Past Talks & More | Artist Talks

Mimi Ọnụọha and Simone Browne in Conversation

Arts, Technology and Social Change

Info & Tickets

Oct 09, 2025 4:30 PM

Film/Video Theater

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Free for all audiences with ticket

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Join acclaimed artist Mimi Ọnụọha and surveillance studies scholar Simone Browne as they discuss Ọnụọha’s new-media art practice.

Ọnụọha’s work combines artificial intelligence (AI), data mining, and documentary to expose contradictions in technological progress. Technology relies on various logical systems that are adapted to different uses or applications. Throughout the talk, the speakers will explore how the contemporary logic of quantification, which focuses on grouping things together based on similarities or certain properties, permeates all aspects of life. They will also touch on the risk, power, and potential of being unrepresented in these systems and cover topics such as missing data, Black geographies (an area of study exploring the connections between racial identities and place), and more.

Don’t miss our Fall 2025 Exhibitions Opening Celebration on August 22, where you can experience Ọnụọha’s work for yourself. Her video Us, Aggregated 3.0 (2019), on view in The Box through January 11, investigates how digital tools shape our understanding of identity, power, and community through her experience with image search. As part of her Ohio State residency project, a survey of her recent work, What Is Missing Is Still There, will appear across Columbus at the Wex, the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio State’s campus, and Orange Barrel Media screens throughout the city.

IMAGE CAPTION
Left to right: Mimi Ọnụọha, photo: Pavel Ezrohi; Simone Browne, photo: Rae Davis.

More about the Arts, Technology and Social Change series

The Arts, Technology and Social Change series is an initiative conceived by Ohio State’s Department of History of Art, Department of Art, Wexner Center for the Arts, and the Translational Data Analytics Institute. The residency program is a cross-department platform that involves public engagement on campus and around Columbus to explore questions on technology and social change in our contemporary moment.

More about the speakers

Nigerian American artist Mimi Ọnụọha uses print, code, data, video, installation, and archival media to question and expose the contradictions in technological progress. She highlights what is missing or absent and offers new ways of making sense of the gaps that define systems of labor, ecology, and relations. She is a Creative Capital and Fulbright-National Geographic grantee. She is also the cofounder of A People’s Guide to Tech, an artist-led organization that makes educational guides and workshops about emerging technology.

Simone Browne is an associate professor in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on the social and ethical implications of surveillance, both AI-enabled and not. She is the author of the award-winning book Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness. Browne is currently writing her second book, Art on Surveillance, which examines the interventions made by artists whose works grapple with the surveillance of Black life. She is an EPIC advisory board member and A People’s Guide to Tech advisory board member.

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Talks & More

SUPPORT FOR THIS INITIATIVE PROVIDED BY

Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts

Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme

Orange Barrel Media

LEARNING AND PUBLIC PROGRAMS EVENTS MADE POSSIBLE BY

American Electric Power Foundation

CoverMyMeds

Huntington

SUPPORT FOR LEARNING AND PUBLIC PROGRAMS RESIDENCIES PROVIDED BY

Mike and Paige Crane

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY

Greater Columbus Arts Council

The Wexner Family

Ohio Arts Council, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts

CampusParc

The Columbus Foundation

Every Page Foundation

Mellon Foundation

Axium Packaging

Nationwide Foundation

Michael and Anita Goldberg

Vorys Sater Seymour and Pease LLP

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY

Joyce Shenk

Rebecca Perry and Ben Towle

Lachelle Thigpen

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