Monday, April 15 – The Scherer Center teamed up with UChicago’s new Media Arts, Data, and Design (MADD) Center to welcome Professor Colin Milburn (Director of the Science and Technology Studies Program at the University of California, Davis).
Professor Milburn presented a talk entitled How to Do Things with Science Fiction: Hackers, Hacktivists, and Speculative Media. In this talk, Milburn discussed his new book, Respawn: Gamers, Hackers, and Technogenic Life (Duke University Press, 2018) and explored the connections between video games, computer hacking, and science fiction that have informed and that galvanize technological activism. Focusing on examples from the history of hacking as well as more recent episodes of online hacktivism, Professor Milburn’s talk traversed the history of hacker groups and online culture to illuminate how science fiction has played a powerful role in shaping hacker communities and their aspirations for a different future.
In teaming with the MADD Center and their Weston Games Lab to host Professor Milburn’s talk, guests were given the opportunity to explore the new, state-of-the-art Media Arts Data and Design Center, which in addition to the Weston Game lab features: a suite of 3-D printers, a virtual reality and research computing visualization lab, and a geographical information systems (GIS) hub.
