Nishant Shah

It was my pleasure to be the concluding speaker in the Lingan University’s 50 Year Celebrations in Hong Kong. Here is a quick synopsis and details of the talk. Watch this space for the video when it comes online. Lingnan University 50th Anniversary Lecture Series (2017-2018) Inter-disciplinary Lectures on Culture and Society x HKAC Art Shop Inspiration Series Organised by the Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University Co-organised by Hong Kong Arts Centre Disinformation Overload: ‘Truthing it’ in algorithmic networks Fake news has been all the news lately. The anxiety around fake news is a symptom of a growing instability in our capacity to tell, discern, filter, share, and amplify that which we believe to be true, in the algorithmic state of information networks. Fake news is not so much about searching for the truth, as it is about figuring out the first principles through which claims of truth can be made. Beginning with the idea of information overload as our new default, this talk looks at the way in which our first order principles of truth claiming are being Continue Reading …

 was 12 when my principal gave us the news, on the public announcement system that the school is shutting down for the day owing to the reports of danger in the city. It was the day of the Babri Masjid demolition but the principal did not mention that in her announcement. We packed our bags and waited as panic-stricken parents arrived to take us home. With both my parents working, I knew my wait would be longer than others who either lived close-by or had a parent who would come pronto. I remember being one of the last ones waiting, sitting beside the principal, who ensured that every child went home safe. I asked her for more information. She had then introduced me to the idea of an afwaa (rumour). She said she had heard from unverified news sources that there was trouble in New Delhi, and it was on such a big scale that we in Ahmedabad were in danger, too. I pushed her to tell me more but she refused to give details. “I don’t have enough information. This is Continue Reading …

This is a long post. It is quasi academic and reflective. It was written because I wanted to make sense of a brush with social media virality and to share some insights with others who might find themselves in networked attention centred for telling stories of their political convictions and encounters. TL/DR: I went viral and realized that social media virality comes with threats, attacks, and trolling. But it is still an amazing amplifying machine and experiencing digital solidarity and support is still one of the most exciting things for a political stance. Now you can do the long read at your own peril. I accidentally went viral with something I had written. It was a drawn out dramatic narration of an incident that happened on a flight, where I slapped a man who was inappropriately touching the Young woman sitting between us on a long flight from Hong Kong to Amsterdam. I had originally written it for my Facebook wall – presuming that it will add to the conversation about safety, violence, and the need to make interventions. Not Continue Reading …

If we were to choose a word of the year for the last year, it would have to be survivor. With #MeToo finally finding its feet in its second wave in the Indian landscape, and every day, more women finding their voice to stand up, speak back and call out, the social web proved that it is not just an angry screaming match, but that it can also be a space for care, connections, and catharsis. Of course, the #MeToo deniers, who mock feminism and make jokes about increased policing of who we kiss (largely missing the point that nobody is objecting to kissing, just kissing without consent), will continue to populate the web with their structural misogyny and anxious masculinity, needing attention and validation. In the meantime, we celebrate, cherish, champion, and, most importantly, believe the survivors and support them in ways that they need — by sharing, defending, and demanding action and accountability from those who have been named and called. I have been overwhelmed by the stories that survivors of sexual abuse and violence have shared and the Continue Reading …

On the internet, we produce information to be forgotten. The life of digital information is shaped by conditions of volume, velocity and variety (the three Vs). The scale of our collective digital content production has now reached massive proportions. We produce more information in a day than we have produced over entire centuries. So trying to make human sense of this information is futile. We can be assured that almost everything we write will be forgotten and archived before it is consumed and remembered. The large volume also means that in order for information to stand out, it needs velocity. The trend of today will be replaced in a few clicks by something else. Fomo, the fear of missing out, is not just a millennial anxiety, it is the new natural. It is because information is continually being forgotten, transferred from memory to storage, it needs to have variety. It needs to be new but familiar, expected but exciting. Let’s call it, same same, but different. Renewal is the default of all our digital transactions. Our data streams need constant Continue Reading …

In this KTH Humanities Tech event, Nishant Shah will provide a critique of AI as well as discussing what AI (and we/our world) could be. The talk will be followed by an extended conversation. More invited participants may be added to the event. Nishant Shah is the Dean of the Graduate School at the ArtEZ University of the Arts, Visiting Professor at the Centre for Digital Cultures, Leuphana University, and the co-founder of the Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore. Shah’s work is at the intersections of technology, affect, identity, and social and political movements. He currently is preoccupied with questions of digital simulations and our capacity to tell truth in the face of discriminating data.  Abstract:One of the most visible emphasis in the social acceleration of Artificial Intelligence is what I call an “extinction impulse”. This manifests itself in multiple ways – in how we design-think problems, how we conceptualise our users, how we buy into the promise of A.I. and how we imagine that the answer to our A.I. concerns is going to be more A.I.  Following the logic of Continue Reading …