NCM is situated on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people. We pay respects to them, especially their Elders and storytellers, as well as all First Peoples, nationwide. NCM acknowledges that communication technologies have a long history here, far longer than European occupation.

Play Together | Participatory Talk with Spencer Chang

Programs & Events

Spencer Chang. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Seminar Room • 26 November, 6.30pm–8.15pm

Adult $39 | Concession $35

Get tickets

From personal to communal computing, Spencer Chang shares a participatory talk where attendees can imagine and experience pathways to a community centred future.

What are computers for? Since inception, the personal computer has been marketed as a tool for individual liberation. But with technology more powerful than ever, people have never felt more alone or scared of its possibilities.

Instead of chasing speed, capability and efficiency, what if we built technology around play, intimacy and care? Instead of better machines, what if we just needed more players imagining together what they could and should be? In place of singular platforms, imagine a future of millions of interfaces, devices and internets, each made by and for the people who use them.

Join Spencer Chang, visiting Melbourne for the first time, for a communal play session to imagine these futures. Spencer’s work is currently on display in Radical Computing.

Doors open at 6.30pm, with the talk beginning at 7pm. Radical Computing is open to view before and after the program.

What you need to bring: a fully charged smartphone

Speaker

Spencer Chang

Spencer Chang is an artist and toymaker who makes software you can touch. Working across internet spaces, interactive sculpture, and creative infrastructure, they activate the intimacy, creativity, and reciprocity in our everyday interactions with technology. These works playfully interrogate our systems, invite different imaginations, and provide the means to reinvent them. Spencer is the creator of playhtml, an open-source tool for living websites used by thousands, and Computing Shrines, a protocol for prosocial public art, installed in Golden Gate Park with the SF Arts Commission.

Spencer has created commissions for Hyundai Artlab, Internet Archive, and Wikipedia, and exhibited internationally at Ars Electronica, de Young Museum, Museum of the Moving Image, Gray Area, and Tokyo University of the Arts among others. They have collaborated with Rhizome, CultureHub, and Mozilla Foundation, and their projects have been featured in MIT Tech Review, The Cut, Frieze, and It’s Nice That.

Spencer Chang is currently exhibited in Radical Computing.

Venue Accessibility

  • NCM is fully wheelchair accessible
  • All gender and accessible toilets are available on both levels
  • Hearing loop available
  • NCM is a high sensory space with a variety of noise and lighting.
  • This program includes seating for all attendees
  • If you have any other access needs please get in touch, we'd love to help hello@ncm.org.au

Learn More About Radical Computing

Radical Computing

Radical Computing