Please note! Course description is confirmed for two academic years, which means that in general, e.g. Learning outcomes, assessment methods and key content stays unchanged. However, via course syllabus, it is possible to specify or change the course execution in each realization of the course, such as how the contact sessions are organized, assessment methods weighted or materials used.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Student will conclude the course with extra study credits.

Credits: 5

Schedule: 13.09.2021 - 25.10.2021

Teacher in charge (valid for whole curriculum period):

Teacher in charge (applies in this implementation): Bassam El Baroni, Edel O'Reilly

Contact information for the course (applies in this implementation):

Course tutors are :

Edel O Reilly, Aalto Curator - edel.oreilly@aalto.fi

Bethany Crawford, Artist and Researcher 

CEFR level (valid for whole curriculum period):

Language of instruction and studies (applies in this implementation):

Teaching language: English. Languages of study attainment: English

CONTENT, ASSESSMENT AND WORKLOAD

Content
  • valid for whole curriculum period:

    This is a extra component to go alongside with any of ViCCA major courses in addition to enlarge the amount of study credits. Project can be theoretical or practical part of the course.

  • applies in this implementation

    Building upon the aphorisms that “data is the new oil” and “data is the new water” the ‘Data Vitality’ course intends to creatively interrogate data’s changing value within the increasingly ubiquitous digital governance of our lived realities. Through the course we will question the correspondence of data and power by engaging with theoretical texts and other materials that explicate the underpinnings of the contemporary “datalogical turn”. This course will be co-tutored by artist and researcher Bethany Crawford and curator, Edel O’ Reilly, with an exhibition outcome to the course. Each week the thematic of the class will be informed by a selection of materials including recorded interviews with various scholars and professionals working in data associated industries as related to open research and the university. The weekly sessions will be comprised of readings, discussion, presentations and practical components that will allow for a comprehensive engagement with issues relating to the data economy, data ownership, digital subjectivity, and the regulation and social impact of data practices. A fundamental component of this class is to think through the material and embodied ramifications of these abstracted modes of governance. This will be translated within the classwork as an emphasis on artistic production in response to the theoretical concepts presented within the literature. 

    The outcome and assessments of the course will be to work towards creating output for an exhibition in November 2021.

    The course is open to students from all art and media practices and theoretical backgrounds, reflective of the broad and entangled subject areas of the courses content, and as a method to encourage a propositional transdisciplinarity of both art praxis and theory that is imperative in critical engagement with conceptions of digital futures.



Assessment Methods and Criteria
  • valid for whole curriculum period:

    Course work and partcipation.

  • applies in this implementation

    Evaluation criteria based on critical engagement with specialised literature and concepts surrounding data economies and value, to have an overview of regulatory initiatives around data practices, to have an overview of alternative data economies,  to think and articulate artistic responses to theoretical content, to develop and formalize work towards exhibition.

    Teaching and study methods will consist of 2 weekly sessions in which the students will have been expected to engage with  a selection of materials (readings, interviews, and other forms of media) 

    Between each of the weekly sessions students will also be asked to prepare an object or an example related to the week’s focus, which will  be presented and consolidated into a visual “sketchbook/zine”

    The outcome of the course will be group work towards an exhibition 

    • Weekly engagement with required readings and materials
    • Weekly presentation of example, object or creative response to the thematic of the class
    • Work developed for final exhibition
    • Attendance
    • Participation

Workload
  • valid for whole curriculum period:

    20h contact hours, 115h Independent work

  • applies in this implementation

    Course workload / Credits: Total hours –135hrs - 5ECTS  (1 Credit = 26.7hours)

    12 hours (1 h x 12) - Contact teaching

    6 hours (0.5 h x 12) - Lecturing

    6 hours (0.5 h x 12) - Exercises

    78 hours (6.5 h x 12) - Individual studying

    12 hours (2h x 6) individual project work preparation 

    12 hours (2h x 6) - Project work

    9 hours (3h x 3) - Preparing for final assessment / Exhibition


    80 % attendance required, final project

    Attendance is expected and will be pass/fail

    participation will be pass/fail 

    final project will be group project pass/fail

    All components will have to be passed in order to receive the course credits

DETAILS

Study Material
  • applies in this implementation

    Study Materials include text and media formats for interviews, case studies and theory. Full reading list updated by course commencement

    Week One: Data economy, power and sovereignty

    Reading:

