ABOUT
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Email: allison//-/at/-//allisonburtch.net
To message me securely, use my PGP key here or at Keybase: https://keybase.io/allison/key.asc
OTR chat: allisonburtch//-/at/-//xmpp.jp
Twitter – @IRL
Github, and I write occasionally on my blog at Tumblr.
BIO:
Allison Burtch creates liberation technology. She also helps run the School for Poetic Computation, where she teaches “Critical Theory of Technology: Politics, Utopia and Code.”
She is currently working on a small ultrasonic hardware device that protects smart phone users from passive audio surveillance, built in part while a resident at Eyebeam, the leading art and technology center in the United States. She is a member of Deep Lab.
Her recent work, the “log jammer,” creating a safe space in nature, was featured in Wired and many other publications. She’s collaborated on such projects as the Dumb Store – a mobile app store for dumbphones, co-organized Prism BreakUp at Eyebeam Art & Technology Center and the Drones and Aerial Robotics Conference at New York University, and was a lead researcher for Maya Lin’s online memorial What is Missing?. She has spoken internationally at conferences and universities.
Previously, Allison was the editor of the Occupied Wall Street Journal, a six-edition print publication which was translated into six languages and distributed globally, and was a fellow at the Institute of Technology and Society in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She’s also led a European biking and camping tour for teenagers, traveled by train from Kazakhstan to Beijing and lived on a boat. Allison Burtch has a master’s degree from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.
RECENTLY:
– APR 2016 – Started working for UNICEF Innovation in Speculative Hardware
Made Bernie paper Battle of NY
– MAR 2016 – Co-led TAILS workshop at the Whitney Museum as a part of Laura Poitras’ AstroNoise show
– FEB 2016 – Spoke at Columbia J School’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation “Transparency Series”
– NOV 2015 – Spoke at the Digital Ethics Symposium “Data, Democracy and the Human Story: A Conversation with Members of Deep Lab” at Loyola University in Chicago with members of Deep Lab.
Spoke at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan on a panel called “Snowed-In: Art in the Age of Surveillance.”
Spoke at the Art Institute of Chicago with other members of Deep Lab.
– OCT 2015 – Artist talk in Simone Browne’s class surveillance at the University of Texas Austin
– SEPT 2015 – “Art, Design and the Future of Privacy” – Panel discussion at Pioneer Works for DIS Magazine & Simply Secure.
– JULY/AUG 2015 – Residency at Parc Rousseau in Ermenonville, France, where Rousseau spent his last weeks.
– JUNE 2015 – Did a lightning talk at the Listening Machines Conference put on by Microsoft Research and the New York Times R&D lab.
– MAY 2015 – Microphone jammer at the FAT GOLD show in San Francisco at the Grey Area Theatre. Deep Lab Residency at NEW INC. Did a keynote talk at a conference in Philly. SFPC ended. Moderated panel for Deep Lab entitled “Anti-Utopias: What is to be done when everything is impossible.”
– APR 2015 – Microphone jammer in the Eyebeam gala and in New Aesthetic? at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. Spoke at Biocode in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Telepresenced/spoke at Univ of Colorado. Mini-residency at the Spruceton Inn in the Catskills.
– MAR 2015 – Spring session at the School for Poetic Computation began, where I am both teaching and help running the school.
– FEB 2015 – Spoke at Social Media Week
– JAN 2015 – Eyebeam end-of-year show debuting microphone jammer
– DEC 2014 – Member of Deep Lab. Speaking, researching and writing at the STUDIO for New Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA.
– NOV 2014 – Received a Shuttleworth Foundation flash grant.
– OCT 2014 – Teaching a class at the School for Poetic Computation. This course, Critical Theory of Technology, explores the envisioned utopia of tech creators and the effects its ubiquity. SFPC meets in the Lower East Side in Manhattan.
– OCT 2014 – Spoke at the Open Source Hardware Conference in Rome, Italy. “Liberation Technology in a Gleaner’s Economy”
– SEPT 2014 – Began a residency at the Eyebeam Art & Technology Center in Brooklyn, NY.
– JULY/AUG 2014 – Fellow at the Institute of Technology and Society in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
SELECTED PRESS:
WIRED Magazine, Andy Greenberg, “This Fake Log Jams Your Phone So You’ll Shut Up and Enjoy Nature,” 2014. http://www.wired.com/2014/10/fake-log-jams-your-phone/
VICE, Theresa Locker, “Mit diesem Holzklotz blockst du Handy-Telefonie in deiner unmittelbaren Nähe,” 2014. http://motherboard.vice.com/de/read/dieser-holzklotz-jammt-dein-telefon-damit-du-es-endlich-aus-der-hand-legst
The Verge, Adi Robertson, “Breaking up with PRISM is hard to do: will digital privacy ever be easy?” 2013. http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/8/4815760/prism-breakup-is-hard-to-do-will-digital-privacy-ever-be-easy
The Village Voice, Nick Pinto, “How to Make Your Dumb Phone Smart,” 2013. http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/05/how_to_make_you.php
FastCo Design, Mark Wilson, “Watch: How To Keep CSI Off Your DNA Trail,” 2013. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672264/watch-how-to-keep-csi-off-your-dna-trail
BBC News, Video Interview, “Tisch school: Creative brains map a smarter future,” 2013. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22487287