Thursday, March 13, 2025
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM
Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, Dodson Room.
Registeration Required
Abstract:
Maps of the war in Ukraine – and we know a good number of such tools – are typically not considered synthetic images in a sense of pure computer-generated simulations and visualizations. By focusing on one of them, DeepStateMap that is often regarded as “the most accurate map” of the war in Ukraine. Based on real-world geographic data, satellite imagery, and intelligence reports, it still heavily relies on human analysts and data collectors. In other words, DeepStateMap constitutes a particular type of operational image that is, indeed, synthetic but in the most general sense of the word: it is written by a complex assemblage of human-machine collaboration. By looking at its synthetic nature and grass-roots origin, as well as its use as 1) a cognitive tool for understanding the evolving situation on the ground, including territorial control, troop movements, and the key strategic locations in the present, the talk will also address this map as a speculative tool for envisioning and modeling probable accidents and developments in the future, and 2) as a tool for negotiation between several radically different groups of viewers – not only Ukrainian forces and civilians, but also, the Russian aggressor.
Speaker Bio:
Svitlana Matviyenko is an Associate Professor of Critical Media Analysis in the School of Communication and Associate Director of the Digital Democracies Institute. Matviyenko’s current work on nuclear cultures & heritage investigates the practices of nuclear terror, weaponization of pollution and technogenic catastrophes during the Russian war in Ukraine. Matviyenko is a co-author of Cyberwar and Revolution: Digital Subterfuge in Global Capitalism (Minnesota UP, 2019), a winner of the 2019 book award of the Science Technology and Art in International Relations (STAIR) section of the International Studies Association and of the Canadian Communication Association 2020 Gertrude J. Robinson book prize.
(Photo Credit: Olga Zakrevska)
This event is co-sponsored with the UBC Critical Image Forum Research Excellence Cluster, UBC Modern European Studies, UBC Bachelor of Media Studies, and the UBC Eurasia Research Cluster.