ACCENT Media’s Digital Editor, Foster Milburn, interviews Maxine LaQueene in efforts to advocate against anti-trans laws. Watch Foster and Maxine discuss topics on human rights, the reality of being trans in Texas, the disenfranchisement and abuse that has befallen the trans community, and what we can do at Austin Community College to remain level-headed in today’s highly polarized society.
by Amelie Cox
Visual Communication, also known as Viscom, is another world in and of itself. The rabbit hole of umbrella categories and sub-disciplines can be overwhelming at first glance. However, ACC’s faculty and staff have centered the department around student success.
With an emerging digital presence, specialized graphic skills are more prominent than ever. The ACC Visual Design program was introduced in the Fall semester of 2019 and was added to the 2020 catalog. With this, students gained access to four programs within the department that offer in-depth, experience based education to prepare them for the work field.
Graphic Design is at the forefront of Visual Communication as it is the most common and well known discipline; however, the umbrella of visual communication encompasses many different fields and niches that are easily unrecognizable due to the more common title. Viscom breaks down these specializations into the programs: Graphic Media Production, Graphic Design, Visual Design, and User Experience Design (UX).
These programs sit on a spectrum, with a fair amount of overlap between each discipline. “The design field isn’t as siloed as it might appear to be,” program specialist Zoe Dahmen said.
On one end of the spectrum we have Graphic Media Production, with expertise on the technical side of software and print production. Students are equipped with a deep understanding of printers, ink and how to prepare files for press, as well as similar skills on the digital end with screen-based applications. Graphic Media Production and Graphic Design go hand in hand, sharing the same foundation classes and working side by side to produce products.
With skills primarily focused on print, Graphic Design students learn to create through typography, visual language, color imagery, type, space, layout, and composition. This discipline has been around as long as the print industry has, and they are responsible for designing a range of products from books, magazines and posters to packaging and branding.
Visual Design encompasses almost everything on screen as its primary focus is on digital platforms. As a newer technological concept that split off from graphic design over the last 5-10 years, there is a specific set of skills centered around screen-based applications. Students “need to know about responsiveness, meaning how windows can be resized,” department chair and professor Joisah Spence said. “They understand user interface, how users interact with things and how to make that interaction easy.” All of these skills are still based on basic design concepts that the graphic design program teaches.
At the other end of the spectrum there is UX Design – completely focused on the digital side. “There is less of an emphasis on aesthetics,” Dahmen said. Courses focus on designing interfaces for user friendly access, across a plethora of platforms.
Ultimately UX is concerned with “what it is and how it works,” think of it as the psychology of design with a focus on how users think. Within this umbrella of user experience is information architecture, where students learn how to organize in a way that users can find what they need.
Each discipline interacts with another, with Visual Design being the overlapping point of a lot of skills. This is where some confusion arises, even within the job market – which is exactly why the Viscom team is aiming to provide more information to students upfront.
Fortunately, part of Dahmen’s job is just this. “I primarily advise students at every stage of them moving through the program,” Dahmen said. “I make sure they’re in the right program that fits their goals, what they ultimately want to do, and ensure it is in the timeline they want to achieve them on.”
Because the Visual Design program is rather new, and the term is not well known, students may enter ACC under the Graphic Design program but really have a digital focus in mind. The department seeks to make it easier for students to understand the difference between the programs and find what fits best for them.
“To make this all more complicated, a lot of hiring managers don’t use the terminology in the same way that has become industry standard,” Spence said. He further emphasizes that when looking at job postings it is important to read the descriptions – as they may list the job under one title such as UX Designer, but really mean Visual Designer, and so forth.
Another lack of clarity often falls within coding. “We teach all of our students a little bit of coding,” Spence said. “It’s just enough to understand the basics and to be able to interact with coders.” As with the other programs, there is a lot of overlap, especially with UX and visual design; however, coding is a separate discipline, and department entirely – that being Computer Information Technology.
All of this goes to show how complex the world of design is, leading individuals to wonder where they stand.
There are a variety of things to consider when deciding which department is the best fit, starting with the question, “am I more of a visual person, or conceptual person?” Furthermore, if you are a visual person, are you drawn towards aesthetics and working through how to communicate to audiences visually, or are your interests more on the technical side of software? Another key thing to consider is if you are more interested in hands-on creation or lean towards the growth industry of technical design.
It is a lot to consider, and that is exactly what advisors in the department are here to help with. Students are urged to meet with these specialists as soon as they can, and encouraged to reach out even before starting their journey at ACC. And alas, the overlap in each area allows for some wiggle room if students do decide to shift into a different program. You can schedule your advising appointment and get a more in-depth look at what each program offers on the Student Field Guide.
Viscom programs all come together as a department for the Spring semester Portfolio Show on May 11 at the new Make It Center in Building 2000 at the Highland campus. This gives students an opportunity to showcase their work, as well as give prospective students a look into what skills are developed in each program.
Local elections for the state of Texas take place on Saturday, May 6. Here’s what you need to know before heading to the polls.
by Foster Milburn
What is a Proposition?
A proposition is a form of direct democracy when citizens vote directly on new laws or changes to existing ones. Voters typically place these propositions on the ballot through petitions or legislative action.
