subject, identity, user, data double, individual, dividual, etc.;

-The relationship between collective categories and/or category 
production—like persons, population, distributed reproduction, 
homophily, etc.—and techniques of figuration;

-Figure as a concept for thinking gender in, e.g., science and 
technology studies;

-The art-historical/psychological/media-theoretical concept of 
“figure/ground” and persons/data;

-The relationship between visual and numerical modes of figuring and the 
constitution of persons;

-Literary/linguistic uses of figuration in e.g. metaphor, analogy, 
simile, the icon, etc. in relation to the person or persons and data;

-Figuration as a means of thinking the relationship between 
image/text/number or media and code;

-Related concepts—like the diagram or pattern—as complements to or 
substitutes for the figure;

-Conceptualising figuration in relation to resemblance, similarity, 
seriality, difference, etc.

Please submit abstracts of *300 words*, including your institutional 
affiliation(s) and a short biography (a line or two is fine) by 
following this link and filling out the online form: 
https://peoplelikeyou.ac.uk/activities/figurations/(available shortly). 
The deadline for abstract submissions is *July 1^st , 2019*.

If you have any enquiries, please direct them to *Scott Wark*at 
(S.Wark /at/ Warwick.ac.uk) <mailto:(S.Wark /at/ Warwick.ac.uk)>.

/Figurations/is organised by the People Like You: Contemporary Figures 
of Personalisation <https://peoplelikeyou.ac.uk/>project. People Like 
You is a group of scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, and artists 
who explore how personalisation actually works. We research 
personalisation in four areas: personalised medicine and care; data 
science; digital cultures; and interactive arts practices.

People Like You is funded by a Collaborative Award in the Medical 
Humanities and Social Sciences from The Wellcome Trust, 2018-2022. It 
involves researchers located at Goldsmiths College, University of 
London; Imperial College London; and The University of Warwick.

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