NICAST Episode 2: “Visual Culture and Machine Vision”
with Lila Lee-Morrison
NICAst is hosted by Pepita Hesselberth, Joost de Bloois and Benjamin Schoonenberg.
Welcome to the second episode of the NICAst podcast series! This episode features a conversation with writer, scholar and historian Lila Lee-Morrison, postdoc fellow at Lund University (Sweden), whose research focusses on machine vision and remote sensing technologies, and the intersections of art, technology, and the environment. In the conversation we talk about her book Portraits of Automated Facial Recognition (Columbia UP, 2019), her publication on Machinic Landscapes and the nexus of art, technology and the environment. Since conducting the interview Lila was awarded a postdoctoral research position at Lund University, and the Andy Warhol writing grant (both 2023).
The conversation explores a variety of topics:
- Understanding facial recognition technologies as a case study of machine vision: how looking and seeing can become open-ended and plural processes, instead of fixed operations.
- The affordances and challenges of doing interdisciplinary research on (visual) technology
- Using case studies as sources of theoretical reflection.
- Technology and the humanities: how does one avoid “becoming a footnote to technology”?
- The urgency of doing cultural analysis today and the future of the humanities: conceptualizing technology from the perspective of the non-human.
This episode’s guest
Lila Lee-Morrison is a Visiting Intersect Fellow at University of Copenhagen and a postdoctoral researcher at Lund University on the ERC funded project “Show & Tell: Scientific representation, algorithmically generated visualizations, and evidence across epistemic cultures.” Her PhD dissertation Portraits of Automated Facial Recognition: On Machinic Ways of Seeing the Face was published with Columbia UP in 2019. She has published widely on the political and cultural implications of machine vision, including the use of biometrics and drone warfare. Her most recent research focusses on the intersections of art, technology, and the environment. She was awarded the 2023 Andy Warhol writing grant.