It is not uncommon for supporters and opponents to spend money on advertising in order to influence public opinion on controversial issues.
What will be on my ballot?
Unlike the November 2022 election, the ballot will be quite short. Educational bonds, the election of city council members, and city issued bonds will make up the majority of the ballot.
The two most controversial topics are Proposition A and Proposition B dealing with the Austin Police Oversight Act. The propositions are nearly identical in language and are distinguished by the groups they are backed by.
What is Proposition A?
Proposition A is backed by Equity Action, a criminal justice reform group that focuses on racial equity in the judicial system in Austin. It intends to “deter police misconduct and brutality by strengthening the City’s system of independent and transparent civilian police oversight,” according to the election page on the official City of Austin website.
What is Proposition B?
Proposition B is backed by the Voters for Police Oversight and Accountability, a group that is funded by the Austin Police Association. In terms of language, it sounds remarkably similar, almost verbatim, to Proposition A. It aims to “strengthen the City’s system of independent and transparent civilian police oversight,” according to its original ordinance.
In a KVUE interview, Chris Harrons with Equity Action clarified that the primary difference between the two measures, besides the words “strengthening” and “strengthen,” is that Prop A attempts to make it possible for people to file anonymous complaints on a police officer. Voters for Oversight and Police Accountability said in the same interview that their aim is to increase police accountability with a focus on guaranteed due process.
Rewind to Fall 2022, when a group of unknown individuals were seen in West Campus gathering signatures for petitions relating to police oversight that many deemed deceiving due its language.“The City Clerk will not accept any requests to remove your name from the petition, regardless how you were deceived, after the organization behind it has turned in their signatures,” Equity Action said on their website.
When casting your vote, notice the group that each proposition is backed by whose mission aligns with your beliefs about police oversight.
Early voting for the May 6 election ends Tuesday.
ACC International Programs and Office of Experiential Learning hosted Global Storytelling about Women: Empowerment and Disruption panel on March 28 with presentations from staff and students alike. The presenters discussed a variety of topics such as feminine ideals, fairy tales, monsters in literature, and stories of indigenous women in politics.
Story by Ava Vano
Studying Disruptors and Trailblazers
The panel began with Dr. Brenda Roy and her four students speaking about what they have learned in the Women and Gender Studies English Composition II classroom. Roy spoke about the class’s attitudes towards gender and through what perspective she sought to approach that, and explained that the course is designed on“[Using] gender as the primary, but not the only lens to explore course texts.”
In the class, students read a variety of short stories, poetry, essays and watched TED talks exploring women’s stories. Why does this matter? Roy’s goal is to “Center students’ own lived experiences” and to create “embodied citizens outside the classroom,” according to her presentation.
Each of the four students got the opportunity to present their own topics pertaining to the course that they were passionate about. Attendees saw presentations about gender socialization, personal impacts of one’s own gender, thoughts about “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and an analysis of “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid. These students explored what it means to be a woman personally, but also what literature has taught us about womanhood.
Monstrous Women Around the World
The next presentation was “Monstrous Women Around the World” given by Professor Alex Watkins. Watkins spoke about themes of monsters as cultural ideals and how monsters are a way to villainize and disempower certain groups, referencing Jeffrey Cohen’s “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)”.
A keynote from this presentation was the fourth thesis, “The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference,” in which she reflects upon “the other” and our fear of that idea. This is applicable to many different groups of people and is something that is ever present within our media. Overall, through this presentation, the attendees were given the opportunity to reflect upon what people have the tendency to fear and why exactly they do that.
Indigenous Women in Politics
The third presentation was “Indigenous Women in Politics” by Professor Vanessa Faz. She began the presentation by pointing out the issue of indigenous women going missing every day, and the lack of funding and police presence on reservations that has made this issue go under the radar in many instances.
On a brighter note, the main point of her presentation was to celebrate the indigenous women that were able to break through the political sphere and were elected into government positions. For example, Deb Haaland was the first Native American woman elected into Congress and to hold a cabinet position, and Sharice Davids followed Haaland to be the second Native woman in Congress.
Faz points out that there were no Native Americans elected into Congress from 1902 to 2018, making the barriers these women broke down even more impressive.
Global Cinderella Stories: How Fairy Tales Reflect the Feminine Ideal
The final presentation was “Cinderella Stories and the Feminine Ideal – How Stories Shape Our Perception” given by Professor Lauren Elander who is a dual credit high school teacher from Round Rock ISD.
Elander has the unique challenge of teaching high school students and finding texts that all students can see themselves in, expressing that challenge by asking “How am I going to find a text for everybody?” Elander gives students the option to write about texts and material not in the curriculum if they feel drawn to it, giving students the opportunity to find texts they are passionate about.
Elander presented Cinderella stories across all different cultures and what expectations from women are shown through their depiction. Intersectionality is a key concept for the interpretation of texts within Elander’s classroom, and as her students navigate their course material, they are given the opportunity to reflect upon themselves and others.
