For our first event at Mr Wow’s Emporium in 2016, we bring you three awesome speakers who will discuss consciousness, the use of data in journalism and data visualisation.

Our friends at Mr Wow’s Emporium will be hosting us again with cold beers and delicious food from the Burger Boys.  Be there and be square!

Tuesday, 5 April 2016
at Mr Wow’s Emporium
97b Smith Street, Fitzroy
Doors 7pm/$5

*Presentation 1
From Neural Basis of Consciousness to Artificial Consciousness
by Dr Naotsugu Tsuchiya

Description:  Neuroscientific studies of our subjective experience or consciousness, is the core of the age-old mind-body problem. Over the last 25 years, there was a tremendous advance in this field in terms of empirical research. To make sense of the deluge of the recent experimental results, several promising theoretical frameworks have been proposed.  In this talk Dr Tsuchiya will talk about one of the most promising theories, called Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of consciousness. IIT, if it is true, may be able to give a deep insight into the connection between the physical and the mental world, promising a potential receipt to create artificial consciousness, beyond artificial intelligence.

Bio: Dr Tsuchiya was awarded a PhD at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 2006 and underwent postdoctoral training at Caltech until 2010. Receiving a PRESTO grant from Japan Science and Technology (JST) agency, Dr Tsuchiya returned to Japan in 2010. In Jan 2012, he joined the School of Psychological Sciences at Monash University as an Associate Professor. Since 2013, he is an ARC Future Fellow. His main research interest is to uncover the neuronal basis of consciousness. Specifically, he focuses on 1) the scope and limit of non-conscious processing, 2) the relationship between attention and consciousness, and 3) the neuronal correlates of consciousness by analysing the multi-channel neuronal recording obtained in monkeys and humans and 4) testing a theory of consciousness, in particular, integrated information theory of consciousness.

*Presentation 2
News by Numbers
by Kim Doyle

Description:  What is data journalism? It’s the latest buzzword to shake up traditional journalism, but data actually has a long history in print media. Discover what makes our digital era different to what came before and the role data can play in journalism ethics and democratic transparency. You’ll be introduced to the world of crowd-sourced journalism, sensor and algorithmic journalisms and the potentials and pitfalls of doing journalism with data.

Bio: Kim Doyle is a PhD student in Media and Communications, she specialises in social media, textual analysis and data journalism. She has an honours degree in Media and Communications and a Master of Global Media Communication. Her current thesis is on data journalism and she works at the University of Melbourne teaching nature language processing.

*Presentation 3
Making numbers beautiful
by Ri Liu

Description: In the modern age, data is everywhere. We are finding more and more ways to capture the world around us digitally and storing these observations as numbers in databases. How can we extract this information stored in machine and communicate it in away that is engaging? Data visualisation is a field that attempts to solve this problem by bridging the gap between science and art. We we discover the long history of data vis and some of the new, novel and unexpected ways of making numbers beautiful.

Bio: Ri Liu is a data visualiser who uses design and code to paint narratives of structural inequalities. She currently works for The Guardian creating data stories and interactive content. In her work, Ri focuses on expressing data in novel ways and exposing social injustices; from creating art out of motion captured dance data, to exploring the gaps between men and women around the world. In 2015 Ri’s Close the Gap project was a finalist for the UN Human Development Data Visualisation Competition and was awarded an honourable mention in the Information is Beautiful Awards. Her work has been featured in various online and offline publications including Fast Company, Wired UK and The Washington Post. She has previously worked on projects for The Conversation, Google, Facebook, Popular Science, Foreign Affairs, The Nation, and Pew Charitable Trusts.