Driving Chaotic Innovation Through Art + Technology Situationships

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Thank you to Capital Factory for sponsoring EFF-Austin. Capital Factory is the center of gravity for entrepreneurs in Texas. They meet the best entrepreneurs in Texas and introduce them to their first investors, employees, mentors and customers. To sign up for a Capital Factory coworking membership, click here.

BIO:
Our speaker this month is Rachel Stuckey. Rachel Stuckey is an artist and the Director of Digital Arts at The Museum of Human Achievement in Austin, TX, where she advocates for diverse voices in media arts and indie games. In 2014 she founded the Welcome to my Homepage Digital Artist Residency. She has previously worked as Gallery Director at Women & Their Work and community organizer for Girls Who Code. She is a member of the Digital Empowerment Community of Austin and served on the City of Austin and Travis County’s Digital Equity Working Group. Stuckey has an MFA in transmedia studio art from UT Austin and a BFA in Filmmaking from University of Colorado Boulder.

TALK SUMMARY:
MoHA’s digital arts programs empower a diverse population of artists to use emerging and ubiquitous technologies in thoughtful and unexpected ways, while connecting technologists to local issues through community building. We host low-stakes, low-budget, yet wildly ambitious opportunities for chaotic, joyful, and collaborative experimentation with tech - and we pay artists to do it. Past events have included Edward Normalhands (the dangers of 5G as a live musical!), Game Show Game Jam (we bring the live studio audience, you bring the game show), workshops on how to break up with corporate software, over 100 net art commissions, and ongoing cohorts of artist and technologists working together to hack karaoke machines, debunk policial deep fakes, and challenge social media platforms. By putting tech in the hands of creative individuals who are at higher risk for its negative impacts and have less stakes in maintaining its status quo - what can be learned?

HOW TO ATTEND:
Capital Factory is located at 701 Brazos Street, on the 1st floor of the Omni Hotel. We are in the Apollo meeting room. To locate Apollo, locate Capital Factory's main event room off the Omni lobby, Voltron, Suite 150. Once inside, there should be someone at the desk to direct you to our meetup, but, if no one is there, proceed to the left past the kitchen and down the hallway, Apollo is right around the corner. You may also message us on this event or message us at our Bluesky account, @effaustin@bsky.social, our Mastodon account, @effaustin@mastodon.social, or our Twitter account, @EFFaustin, if you are having trouble finding us. Please note that the room will be locked and EFF-Austin will not have access until 10-15 minutes before 7:00pm CST. We will try to have someone in the Omni lobby earlier than that in front of the Voltron doors to greet you if you arrive early, but otherwise just wait in the lobby until you are let in.

Talk will be livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/user/austintechlive and will later be archived at https://www.youtube.com/user/effaustin. Questions for the speaker from virtual attendees may be submitted via the Youtube livestream chat, our Bluesky account, @effaustin@bsky.social, our Mastodon account, @effaustin@mastodon.social, or our Twitter account, @EFFaustin.

Parking for the Omni Garage can be validated at the Capital Factory front desk inside room Voltron, Suite 150, reducing the cost to $8. If no one is at the desk, check with EFF-Austin meetup organizers, we can provide you with one. Attendees must park after 5pm and leave before 10pm to receive the discount, otherwise they will be charged full price, which is $3.25 for every 30 minutes. Affordable street park is also available nearby. Details: https://capitalfactory.com/parking/

AFTER PARTY:
Join us for the discussion from 7:00PM-9:00PM, followed by drinks and camaraderie from 9:00PM-10:00PM in the Omni Hotel lobby.