Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre Moscow, ID
Dr. Tamara Kneese
Project Director, Data & Society Research Institute’s Algorithmic Impact Methods Lab; Visiting Scholar, UC Berkeley’s Center for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society
Her— Life. Internet. Death.
Program Description
Dr. Tamara Kneese will discuss her new book, “Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism Fails Us in This Life and Beyond” and its relationship to the film HER. The book and film both explore technology and its messy relationship with mortality.
Presented At
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre Moscow, ID
Film Synopsis
A lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with his newly purchased operating system that's designed to meet his every need.
In the near future, a sensitive and soulful man earns a living by writing personal letters for other people. Left heartbroken after his marriage ends, Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) forms an unlikely bond with a new operating system that has the capacity to develop into an intuitive and unique entity in its own right. He starts the program and meets the voice behind the OS1, Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). Though friends initially, the relationship soon deepens into love. Nominated for five Academy Awards, this film marks director-producer Spike Jonze’s solo screenwriting debut.
About the Speaker
Currently serving as the Project Director of Data & Society Research Institute’s Algorithmic Impact Methods Lab, Tamara Kneese also holds the position of Senior Researcher within the organization. In the academic year 2023-2024, she is a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society. Additionally, she serves as a faculty member in the Master in Design for Responsible AI program at ELISAVA.
Her first book, "Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism Fails Us in This Life and Beyond" (Yale University Press, Fall 2023), offers an ethnographic and historical exploration of the internet of death. She delves into how social media platforms, initially not designed for long-term use and intergenerational inheritance, have evolved into spaces for mourning and memorialization. She critically examines the temporal disparities inherent in startup culture, contrasting real-time updates and fast-paced innovation with platforms' increasing involvement in profound aspects of human existence.
Her research extends to the embodied care work required to sustain the afterlives of individuals, networks, and objects. Her contributions have been featured in academic journals like Social Media + Society, Cultural Studies, and Social Text, as well as in popular publications such as WIRED, The Verge, and The Baffler.
She earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, an M.A. in Social Sciences and Anthropology from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. in Anthropology from Kenyon College.