Ren Loren Britton is a trans*disciplinary artist-designer who holds values that reverberate with trans*feminism, technosciences, radical pedagogy and disability justice. Their work practices with loving accountability towards collaboration, accessibility, trans*gender politics and critical technical praxis.

Ren has shared artistic work within multiple institutions including ALT_CPH Biennale (Copenhagen), Transmediale & Haus der Kulturen der Welt & Martin Gropius Bau (Berlin), Constant (Brussels), Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), Kunsthalle Osnabrück (Osnabrück), Het Nieuwe Institute & Varia (Rotterdam) & Rupert (Vilnius). Recent academic articles have been published in Catalyst, MATTER and Digital Creativity and within edited volumes by Bloomsbery Academic, Spektor Books and Barbara Budrich.

Working in deep collaboration with multiple interlocutors, Ren works with Iz Paehr as the arts-design duo MELT; with Rosen Eveleigh on the project Trans* Presents and with other beloved crossers. As MELT they action shape-shifting processes along the interwoven themes of climate change, coalition building, critical technical practice and access. MELT’s work resources ways of being together that figure in the present and future our flourishing. With Rosen Eveleigh they unfold an interview series that follows trans* infrastructures as those documents authored by many people that get one of us into a bureaucratic office as well as those visual materials authored by one person that get all of us to the party. lorenbritton.com + meltionary.com.

Projects

Collaborations

2021 - 2022

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“Algoliterary Publishing: Making Kin with Trees”, FRArt research project (authors: Anaïs Berck, An Mertens, Gijs De Hein, Guillaume Slizewicz and Loren Britton), école supérieure des arts, Brussels, BE.

2021

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with MELT, “Archiving the Unstable”, Transmediale Vilém Flusser Residency Program for Artistic Research, Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), Berlin, DE.

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with An Mertens, “Algo-Literary Publishing House”, Media Lab Prado, Madrid, ES.

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with MELT, OVEREXPOSED Residency, SONIC ACTS, Amsterdam, NL.

with MELT, “Rituals Against Barriers”, Research Refusal, Transmediale, Berlin, DE.

2020

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“Soundings”, with Romi Morrison, curated by Miriam Wistreich and the Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology as part of a series of four online commissions by Kunsthalle Amsterdam, NL in collaboration with Alt_Cph 20: Patterns in Resistance. Coded by Karl Tryggvason.

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Horizontal Conversation: “Horizontal Wayfinding Conversation: Flowing (o-r n-o-t) in the Collective”, curated by Alejandro Perdomo Daniels, at Thealit-Frauen-Kultur-Labor, Bremen, DE.

2019

Horizontal Conversation: “Horizontal Idol Conversation”, curated by Emily Coluccis, at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, US.

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with Siegmar Zacharias, Collaboration: “Training for Political Imaginaries: Posthuman Solidarities”, at FFT Kammerspiele Theater, Düsseldorf, DE.

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with Constant, Collaboration: “Collective Conditions: Work Session”, Brussels, BE.

Horizontal Conversation: ”Class Conversation: Who are We? & What is Re(a)d?”, curated by Arts of the Working Class & Project Space Festival, Berlin, DE.

2018

Horizontal Conversation: “Translation Conversation: Do you read me?”, at Stadium Berlin, Berlin, DE.

Horizontal Conversation: “Encryption Conversation: Do you read me?”, at Warte für Kunst, Kassel, DE.

Exhibitions

2021

with MELT, Meltionary, Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, USA.

2020

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Interdependency, Si:Said, Klaipeda, LT.

2018

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IN, Stadium Berlin, Berlin, DE.

Dear Somebody, , Warte für Kunst, Kassel, DE.

2017

Second Date, Field Projects Gallery, New York City, US.

Play, First, Disclaimer Gallery, Brooklyn, US.

2016

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Read My Lips with Kerry Downey curated by Ashton Cooper, Knockdown Ctr., Queens, US.

Group Shows

2020

Perhaps
A window?
, Stadium Berlin, Berlin, DE.

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Fluidity curated by Alejandro Perdomo Daniels, Syker Vorwerk – Zentrum für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Syke-Niedersachsen, DE.

2019

Idol Worship, curated by Emily Colucci, Smack Mellon Gallery, NYC, NY, US.

2018

Daddy’s Books curated by Lauren Faigeles & Caitlin MacBride, Life Lessons, New York City, US.

Surface of a Sphere curated by Daniel Gerwin, Klowdenn Mann,Los Angeles, US.

2017

The Joi of Lyfe: with Caroline Wells Chandler and Larry Lewis, Fred Giampetro Gallery,
New Haven, US.