Although Women’s History Month has come to an end, we can still find the time to reflect upon women’s stories and the challenges they face through literature. This panel gave several women the opportunity to share their stories and empower other women through the recognition, acknowledgement, and exploration of topics that may otherwise be overlooked.
An essay on being a student with a neurodivergent brain by ACCENT writer Aaron Moeller. This article is part of the Student Welfare Series, exploring the Great Questions program in the ACC humanities department.
By Aaron Moeller
Photo by Matthew Mateo
My brain is an F5 tornado. It spins, twirls me around endlessly, and is highly unstable. After joining college again after three years off, I did not remember how to read or write. I had to teach myself.
I have autism, and seven other diagnoses, including complex PTSD, ADHD, and OCD. I am neurodivergent. My entire life, I had not been civically engaged and did not know how to be. I had yet to start reading my first book. My hands would tremble when I tried to write an essay. My head would spin off my shoulders for any given test. I had lost hope. Why is my brain like this?
Then it happened, during my first semester at ACC. I received my first bad grade: an F on a paper I had spent 15 straight hours writing. I emailed my teacher, Shellee O’Brien, some things I should not repeat.
My ego was destroyed. I tried to read the entire book. I did the work. But I still got an F. Why? I met with Professor O’Brien during our first office hours where I was poised and ready to attack. How dare she not give me a perfect score? I poured my entire life and soul into this; why did I get an F? I demanded a rebuttal from her.
To my surprise, she looked me in the eye and began speaking calmly. She explained where I had skewed off track during my essay, and I realized I was wrong. I knew from her tone that she didn’t try to “win” or have a “gotcha” moment with me. I spoke with her for two hours, not knowing my life would be changed forever because of that call.
This was the first time I felt I had a teacher who cared about me.
We ended the call with her telling me that I could do anything I set my mind to, and I knew I could count on her. I had finally found a mentor.
After that day, I began my next writing assignment. She had told me not to worry about this old one, and I didn’t. I focused. I sat for another fifteen hours and wrote my following essay. Was this something that I could do now? Could I be a writer? Do I have a voice? Is someone going to care what I have to say?
I turned in my essay and got an A. This was the first A I had ever received since I dropped out of high school at 15. I was ecstatic; this was one of the best days of my life. I went outside and shouted to the sky, “I made it.” Because I did. They were my words on the paper, and for the first time, I was heard.
I quickly went back to Blackboard and checked my history class grade. Fail. I began to sob and mentally retreated into myself. Why was my brain doing this? How can I get my first A and an F simultaneously? Why do I remember everything from the other class but nothing from the one I failed? I made it my mission to find out.
I met with Professor O’Brien again and explained what was happening, asking her what the secret was. She told me it was something called “Great Questions.”
Great Questions pedagogy is centered around teaching discussion-based texts and creating lesson plans that allow your students to find their voice. This is immensely powerful, especially for a neurodivergent student like me, who knows that the education system was not created for everybody. Great Questions focuses on collaboration, not rote-memorization. It also focuses on the concepts of the material rather than memorizing answers to regurgitate on an exam.
I was still confused. I thought the answer was simple: suck it up. That is what I have been told my entire life. I perfected the art of masking after my childhood trauma. Everyone tells me, “You don’t look autistic,” or “You look so happy.” If only they knew how I felt. If only they knew every single thought that entered my brain.
But I’m not special. Millions of other people feel this daily. They are stuck inside a system that just isn’t made for them. They try to claw their way “out” at their own expense, only to realize there isn’t one.
Professors don’t have it easy, either. They are thrown out of graduate school after getting a degree, with all the weight of the world thrust upon them, alone, like me. They are expected to care for hundreds of students, each with preconceived notions of how a typical class should be. It is not easy or wise to go against the status quo.
Students expect the teachers to make things easy to learn and perfect in every way, which usually means some rote-memorization style teaching method. A rinse and repeat method: memorize this and that, pass the exam, then forget it all. But O’Brien showed me how things could be different. She went against the norm and had the vulnerability to try something new, which changed my life. The secret is that she was active and engaged in my education, a special method implemented in the Great Questions program.
I know it is not easy. Academic freedom isn’t as good as it is made to seem. Throw in overloaded and stressed students, hundreds of them, with hundreds if not thousands of essays to read, all while keeping a close and tight-knit relationship with the student. It’s practically impossible. Students learn early not to expect much, and teachers are just trying to get by with what they have.
I have a new challenge.
I am challenging professors to challenge themselves. We can all become active readers and writers. Create lesson plans that are discussion based, and allow your students to have a voice, as O’Brien did for me. Give me a chance to realize I am a part of the big picture, and what I say matters. Give me a chance to mess up, and help me back up. Have fun with me.
I know it is hard to try something new, but it is an act of solidarity. In my case, I learned I had a voice, something I never knew I had since I was eleven years old after my offender assaulted me.
But I survived.
Being comorbid with so many diagnoses has challenged me, but I survived. I have faith that teachers will also survive.
Give me a chance to realize I am a part of the big picture, and what I say matters. Give me a chance to mess up, and help me back up. Have fun with me.
After finding my voice, I now eat and sleep better, have become a leader within multiple communities, and am pursuing journalism as a passion for spreading awareness of the disenfranchisement of neurodivergent people.
