Call for Data Thief Volunteers

Friday, October 20, 2017 – 09:15Arts Catalyst is calling for volunteers (aka Data Thieves) to support us with an exciting project by artist-led group Mission/Misplaced Memory.  Manifested through the imaginary lens of a science-fiction narrative, Dreamed Native Ancestry (DNA) critically addresses and re-thinks contemporary issues around race, migration, biopolitics and culture, drawing on Afrofuturist philosophies and anthropology,   //The Mission crew has travelled back from the future where the human population is dying out due to a quest for genetic homogeneity, which has led to a weakened and diseased human race. Cultural accumulation has ceased and humanity’s knowledge growth, technological advancement and story-making capabilities have come to a standstill. The Mission crew is tasked to travel through time, collecting samples, stories and knowledge from the cultural and genetic richness of humanity’s past – particularly at points of concentrated migration and cultural exchange – to deposit in a vast human memory vault that will re-seed the human race of the future. London – King’s Cross – 2017 has been identified as one key centre of migration and culture in human history//. Taking form as both an installation and programme, Arts Catalyst’s Centre is transformed into the ‘Mission Ship’ crewed by a team of data thieves whose task is to collect memories, experiences and traces related to migration and the circulation of knowledge and cultures that it entails.  Find out more about the exhibition here. YOUR ROLEDrawing on the character of the ‘data thief’ in the documentary The Last Angel of History (1996) by John Akomfrah, your role will be to operate between the present and the future. By joining the crew you will play a key role in gathering evidence and traces of diversity and multiculturalism from members of the King’s Cross community and exhibition visitors. You will collect and produce samples and data that will go on to be ‘re-mixed’ into Dubmorphology sound performances, which form an essential part of the installation. Your expected commitment is flexible, but we encourage you to engage with the project for around six sessions (lasting six hours each). For further information and to apply please contact us via associate@artscatalyst.org with an expression of interest (500 words max) by Monday 16 November.