Speaker:
Sharath Chandra Ramakrishnan

Title:
Decentering Data and Ownership : Perspectives from Interactive Media Art Practices in Wireless and Machine Listening Infrastructures

Bio:
Dr. Sharath Chandra Ramakrishnan is Assistant Professor at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. His research spans the fields of human-machine interaction design in virtual environments, cognitive psychology, auditory cognition, sound studies and the media arts, bridging his previous professional experience in clinical neuroscience, interaction design and technology policy. His current trajectory involves efforts that extend to more than a decade of being involved in community media networks, grassroot technology activism and communications technology design. This included setting up a technology policy and community lab at the Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India and involvement in several networks in South Asia and South America (CPR SOUTH (IDRC), Bricolabs, HONF Foundation in Indonesia, Plato Hedro in Colombia, to name a few). As a licensed amateur radio broadcaster, he continues to extend his creative technology and media arts practice as a ‘transmission artist’ in various international curations and forums, to engage the public while addressing contexts that bridge the worlds of media, science and tech policy. He holds an M.S. in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics and a Ph.D. in Arts, Technology and Emerging Communication, from The University of Texas at Dallas.