Before this, I was stuck inside for three years, extremely cloistered with trauma-induced symptoms. I know Great Questions pedagogy has the potential to change a student’s life forever. It changed mine.
My therapist described my reality as “walking in a snowstorm while everyone around me is on a beach,” and I had never felt more validated.
Growing up and never meeting my father traumatized me and left me seeking guidance, but finding a mentor within my professor allowed me to blossom into the real-life human I am today.
After two years, I will be the first in my family to graduate and the first one to publish anything, and that is possible due to people like my Professor Shellee O’Brien and the Great Questions pedagogy who are willing to try something new.
by Foster Milburn
On March 27, 2023, Equality Texas, a statewide political organization that advocates for LGBTQ rights, posted a “call to action” on their social media websites. They called for an emergency rally titled “Fight for our lives.” The rally took place at 2 p.m. at the rotunda located on the ground floor of the Texas State Capitol. Their reasoning – to protest the imminent passing of House Bill 1686 (HB 1686).
HB 1686 aims to prevent healthcare coverage for gender-affirming care amongst youth in the state and allows the prosecution of a medical professional who provides such care regardless of parental consent. As of March 28, 2023, the bill is likely to pass the house and activists revisited the capitol to protest the bill and the detrimental effects it would have on transgender youth.
On the capitol grounds, activists were lined up down to the street on the south side. Due to the legislative session, the capitol has been crowded, but the energy was different, with activists feeling more panicked than usual at the prospect of the passing of this bill – one of several anti-LGBTQ+ bills that the state legislature is working to pass.
Testimonies were cut short at midnight and activists fell to the ground and chanted “Klick lies, kids die” referring to Representative Stephanie Klick, Chair of the Public Health Committee, who is overseeing discussions regarding the bill. Those who were unable to speak out may submit a public comment of their testimony through Friday, limited to 3000 characters.
Another bill, HB 2055, aims to repeal an antiquated law preventing same-sex relationships. The law remains on Texas books. Activists are calling for support of this bill and urging the public to stop by capitol grounds to drop a card and/or give a testimony.
You can track the status of all bills using Equality Texas’ bill tracking system.
The 88th legislative session started on January 10 and concludes on May 29, 2023. This term sparked a sense of fear amongst LGBTQ Texans as there are more anti-LGBTQ bills than in previous sessions.
by Foster Milburn
On March 20, 2023, Texans from across the state gathered near the south side of the capitol. The goal: to use the mere presence of the community to push back on bills that directly impact the lives of LGBTQ Texans.
National and regional equality groups organized the day in a routine schedule to train and create positive energy amongst attendees. Equality Texas, GLAAD, Texas Freedom Network, Transgender Education Network of Texas, and ACLU were the backbone of the event.
Allies are a crucial part of the LGBTQIA community. “This is a joint effort of the all-in for equality coalition – it’s great to come together with allies,” Communications Director at Equality Texas Jonathan Gooch said. In support of that, Equality Texas provided advocates transportation directly to the training site at the First United Methodist Church of Austin.
Around noon, advocates marched to the capitol building and stopped to gather on the south side. Ricardo Martinez, the CEO of Equality Texas, gave an energetic opening speech. Following his speech, he introduced Cynthia Lee Fontaine, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” television show contestant from season eight and a Texan themselves. Cynthia performed directly in front of the capitol building as a direct visual protest of SB 12, the bill that defunds public libraries holding drag story hours and outlaws any public display of drag.
The bill uses vague language directed at any cisgender person portraying the opposite gender publicly. This leaves out all of the cisgender women and non-binary people who perform drag as well. The language of the bill suggests that the law could be used to target transgender people.
When asked about some of the primary goals for the day, Gooch said, “I look forward to spending some time with community members, celebrating, sharing some queer joy, and showing Texas lawmakers that we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re going to be around for a while.”
After several speeches from transgender college students, equality groups, and other advocates from the community, the crowd lined up to enter the capitol building. Five groups were assigned three different Texas representatives to discuss what bills were wrong and which ones they should support instead.
Josh Tutt, the President of the Pride Community Center in College Station, said, “I was not surprised that we only got to speak with staffers during our office visits and not directly with the elected officials. I was also not surprised that they were, for the most part, unwilling to commit to supporting the bills we were lobbying for.” Each staff member said the representatives were already on the house floor despite once the advocates entered the capitol building.
Another important event was the inspiring speech given by Jonathan Van Ness, a native Texan from the “Queer Eye” series, to Ricardo Martinez, CEO of Equality Texas. As the legislative session unfolds, LGBTQIA Texans have shown that a whole group of marginalized people exists in Texas and are not going away.
On paper, it looks like the entirety of the legislative body is against the LGBTQ+ community; however, the high number of good bills is equal to the number of bad ones, which is crucial to acknowledge.
“We know Texans are generally becoming more supportive of LGBTQ equality,” Gooch said. Why these bills increase each legislative session continues to be questioned following marriage equality not even a decade ago. “As far as I can tell, this is a result of primaries – politicians playing to their primary voters – this tiny group of voters having an outside impact on what bills pass,” Gooch said.
