Undisciplined Cultural Computing Workshop

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Undisciplined presents a critical data studies workshop exploring the role of cultural context in data collection, classification, and machine learning. Participants will engage with AI technologies through the lens of Gullah Geechee heritage—a distinctive coastal culture rooted in African traditions and central to the African American experience.

This workshop includes two modules:

Module 1: Cultural Context and Data Reclassification

Examine the cultural and cosmological connections between Kongo beliefs and Gullah Geechee traditions. Participants begin by learning a Kongo creation story, then review key terminology related to data collection.
Next, they explore a curated selection of Gullah cultural artifacts, using vocabulary from Kongo cosmology to identify and reclassify historic objects that exemplify a shared cosmological framework. This module highlights how cultural values influence the ways data is labeled, classified, and understood.

Module 2: Missing Data and Cultural Practices in AI

View Calculate {Freedom}, a short film that introduces the concept of missing and “dark” data in relation to cultural memory. Participants then engage with a custom AI model, using selected screenshots from the film to decode symbolic and cosmological meanings embedded in the scenes. This activity demonstrates how culturally grounded practices can inform data interpretation and reshape machine learning processes.

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