Catching Up in the Archive
Table Guest: Danae Io

Notes on modelling uncertainty
Danae Io

Within the framework of their project Schemas of Uncertainty, Danae Io will give a talk on the performative effects of models. Using examples from climate modelling to finance they will seek to think through modelling as a process of translation from complex systems to accessible projections, considering their role in creating future scenarios. Io and Copley approach modelling as another way of mediating uncertainty, akin to processes of divination they have explored previously. The talk stems from their research on modelling in the past year and coincides with the publication of the online series Modelling Uncertainty.

Danae Io is an artist, living and working in Rotterdam and Athens. Through her work, she examines language as an active agent in the systematising and codifying of sociopolitical infrastructures. Recent group shows, performances, and screenings include I am inside who I was at PuntWG, Amsterdam (2022); In the current of the situation at Kunstverein, Amsterdam (2018); and Micro-Composition at Reykjavík International Film Festival, Reykjavík (2017). Io is part of the research collective System of Systems and co-organizes the research initiative Schemas of Uncertainty. Her writing has been published by Sternberg Press, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, and Contra Journal. She is a Tutor at MA Critical Inquiry Lab, Design Academy Eindhoven.

Schemas of Uncertainty is a research project on the relation between prediction and prescription within current socio-political structures. The project explores different methods of relating to the future, from divination to machine learning, and their effect in shaping the idea of futurity. Initially starting as a cross-departmental research group at the Sandberg Instituut in 2018, the project has taken multiple formats including publications, a symposium and various workshop series. Schemas of Uncertainty is initiated by Callum Copley and Danae Io and has involved a number of contributors without which it could not exist.