There are Representatives in the legislative body that support bills that favor the LGBTQ population. They refer to bills that promote non-discrimination, mental health services for public education, and healthcare, such as prohibiting the coverage of conversion therapy on all healthcare plans.
The LGBTQ community is equally active in opposing anti-LGBT legislation as legislators who support it. Unfortunately, there is a wall that these bills have built up each legislative session, and the LGBTQ community in Texas is pushing back. This session represents the most visible display of a marginalized community claiming power against the harmful and incorrect stigma around not only queer expression, but the community’s very existence in this state.
ACCENT Reporter Marisela Perez Maita shares her experience on the two panels that talked about the same topic but from very different perspectives.
by Marisela Perez Maita
Every year in Austin, Texas, the popular festival, South by Southwest, brings a stream of creativity and transformation to the city. Commonly shortened to SXSW, the multi-day festival hosts an array of conferences on different topics and issues, ranging from film and music to education and technology. In March of 2023, two SXSW conferences on art and civil engagement discussed the current role of data handling–one showing its artistic versatility and the other its legal implications on civil rights.
Artists Jane Adams, Laurie Frick and Sara Miller shared their perspectives and approaches to “data art.” Ranging from different disciplines –Computer Science, Fine Arts and Data Visualization Design–their artwork explores the versatility of modern art and the beauty of mathematical patterns. All three data artists show how the visual representation of quantitative information is another way to illustrate our state as users and consumers. By unifying concepts of art and science, they emphasize the mathematical and computer processes that surround us.
According to freelance artist Laurie Frick, reality and identity can be seen in the rhythms and sequences of users’ data. She shows how these sequences tend to repeat organically and constantly, “There’s something about actions or behavior, what individual people do, that has [a] symphony to it.” Frick said at SXSW. The patterns and repetitions she finds guide her artistic path of intentional visualization, “With my work, I try to make data feel ambient.” Frick said, meaning to transform abstract information into an understandable expression of human experience and interactions. “I try to look at it [data art] a little more poetic[ally] and try to find something that’s true and will be true for a while.”
The second speaker, Sarah Miller, says data art is a wide and inclusive spectrum that ranges from AI to hand-crafted sculptural installations. Miller encourages artists to directly use data as inspiration to create something greater or different, or rather as she does, to visualize hard data through art. As a data visualization designer, she has worked with clients such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the University of Chicago, and the Museum of the City of New York.
Conversely, the third speaker Jane Adams has an interesting mix of both science and design. She is a doctoral student in Computer Science at Northeastern University and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Emergent Media from Champlain College. She described the discipline as treating data like a medium instead of a subject, pointing out the interesting parallel between data art and data science as involving inquiring processes with different motives, “If you are coming from science, there is faith that your data will still be beautiful, and if it does, it might strengthen it, and your methods can come across more clearly when you take art into account,” Adams said.
For Frick, being a data artist implies thorough and extensive research. At SXSW she spoke about a commission she did for the Houston Federal Reserve, one of the three branches of money distribution of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Frick was completely mesmerized by the quantity of cash in the bank, “It was like a fortress with billions of dollars in cash inside it” Frick said.
All of her projects start with that: a first glimpse at the information that surrounds her, which soon becomes an inquiring, looking, and researching—or what she calls the hunting process, “Once you’ve got a project, you go home and sit from your computer and you start hunting. Where does the cash go? How often does it transit to people’s hands? What is the history of money?” Frick said.
During her research, Frick found a government survey done by the U.S. Department of Labor trying to understand how people are actually spending money. It was a detailed dataset from the responses of around 6,000 people and their spending on food, clothes, insurance, medical costs and more. As she examined all this information and compared the responses, like someone making $250,000 to another making $10,000, she realized that the answer to her question: “Where does the cash go? ” was determined by income and inequality—she said that this pattern is the one she needed to follow and visualize.
Frick’s artwork is composed of 60 glass squares of different colors and sizes. The color represents a category–housing, transportation, personal care–and the size is the amount of money spent on it. The squares aligned next to each other offer a personalized view of someone’s reality, a crude and transparent representation of their necessities, limitations and behavior.
Moreover, Sarah Miller discussed one of her projects called “The Digital in Architecture,” a report produced by SPACE10, IKEA’s research and design lab. Following an extensive research paper about the history of architecture and the digital tools that are used in architecture, the project explores how those tools affect what gets built and what those creations look like, “It was this really comprehensive paper and we decided to collect data so that we put together our own database of famous buildings and particularly buildings that were mentioned in the two-dimensional paper” Miller said.
Before coming up with a design, Miller and the group of researchers and designers collected information about different aspects of buildings. Answering questions like, “How wide is the building? What’s the purpose? Is it a home? A museum?” Miller said, “We collected all this information and put it into a Google Sheet. And then after that, we came up with kind of sketches and ideas for like how to visualize this.”
The result was a printed tabloid-sized report that maps 160 building projects and their different designs, technology, sustainability and materials. The report follows the principle of data humanism, which aims for data visualization that connects people with numbers. In Miller’s works, the graphic patterns allow readers to closely examine the micro-illustration of each building while they contextualize them in the historical timeline.
