Beyond the Algorithm: An Artist Talk with Erika Jean Lincoln

Join us for an illuminating evening as Erika Jean Lincoln takes the stage to share her unique artistic journey with artificial intelligence. Erika will delve into how she pushes the boundaries of AI, exploring its vulnerabilities and reimagining its potential as a creative tool. This engaging talk is a chance to be inspired, spark curiosity, and explore the evolving intersection of AI, disability arts with new media arts.

Thursday February 20, 2025, 7-8pm.

Video Pool Media Arts Centre at the Pivot, Room 203, in-person or online.

Cost: Free

Erika Jean’s practice connects disability arts with new media arts. She mixes the processes of creative making with assistive technologies to confront the idea that agency is only a human trait, and that authorship lies solely with the individual. As a self-described crip-techno-tinkerist, she re-engineers information systems and communication devices to align with her neurocognitive processing by altering timing mechanisms, sensor measurements, data types, and algorithmic processes. These tinkered technologies become essential collaborators in artistic production, enabling the construction of interactive installations that blend automated systems, generative sound, moving images, robotics, and tactile objects.
Her artworks have been exhibited in galleries and museums in Canada and abroad such as The Hole NYC, Science Gallery Ireland, Boston Cyberarts Gallery USA, Bauhaus-Archiv in Germany, North Dakota Museum of Art, State Library of Queensland Australia, Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq, Plug-In ICA Winnipeg, Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, Harbourfront Center Toronto, Biennale Nationale de Sculpture Contemporaine Québec, and Gallery 1CO3 at the University of Winnipeg. She has exhibited her work at festivals such as Pixxelpoint Slovenia, ArtBots NYC/Dublin, The Vancouver Underground Film Festival, Filmwinter Stuttgart, Java Museum Koln, Kino8 ½ Saarbrucken, AlloSphere Research Facility, University of California SB, UKAI projects Carnival in Toronto, and most recently at the Coreana Museum of Art, Seoul Korea.
Her interdisciplinary approach extends beyond exhibitions into residencies where she has co-facilitated seminars that encourage discussions between technology, neurodiversity, and art with neuroscientists, software engineers, and disability arts activists. These residencies include, the Banff Center for the Arts Canada, The Banff New Media Institute, Media Lab Prado Madrid, The Blue Mountain Center NY, and the Ingenuity Labs Research Institute Queens University. She is a graduate of the University of Manitoba. Her article, Crip-Techno-Tinkerism: A Neurodivergent Learning Style Meets Machine Learning, was published in 2024 by the Leonardo Journal.

caption: Erika Jean Lincoln. 2024
Image Description:  A head and shoulders shot of the artist looking at the camera as she stands in front of her drawings. She has short brown hair, light skin and hazel eyes. She wears a black hoodie and, on her head, she wears a self described “neural fascinator” made of wire, thread, and knitting needles.