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Jennifer Rhee

Jennifer Rhee is an associate professor in the Department of English and the Media, Art, and Text PhD Program at Virginia Commonwealth University. She’s written about robotics and artificial intelligence in technology, visual and performance art, literature, and film in her book The Robotic Imaginary: The Human and the Price of Dehumanized Labor (University of Minnesota Press, 2018). She’s been awarded an American Council of Learned Societies fellowship for 2019 to 2020 to support her book project on digital counting technologies, race, and art.

Toying with the Future: AI, Fantasy, and Zach Blas's Icosahedron

“I used a children’s toy to respond to the childish masculinity and bravado of someone like Peter Thiel, but also to play with these words of ‘toying’ and ‘gaming.’ They’re toying with the world’s future.” Zach Blas discusses Icosahedron, a Walker-commissioned installation that references elves in The Lord of the Rings, Silicon Valley, and the Magic 8-Ball toy to critique today’s prevalent predictive technologies.