Lastly, Jane Adams talked about her most recent work —a sculpture of a Latent Walk video captured by an Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) model she trained. IRL is a technology that, in Adam’s case, is used to extract stock images from aerial drone photographs. From this, Adams scripted down over 17,000 images, printing them in transparent films and layering them one upon another. However, Adams soon decided to add a new element to the piece, “What you’ll see coiled around the bottom is actually something that I added after based on joyful discussions that I’ve been having with people about training data and ethics,” the artist said, “I was wondering what it would look like to actually credit every single photographer who had contributed art to the training data. So that’s actually a 120-foot roll of all of the credits for all of the training data that was in the model.”
Among the three artists, Adams’s work is the most related to robotics and computer science. She focuses on interactive mixed-media installations, aquaponic sculptures, and GAN art, exploring the evolving relationship between art and science.
As shown by the panelists, data art is as broad and diverse as the artists want it to be. Their work can’t be compared to the work of statisticians and analysts, and yet data artists allow a communicative path between us and the digital and quantitative world we have created.
From artistic visualizations and subjective interpretations, the civil engagement panel flipped the conversation on data 180-degrees at a different panel in the Hilton Hotel. Speakers Christopher Wood, Nicol Turner-Lee, Koustubh “K.J.” Bagch and Amy Hinojosa explored the exhaustive spectrum of data surveillance and its abuse of user privacy. Without being aware of why, when, nor how often it happens, users’ information gets collected and sold to a hidden market composed of third-party apps, big companies and the government. In addition to exposing this hard-to-perceive network, the speakers emphasized the importance of affording data privacy as a civil right.
The discussion was led by entrepreneur Christopher Wood, the executive director and co-founder of LGBT Tech, a national organization that works at the intersection of LGBTQ+ and technology. According to Wood–who has 15 years of experience advocating for the LGBTQ+ community– data surveillance is especially dangerous for populations who have been historically marginalized. LGBT Tech’s mission is to ensure LGBT communities are addressed in public policy conversations. To start the panel, Wood asked the panelists what data privacy concerns they had and how they addressed them in their work.
For Hinojosa, people should have a say on their own health care decision and who has access to it—but data collecting and sharing have grown unbridled. The unclear ownership opens a door to unregulated access to personal healthcare information, “Be it women, trans kind, people of color, anyone who these legislators think are making healthcare decisions that are against their version of morality, are vulnerable to be targeted and persecuted for it.” Hinojosa said.
Amy Hinojosa, the president of the oldest and largest Latina membership organization in the United States, the Mexican American Women’s National Association (MANA), explained that her 16 years working in the organization on behalf of women has made her overly concerned about the weaponization of women’s healthcare data, especially the one of reproductive care. She brought up the Dobbs vs. Jackson Supreme Court decision and its detrimental effect on abortion access and healthcare privacy, “If you are using a period app or tracking your ovulation because you’re trying to get pregnant, this is now information that’s being tracked and in many cases shared, and there’s nothing to protect you.”
Moreover, Koustubh “K.J.” Bagchi is the Chamber of Progress of New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI). Based in Washington, New America is a center-left association that focuses on public policy issues related to national security, gender, economy, technology and more. Working with 28 industry partners—such as Amazon, Crypto and FinTech—OTI operates at the intersection of policy and technology to bring reforms that foster open and secure communication networks. Bagchi has worked over 10 years on issues that impact marginalized communities, from working for a Washington D.C. council member on consumer protection to now chairing tech policy initiatives between OTI and partner companies.
As a policy institution, New America gets involved with any local-level issue, and aims to resonate with the lawmakers of the whole country. “The common theme of all these roles [within the organization] is how do we actually empower individuals to know what their rights are when it comes to this variety of issues? And also what policies should we be advocating for to make sure that folks are actually adequately protected?” Bagchi said. The conversation of privacy is usually centered on the bigger companies—Google, Amazon, Apple—when actually, the government is a crucial agent in the cycle as well, Baghci added, “There is not enough conversation around the fact that our government has found a way to collect data from consumers and users all across the country, without using the sort of traditional legal protections that we’re used to.”
The law allows “probable cause” to protect individuals against unwarranted intrusions into their private lives—but jurisdictions get blurrier in the online space. According to Baghi, the government slips away from legal repercussions by making deals with entities known as data brokers—businesses that collect information both from public and private views. Information can be aggregated from social media profiles or companies’ websites, or agreements with third-party apps. Data brokers make deals with developers to include a software development kit that, once the user downloads the app, allows the data broker to collect anonymous location data, “What’s been happening is that they [data brokers] have been selling that data to the government. To law enforcement entities all across the nation on a commercial basis,” Baghi said at the panel.
He then referenced an incident with The Department of Homeland Security surveilling Muslim users through praying apps in 2020, “There were three separate apps that were essentially helping users identify mosques in their area or to identify what time and direction they should pray” Bagchi said, “One of these apps had over 10,000 downloads, and this information was sold to agencies that have historically surveilled Muslim communities.” The case was revealed through investigations by the non-profit organization Electronic Frontier Foundation and shared by newspapers like The Guardian and Los Angeles Times.
