Professor Lisa Blackman (Goldsmiths University of London) will talk about her approach to weird science which foregrounds the role of artists in helping proliferate visibilities and contributing to archives of the future. Drawing from her already published work on the phenomenon of voice hearing and suggestion Lisa will explore how artists can help shape a speculative science which opens up to adventure, creativity, invention and wonder. Lisa will also share examples from her new book, Haunted Data: Transmedia, Affect, Weird Science and Archives of the Future (Bloomsbury, 2018).

Lisa works at the intersection of body studies and media and cultural theory and is particularly interested in subjectivity, affect, the body and embodiment.  She has published four books in this area. The most recent is Immaterial Bodies: Affect, Embodiment, Mediation, (2012, Sage). Her work in the area of embodiment and voice hearing has been recognised and commended for its innovative approach to mental health research and it has been acclaimed by the Hearing Voices Network, Intervoice, and has been taken up in professional psychiatric contexts.

She has also made a substantive contribution to the fields of critical psychology and body studies. In this context she co-edits the journal, Subjectivity (with Valerie Walkerdine, Palgrave) and edits the journal Body & Society (Sage). Her other books include Hearing Voices: Embodiment and Experience (2001, Free Association Books); Mass Hysteria: Critical Psychology and Media Studies (with Valerie Walkerdine; 2001, Palgrave); and The Body: The Key Concepts (2008, Berg). She is also part of a Wellcome-funded project, Hearing the Voice, working on a sub project, Voices Beyond the Self, which starts in 2018.

http://www.gold.ac.uk/media-communications/staff/blackman/

Lisa Blackman is currently supervising Research Fellow Kjersti Sundland's artistic research project, In the Presence of Phantoms, at KMD's Institute of Fine Art.