<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div><div><div><b>Stephen Willats and the Performance of Information Flows</b></div><div><i>Dr Sharon Irish, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne</i></div><div><div>Monday 9th May 2016</div><div>6pm for 6:30 start<br></div></div><div>BCS London, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HA</div><div>Map: <a href="http://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/london-office-guide.pdf">http://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/london-office-guide.pdf</a></div><div><br></div><div>Dear All,<br><br></div>I'm pleased to announce that Dr Sharon Irish of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne, will be giving a CAS Lecture on the work of Stephen Willats at BCS London.</div><div><br></div><div>The talk is open to the public and free but please book in advance at: <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/computer-arts-society-may-lecture-sharon-irish-tickets-24967770273" style="font-family: GillSans;">https://www.eventbrite.com/e/computer-arts-society-may-lecture-sharon-irish-tickets-24967770273</a><br><br></div>I hope to see you there!<br><br></div>Nick Lambert<div>Chair, CAS<br><br><div><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Abstract:</b> In the 1970s, artist Stephen Willats explored participation and interaction within an art context. He created the means to collect, sort, code, process, and use data to foster exchanges, essentially performing information flows using computers to help examine social systems. His <i>Edinburgh Social Model Construction Project </i>(1973) and <i>Meta Filter </i>(1973-75) enacted exchanges of information among groups, instantiating Willats’s cybernetic way of thinking.</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><b>Bio:</b> Sharon Irish is a project coordinator at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. She is completing a book on Stephen Willats. Her doctoral work in art history led to a book on the New York architect <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cass-Gilbert-Architect-Sources-American/dp/1885254903" target="_blank">Cass Gilbert</a>. She also published another book on the California-based performance artist <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/suzanne-lacy" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(4, 46, 238);">Suzanne Lacy</span></a>. Her current position allows her to play a substantive role in <a href="http://femtechnet.org/" target="_blank">FemTechNet</a>, an international collective of feminists of all genders working on, with, and at the borders of technology, science, and feminism, and serve as an advisory editor for the journal <i>Technology and Culture</i>.</div></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Be there or be square</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></body></html>