Likewise, Baghis’ points illustrate the fortified surveillance that Nicole Turner-Lee asserted in the conference, “We’ve emboldened a system of technological surveillance that lends itself to discriminatory, racist, homophobic and gender violence, and it’s done in a way that it’s so opaque that we don’t even know what’s happening to us.”
Turner-Lee is the director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, where she focuses on legislative and regulatory policies targeting high-tech industries and telecommunications. She explained the implications of the normalized “trade-off”—people accepting cookies, terms and conditions, or giving their driver’s license picture without knowing that consent can lead to discriminatory outputs.
Privacy policies are not comprehensible, so it makes it even harder for consumers and users to understand what they’re signing up for; Turner-Lee said, “Most privacy policies are written for lawyers, not for basic individuals who are navigating quickly through stuff.”
The speakers described how technology appears to be based on an incompressible trade-off economy where users can’t say what, how much, and how often information is collected about them; but it’s either accepting the whole deal or not accessing the online space where everyone lives, so users click yes by default.
“The challenge is when you are marginalized and the extent to which that data, either too little of it or too much, also plays a role in sort of demonizing and weaponizing it against you,” Turner-Lee said. She brought up the case of three misidentified African-American men who were accused of crimes they did not commit after the police used facial recognition software. This technology has shown significant flaws with Black and Asian faces, and yet law enforcement keeps relying on it on a regular basis. Hence, as Turner-Lee points out, the concerning implications of minorities consenting to provide personal data–be it pictures or information–under a system of inequality that already targets them.
The conversation on government surveillance and legislation’s lack of clarity in the growing digital domain could only lead to a discussion over civil rights. As Woods said, “It becomes a civil right issue where we’re not counted, we’re not included, we’re not at the table and therefore it’s really easy to say that we don’t exist, but yet we’re the ones suffering on both sides of that coin and that data.”
States such as California, Vermont, Colorado and Oregon have taken the initiative in passing privacy bills that regulate data brokers. Yet, Turned-Leed explained, that state variation policies lead to a different kind of complexity. As states start developing and designing privacy laws, they set the bar. Action that resonates with preemption, of whether or not the government should actually permit and abide by state rule.
Moreover, Turner-Lee points out the possibility of privacy laws reflecting a lot of the sentiment against critical race theory and the state’s transgender community, reemphasizing Hinojosa’s concern about legislators’ morality on top of people’s rights. Turner-Lee stressed the necessity of a federal mandate that guides the conversation and emboldens civil protection in the digital space as well, “We’ve seen brokers and other algorithms skirt on the edges where they’re violating civil rights law without any type of recourse or reprimand,” Turner-Lee said.
The work of the SXSW panelists Woods, Hinojosa, Baghi and Turner-Lee aims to educate communities, organizations and consumers to better understand what they’re giving up when they click cookies, and encourage them to start advocating for their rights and demand comprehensive policies.
“We do need regulation,” Turner-Lee said. “I think what we found with regulation at least inspires companies to not just think about their reputational appearance, but to do things that are in much more better compliance for consumers–and that’s something I think as I look at it as a former advocate, still an advocate on the research side, without regulation, it’s hard to enforce anything.”
Update: In July Governor Abbott signed the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA) that regulates data brokers operating in the state, becoming the 10th state– and 5th in 2023– to pass a comprehensive privacy law. The act will be effective in July 2024.
Fort Hood officials say no foul play is evident but the investigation once again calls to question the culture of harassment and bullying on military installations.
by Ky Duffey
March is Women’s History Month. Every year, the U.S. Department of Defense and various branches of the U.S. military commemorate the outstanding contributions and glass ceilings smashed by women of the Armed Services, both past and present. But these acclamations fall under the cloud of another death at Ford Hood, a U.S. Army post located near Killeen, Texas.
Ana Basalduaruiz, 20, joined the Army in 2021 as a combat engineer with the 1st Cavalry Division. She was an avid reader since the age of 5 and loved to dance. She was a fan of Brazilian author Paulo Coelho and American singer Selena Gomez. She loved plants, particularly the smell of fresh lavender.
She was also very organized and disciplined which led to her interest in joining the Army in addition to traveling and finding success for herself and her family. But those aspirations came to a sudden halt when Basalduaruiz was found dead on Fort Hood on March 13, according to Fort Hood officials.
A press report released by Fort Hood officials states that the Army Criminal Investigation Division is actively investigating and that, as of now, no foul play is evident.
“A loss of any one of our Soldiers is a tragedy and it is no different in the death of Private Ana Basalduaruiz. Our hearts and thoughts go out to the family, friends and colleagues of Ana,” said Col. Christopher Dempsey, Commander, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, via the press report. “We have remained in constant contact with both parents of Private Basalduaruiz, and will continue to keep them updated.”
Despite the reports from Fort Hood officials, Private Basalduaruiz’ mother, Alejandra Ruiz Zarco, in a statement to Telemundo News, said her daughter told her and friends that she was being harassed by an Army superior and was a target of repeated sexual advances on base.