    Zuboff, S., The Age of Surveillance Capitalism : The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (2019), Chapter 8 - Redition: From Experience to data, pp. 444-485

    D’Agnazio, C. & Klein, L.F., Data Feminism (2020), Chapter one: The Power Chapter, pp. 21 - 47

    Chandler, D. & Fuchs, C., Digital Objects, Digital Subjects: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Capitalism, Labour and Politics n the Age of Big Data (2019) Introduction: Big Data Capitalism - Politics, Activism and Theory pp.1-21

    Additional readings:

    Kukutai, T., & Taylor, J. (Eds) Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Toward and Agenda 
    Chapter three: What does data sovereignty imålöy: what does it look like_ C Mathhew Snipp
    pp. 39 - 54

    Audio Interview: 

    Human-Driven Data

    Finnish Innovation fund SITRA exists to support research projects and works on issues around redefining the model for a European data economy. Through working with policy makers, ministries and private industry SITRA’s activities and investments work to promote human-centric data economies and fair data economies. As an independent organisation with an advisory role to government, SITRA provide an insight into how industry and policy makers are organising, exploiting and regulating data economies, data infrastructures and data governance. The healthcare system was one of the main pilot projects where data sharing was researched and trialled in addition to agricultural industry’s data-machine infrastructures. Data is discussed as a common good or infrastructure where access and sharing is rewarded. The role of decisions around data storage in terms of data gathering practices and sustainable ICT or green ICT practices are questioned with criteria for fair data maturity models, cybersecurity, data compliance and data literacy. Is the responsibility for communicating contracts and consent for data sharing with the individual user or with the service provider? How can incentives and transparency promote improved and sustainable practices for fair data sharing?

    Keywords:

    Human-driven data, data economy, health data, digital health hub, citizen-centric healthcare, wellbeing, GDPR, data portability, data-ethics, fair data, data markets, innovation, cybersecurity, big tech, platform data, digital decade, data transparency, industrial data sharing, personal data sharing, state driven data economy, international data spaces, soft infrastructure, data sharing, data regulation, data sovereignty, sustainable technology, green ICT, data compliance, data literacy.

    Organisational reference:

    Jaana Sinipuro is an experienced ICT professional who works as Project Director responsible for the IHAN® – Human-driven data economy focus area and also sees to the final stages of the Digital Health HUB projects. Sitra is an independent future-oriented fund that acts as a think tank, promoter of experiments and operating models and a catalyst for co-operation. As a fund directly accountable to the Finnish Parliament, Sitra’s decision-making processes are tied to parliamentary systems and their administration includes a Supervisory Board, Board and President.


Substitutes for Courses
Prerequisites

FURTHER INFORMATION

Further Information
  • valid for whole curriculum period:

    Decision by Vice Dean Rasmus Vuori in pandemic conditions 2021: The teaching period 2020-21 and 2021-22 has changed.

    Teaching Period:

    2020-2021 I-V+summer, Period may vary

    2021-2022  I-V+summer, Period may vary

    Course Homepage: https://mycourses.aalto.fi/course/search.php?search=TAI-E316601

    Registration for Courses: Sisu replaces Oodi on 9 August, 2021. Priority order to courses is according to the order of priority decided by the Academic committee for School of Arts, Design and Architecture: https://www.aalto.fi/en/services/registering-to-courses-and-the-order-of-priority-in-aalto-arts

  • applies in this implementation

    Weekly focus

    Week 1 – Data economy, power and sovereignty

    Week 2 – Artificial Intelligence, epistemic production and image making

    Week 3 – Digital Infrastructures: Data opacity, literacy and accessibility

    Week 4 – Data ownership, circulation and economies of knowledge

    Week 5 – Quantum computing and qubits

    Week 6 – Exhibition preparation


Details on the schedule
  • applies in this implementation

    Class Schedule

    Mondays 10:00-11.30 / Thursdays 13:00-15:30

    Dates

    13.09.21 - 10:00-12:00

    16.09.21 – 13:00-15:00

    20.09.21 - 10:00-12:00

    23.09.21 – 13:00-15:00

    *27.09.21 – no class this Monday

    30.09.21 – 13:00-15:00

    04.09.21 - 10:00-12:00 

    07.10.21 – 13:00-15:00

    11.10.21 - 10:00-12:00

    14.10.21 – 13:00-15:00

    18.10.21 - 10:00-12:00

    21.10.21 – 13:00-15:00

    25.10.21 - 10:00-12:00