I am a researcher, educator and media artist based in Aarhus and Amsterdam, having studied at the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA)/Brown University, Piet Zwart Institute/ Plymouth University (MA), Copenhagen Business School (Management, Philosophy and Politics department) (PhD)/Leuphana University's former Digital Cultures Lab (DCRL). In September 2022 I became a Post-Doc at Aarhus University’s SHAPE centre, at the department of Digital Design and Information Studies/BTECH, Aarhus University, DK. Situated at the interstices of feminist STS, environmental media & aesthetics, critical data/AI/infrastructures and (post)digital cultures, my interdisciplinary research focuses on the knowledge infrastructures of searching. As PI of this stream, I explored the ethics and politics of search infrastructures, particularly Google through public workshops and data visualisations (screenshotting), its alternatives (such as a European public index for search and alternative search applications), ‘reverse search warrants’ (geofencing), ‘reverse image search’, and the so-called future of search (generative AI/chatbots).
As an (artistic) researcher I have searched physical archives, nowadays online databases in order to explore and visualise the hidden infrastructures in society that encompass various forms of secrecy (corporate algorithms, patents, colonial documents, FOIA, oral histories, wampum, anonymity browsers). Besides teaching the bachelors course 'Datafication of Society' in the Critical Data Studies programme at Aarhus University, I produce publications, video installations, data visualisations, essays, prints, drawings, photographs, mixed media installations and digital transmedia projects. My academic profile is here
Contact: reneeridgway@protonmail.com