Zarco last talked to her daughter on March 8 at which Basalduaruiz told her she was “very sad, that she was going through very difficult things, that things were not as normal as she thought, that she couldn’t tell me much, but that there was going to be a moment when we were going to be together and she could tell me everything,” Zarco said to Telemundo in Spanish.
Fort Hood officials have acknowledged the harassment allegations and are also investigating the claims. “Information related to any possible harassment will be addressed and investigated fully,” officials said via the press report.
However, in light of the recent allegations of harassment, civil rights groups are calling for an independent investigation. The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), in a press release, called for the F.B.I. to investigate the allegations.
“We have already informed the Army that LULAC is demanding action and will not stand down until all the truth emerges about what happened,” LULAC National President Domingo Garcia said via the release. “We are very disappointed and angry that the pattern of mistreatment and abuse is still pervasive at Ft. Hood, and we are demanding an immediate, full, and transparent investigation.”
Basalduaruiz’ death recalls the case of Vanessa Guillen who was murdered by Aaron David Robinson in 2020 after complaining of sexual harassment while stationed at Fort Hood. Guillen’s death led to the “I Am Vanessa Guillen” Act which revamped investigations into military sexual assault and harassment.
A further independent review panel castigated the leadership and climate at Fort Hood, stating it created a permissive environment for sexual assault and harassment. This led to the removal of 14 base leaders following Guillen’s death.
As the investigation into Basalduaruiz’s death continues, it raises questions about sexual harassment and assault cases which are prevalent in the military, particularly towards women. A 2021 Department of Defense study showed that 8.4% of women and 1.5% of men experienced an incident of unwanted sexual contact within the year – the highest it has been in over a decade.
“In addition, rates of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and workplace hostility increased for women throughout the active force,” said Gilbert Cisneros, Jr., Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in a letter to the Chairman of the Armed Forces Committee.
A GoFundMe has been set up for Basalduaruiz primarily to help her mother and family members who live in Mexico with transportation and travel expenses to attend her memorial service. After reaching out to LULAC, there were no further updates since their latest press release.
Click here to access the 24/7 National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline
Many projects and discussions have taken place at SXSW Festival 2023. Among them, ACCENT Reporter Marisela Perez Maita was able to cover the uprising innovation showcase that offered a glimpse into the transformative state of our future.
by Marisela Perez Maita
On March 11, 2023, 55 finalists across 14 categories presented their innovative projects at the JW Marriott Downtown conference rooms. These categories included health, design, tech, audio and AI. Here are five of the numerous stands that were present:
Musichealth is an AI that uses music therapy to help patients with dementia and their caregivers. The software —called Vera— creates a playlist that brings nostalgia and reminiscence of the patient’s past to their present. Once the patient starts listening to a song they enjoy and remember, their mood and behaviors change, relaxing the patient’s body and mind and making it much easier for caregivers to carry them through different activities. Combining neuroscience, technology and music, Musichealth helps dementia patients reconnect with emotions and caring memories
Founded in Brazil, Edubank is a bank that provides credits to schools in Latin America. The founder, Daniel Costa, started this project after realizing how the lack of financial support retains Brazilian schools for improvement. Traditional banks don’t like to give credit nor provide access to capital for education because “It’s too complicated” according to Costa. For this reason, institutions have a hard time finding resources to improve their facilities and quality of education. Edubank has helped over 400 schools in Brazilian states. They hope to reach 1 million students by 2026.
Chptr is an app for those who want to remember relatives and friends who have passed away. The way it works is very simple. People join a “profile” which is the space created for that person, and anyone invited to that profile can add a memory or a moment. A memory is either a video or audio where the user expresses their emotions or thoughts. A moment are pictures, videos, conversations or any media that shows how that person was for those who loved them. Chptr embraces memory, grief and love through the timeless space of technology.
The app is completely free and can be downloaded from the App Store or Play Store.
Neuralight is an AI that, by capturing oculometric movements, diagnoses neuronal disorders, measures sickness progression, and allows doctors to find the best treatment for the patient. Neuralight presenters pointed out that neurological disorders are usually diagnosed at an advanced stage of the disease, nd many of them share similar symptoms, so the risk of being misdiagnosed is high. Some of the most common are Parkinson’s Disease (PD), Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Huntington’s Disease (HD), and Major Depressive Disorder (MD). Neuralight’s technology uses oculometric data to diagnose and predict these disorders accurately. Following a dot on a screen, gives information such as reaction time and many other complex neurological data that are useful for medical diagnosis.
The company Atarraya presented Shrimpbox —the first AI-powered aquaculture farm designed to allow the production of shrimp sustainably. Traditional shrimp production pollutes oceans, destroys habitats, and contributes to overfishing. For this reason, Atarraya built the technology to cultivate shrimps in a “box” that replicates the breeding environment of the shrimps, be it in urban, hot or cold areas. The box can be built anywhere in the world, making it a sustainable farm that significantly decreases the environmental impact.
From the presented stands, Neuralight won in the category of Health and MedTech. The Finalists Showcase emboldens the importance of festivals like South by South West, where people with brilliant ideas get the opportunity to showcase their passions and innovations to others and inspire more ideas to come.
