Data as Experience: Yanni Loukissas
iSchool Research Symposium Series

Friday, November 13, 2026
Doors open at 2:00 PM, program begins around 2:15 PM
Petersen Room, Allen Library (Room 485)

Data matter experientially: not only for what they show us, but for how they shape our attention and affect, conditioning the way we perceive our surroundings, others, and even ourselves. Established representational approaches to data, centered on objectivity and accuracy, can obscure these dimensions and limit our ability to reflect critically on what data do to us. Data are not simply representations of the world; they are points of orientation within it.

Yanni Alexander Loukissas, PhD, is Associate Professor of Digital Media in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech and Executive Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Media Arts. His work develops critical methods and theory that challenge the myth of digital universalism, bringing a spatial perspective to Science and Technology Studies scholarship on data and AI infrastructures. He is the author of All Data Are Local: Thinking Critically in a Data-Driven Society (MIT Press, 2019), and is working on a forthcoming book on data as points of orientation in the world. He holds a BArch from Cornell University and an MS and PhD in Design and Computation from MIT.

Refreshments will be provided. The session will be recorded and made available to the UW community.