New Not Normal: A Community Generated Mapping Project

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Members of UKAI Project's Ferment residency assembled New Not Normal in response to COVID-19. Over 1300 anonymous tags expressing emotional responses have been added as well as 10 creative projects that arose to address isolation during the pandemic. The emotions shared possess a profound sincerity and poetry as the authors will never be known. The creation process also allowed for new models to be tried, including a kind of UBI for those participating and a decentralized decision-making model that aspired to prefigure what the New Not Normal might look like. After 15 months, two residencies, and a range of creative responses from around the world, UKAI Managing Director Jerrold McGrath will talk about the project, the lessons learned, and where we might go next. UKAI relies on anarchistic approaches and philosophies in our organizing, and we will also discuss how these models of the world might inform post-COVID recovery and preparation for future shocks such as those brought about by climate change. Website: https://newnotnormal.ukai.ca/

Topic: Members of UKAI Project’s Ferment residency assembled New Not Normal in response to COVID-19. Over 1300 anonymous tags expressing emotional responses have been added as well as 10 creative projects that arose to address isolation during the pandemic. The emotions shared possess a profound sincerity and poetry as the authors will never be known. The creation process also allowed for new models to be tried, including a kind of UBI for those participating and a decentralized decision-making model that aspired to prefigure what the New Not Normal might look like.

After 15 months, two residencies, and a range of creative responses from around the world, UKAI Managing Director Jerrold McGrath will talk about the project, the lessons learned, and where we might go next. UKAI relies on anarchistic approaches and philosophies in our organizing, and we will also discuss how these models of the world might inform post-COVID recovery and preparation for future shocks such as those brought about by climate change.

Website: https://newnotnormal.ukai.ca/

• Speakers: Jerrold McGrath is the managing director at UKAI Projects and founder at Ferment AI. He also serves as the program lead for Goethe-Institut Toronto’s two-year Algorithmic Culture series and is a former program director at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and Artscape Launchpad. He focuses on cross-sector collaborations around issues of broad social concern such as artificial intelligence, equity in response to COVID-19, hope and hopelessness, and the digital diaspora. His creative practice explores the ways we are organized by the world. Jerrold is a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader, and an Ambassador for Berlin’s STATE Festival.

SOCIAL: IG: @ukaiprojects Twitter: @ukaiprojects, @jerroldmcgrath