Delete: Strategies of Negation in the Age of Data Suffocation
When: Thursday, September 17, 2026 - Friday, September 18, 2026, 8:30 AM - 5:30 PM
Where: BLOC, ArtsOne Building, Mile End
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This conference revisits contemporary strategies of deletion as both instruments of power and practices of resistance, refusal, and, more radically, negation. Across disciplines, scholars have examined how digital regimes erase particular memories, histories, subjectivities, and forms of labour, while artists and activists have developed creative strategies to rupture or perforate the relentless proliferation of images, sounds, and texts.
Bringing together media scholars, artists, archivists, and activists, the conference explores how these opposing dynamics can be understood and contested. Rather than treating deletion as a lost or merely technical operation, we ask how it might regain critical relevance under contemporary conditions. Our aim is to collectively reflect on, and experiment with, the infrastructures, methodologies, and epistemologies through which deleting can once again operate as a meaningful cultural and political act.