Curatorial

Pedagogy

Lectures and Workshops

2021

MELT workshop: “Computing Instability Notational States of Matter in H20”, Humboldt-University, Digital Media and Computation, invited by
Shintaro Miyazaki, Berlin, DE.

MELT workshop: “Ritual As Repair: Enacting 🧊Crip🔮Trans*Tech🔥Praxis👾” in Read and Repair, Varia: Collective for Everyday Technology, invited by Amy Pickles+Christina Cochior, Rotterdam, NL.

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MELT lecture: “fusing access, oozing barriers: trans*crip worlding as praxis”, Ringvorlesung Intermedia, Institut für Kunst & Kunsttheorie, invited by Konstanze Schütze, University of Cologne, Cologne, DE.

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Lecture: “Feeling out TFTS (TransFeministTechnoScience)”, invited by Rosen Eveleigh, Graphic Design Confabulations, Estonian Academy of Arts, Pōhja, EE.

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MELT workshop: “Rituals Against Barriers”, Critical Futures: Possible Procedures, curated by Konstanze Schütze, University of Cologne, Cologne, DE.

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MELT with Johanna Schaffer: “Other Sensing Possibilities: Permeability, Leaking”, CAIS Center for Advanced Internet Studies, at “(In)Visibility in the Digital Age”, Bochum, DE.

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MELT lecture: “Meltionary”, Animorphosis Lecture Series, DiVAversity of Arts, an initiative of the UdK Women’s Representative Office, invited by Anita Jóri, UdK: Berlin University of the Arts, DE.

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MELT workshop: “Heating Matters/Change Flux writing workshop”, Vorspiel: Transmediale, curated by Sylvia Sadzinski, alpha nova & galerie futura, Berlin, DE.

2020

Workshop: Maintaining CS (Chance and Scandal), with Helen Pritchard, 4S/EAAST Society of Social Studies for Science Meeting, Prague, CZ, Online.

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with Romi Ron Morrison: “Concretizing Connections: Making Tangiblities” Reading Session, Rupert, Vilnius, LT.

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MELT Workshop: MIAU ID, Control Shift Festival, Bristol, UK.

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Workshop: Future(s) Otherwise: Dreaming with Oracle Practices, with Pritchard H. Morrison R., & Snodgrass E., Alt_Cph_2020 - Copenhagen Biennale, Patterns in Resistance, Copenhagen, DK.

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Workshop: Future(s) Otherwise: Dreaming with Oracle Practices, with Pritchard H. Morrison R., & Snodgrass E., The New Alphabet School, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, DE.

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MELT Workshop: Climate CRYsis, DGTL FMNSM, HAU, Berlin, DE.

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MELT Lecture: Meltionary: Heating Matters / Change Flux & Workshop: Subtle Shifts: Instability Story Hour, MELT (Britton L. & Paehr I.), Goldsmiths University of London, Digital Arts Computing, London, UK.

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Workshop: Burn, Dream and Reboot! Speculating Backwards for the Missing Archive on Non-Coercive Computing, with Helen Pritchard, Eric Snodgrass, Romi Morrison & Joana Moll, CRAFT, ACM FAT* conference on Fairness, Accountability andTransparency in Machine Learning, Barcelona, ES.

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Lecture: Persisting Flux : Softening Matter : Heating for Radical Social Change & Workshop: DISPERSE! DISSOLVE! DISSENTEGRATE! Cooking up Flux, MELT (Britton L. & Paehr I.), at Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe, DE.

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MELT with Katrin Köppert, Workshop: “bug report: tuning to
trans*feminist Xystem.crash” with Edna Bonhomme, Mario Guzman, Femke Snelting and Pinar Tuzcu in the context of “Feminist MagiX. Decolonial Inlets” at Zentrum für Aktuelle Kunst, Zitadelle, DE.

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Workshop: Code, Layers, Infrastructures, with Isabel Paehr, Jörn Röder & Kamran Behrouz and The New Alphabet School, Supported by Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin & The Common Room, New Delhi, IN.

2019

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Lecture: WE Orientation: Configuring Queer Pedagogies, invited by Prof. Dr. Isabelle Lorey, Kunsthochschule für Medien, Cologne, DE.

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Lecture: Making Translucent: En/Countering Categorisation*, MELT (Britton L. & Paehr I.), at DGTL FMNSM, Hellerau Festspielhaus, Dresden, DE.

Workshop: Algorithms by Body: Exploring Polyphonic Reading Through the Protocols of the Machine, with Goda Klumbytė, MATTERS ASymposium Capital of Culture, Kaunas 2022, Kaunas, LT.

