POSTPONED – Stay tuned for the new date!
Wednesday, September 30, 2021, 7 pm ET
Free or pay what you can
Register here
Accessibility: ASL interpretation and open captions provided.

On the occasion of Johann Diedrick’s Dark Matters, this panel with artists Johann Diedrick and Jenson Leonard and moderated by Richie Wills will discuss both the discriminatory and exploitative artificial intelligences of our current moment, and imagine libertory future technologies. How would a libertatory artificial intelligence act? What are the networks, communities, and infrastructures we need to build our tomorrows?

The event will be available for 24 hours for everyone who registers, and 72 hours for Squeaky Wheel members. This event is co-presented with Just Buffalo Literary Center.

About the panelists

Johann Diedrick is a Caribbean-American artist, engineer, and musician who makes installations, performances, and sculptures for encountering our world through your ears. He surfaces vibratory histories of past interactions inscribed in material and embedded in space, peeling back sonic layers to reveal hidden memories and untold stories. He shares his tools and techniques through listening tours, workshops, and open-source hardware/software. He is the founder of A Quiet Life, a sonic engineering and research studio that designs and builds audio-related software and hardware products for delightfully encountering our environment and each other. He is a 2021 Mozilla Creative Media Award recipient, a member of NEW INC, and an adjunct professor at NYU’s ITP program. His work has been featured in Wire Magazine, Musicworks Magazine, and presented at MoMA PS1 (Queens, NY), Somerset House (London, UK), Social Kitchen (Kyoto, Japan), Common Ground (Berlin, Germany), Recess (Brooklyn, NY), Knockdown Center (Queens, NY), and Pioneer Works (Brooklyn, NY).

Jenson Leonard b. Detroit, Michigan, and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America. Lives and works in New York, United States of America. Initially a poet, Jenson Leonard became interested in memes during his six-year tenure as a cook at a Belgian waffle kiosk. He found himself drawn to the immediacy and reach of instant publication on social media, the confluence of which exacerbate the arguably inherent power of the image for those who see. His early work used the canonical Twitter meme format, but developed into the more ornately parodic style that predominates in the left-leaning corners of Facebook. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Pratt Institute. He has completed residencies at Obracadobra (Oaxaca, Mexico), Squeaky Wheel (Buffalo, NY) and Pioneer Works (Brooklyn, NYC). His work has been featured in VICE Motherboard, Juxtapoz, AQNB, and Rhizome.

RICHIE WILLS holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Richie has worked as a Writing Center and BABEL volunteer and as an outreach coordinator for Words on the Street and The Mocha Center. He is also contributing writer for The Galactic Tribe and continues to work as a community organizer. Richie believes in the power of the written word and storytelling to bring people together and break barriers.

About Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Civil Writes Project

Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Civil Writes Project CELEBRATES the legacy of prominent Black writers who have called Buffalo home, whose voices shape history, inspire radical change, and influence current and future generations of poets and writers; DRAWS INSPIRATION from Buffalo’s history as a gateway to freedom along the Underground Railroad; and CHALLENGES our community to grapple with racism and inequities through literature, to find pathways toward justice in the power of the written word, and to open hearts & minds as we confront our shared past and present in order to shape a more equitable future. See more information here.

Banner image courtesy of Johann Diedrick.