Lecture: Diffractive Shifting Translations, LE SALON & DAS KAPiTAL, M x M Critique, Berlin, DE.

Lecture: Dear Somebody,, invited by Prof. Christie DeNizio, Swarthmore College, Philadelphia, US.

Lecture: Diffracting Pedagogy, invited by Prof. Sean Nash, Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, US.

2018

Lecture: Trans re lational Objects: In Search of a Common Strategy for Arts and Computation, with Goda Klumbyte at the Institut für Kunst und Kunsttheorie, Intermedia, invited by Prof. Torsten Meyer, University of Cologne, DE.

Workshop: On Visibility and Queer Curating, with Queering Space (Asad Pervaiz, Res, and Christie DeNizio), Alfred University, Alfred, US.

Texts

Peer Reviewed

2019

“Doing thinking: revisiting computing with artistic research and technofeminism” with Goda Klumbytė, and Claude Draude, in Digital Creativity, special issue on Hybrid Pedagogies, 30(4): 313-328.

Non-Peer Reviewed

2020

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Loren Britton & Helen Pritchard. ‘For CS’. ACM Interactions, 2020.

“Abstracting Otherwise: In Search of A Common Strategy for Arts and Computing”, with Goda Klumbytė, ASAP/Journal, John Hopkins University Press, 5.1, 19–44.

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“Re-Imagining HCI: New Materialist Philosophy and Figurations as Tool for Design”, with Goda Klumbytė & Claude Draude, arXiv: 2003.02312, published on 4 March 2020,

Book Chapters

2019

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“Dear Dawn, Can I Hold You?” Queer Objects, Editors: Chris Brickell and Judith Collard, Otago University Press & Rutgers University Press, Print.

Conference Papers

2020

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“Burn, dream and reboot!: speculating backwards for the missing archive on non-coercive computing” Authors: Helen Pritchard, Eric Snodgrass, Romi Ron Morrison, Loren Britton, Joana Moll. FAT* ‘20: Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, January 2020, Pages 683. https://doi.org/10.1145/3351095.3375697

2019

“From “case studies” to “concern studies”: lessons from bringing together arts practice, new materialism and computing”, with Goda Klumbytė and Claude Draude, Conference: “Relations of Humans, Machines and Gender”, October 2019, TU Braunschweig, Braunschweig, DE.

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“Diffractive Readings: New Materialism Cyberfeminism Computing”, with Goda Klumbyte, & Claude Draude. 4S: Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science, Sept 2019, New Orleans, US.

“Re-Imagining HCI: New Materialist Philosophy and Figurations as Tools for Design”, with Goda Klumbytė & Claude Draude.Workshop Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Exploring the Intersections of Philosophy and HCI, part of the Computer-Human Interaction Conference, May 2019, Glasgow, UK.

Arts Publications

2020

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“57th collected significant residue transmission between MIT and SliMoSA 3” with Goda Klumbytė, 2038, Architecture Biennale, Arts of the Working Class, Print.

“Untitled. By Queering Space” with Johnathan Payne & Asad Pervaiz, Art of Darkness, Arts of the Working Class, Sixth Issue, Print.

2018

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“(V)empirical Structures and Roses in Reginastraße: After Dialectics”, with Goda Klumbytė, PRECOG magazine, vol. 4, pp. 10-15.

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“Ima(GE/IN)ING Through HOLDs.” Leave Your Obsessions under the XXXmas Tree, Arts of the Working Class, Fourth Issue.

Education

Institutional Education

2017

MFA Painting & Printmaking, Yale University School of Art, New Haven, US

2014

BFA Painting & Drawing, Summa Cum Laude, SUNY Purchase College, Purchase, US.

BA, Art History, Summa Cum Laude, SUNY Purchase College, Purchase, US.

Further Education

2019

Beyond Humanism: Cyborgs – Animals – Data Swarms, Philosophy Faculty, University Köln, DE

Posthuman Knowledge(s), Utrecht Summer School, Utrecht, NL.

2018

Social and Political Suffocations, NOISE Summer School of Gender Studies, Utrecht Summer School, Utrecht, NL.

Awards

2016

Barry Schactman Scholarship, Yale University, New Haven, US.

Gloucester Travel Fellowship, Yale University, New Haven, US.

Experience

Institutional Affiliations

2019–21

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Researcher for “Re:Coding Algorithmic Culture”, Gender/Diversity in Informatics Systems | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science — funded by the VW Stiftung, University of Kassel, Kassel, DE.

2020 -

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Associate Lecturer, i-DAT, University of Plymouth, UK.

2018–19

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Researcher for “Reconfiguring Computing Through Cyberfeminism and New Materialism (CF+)”, Gender/Diversity in Informatics Systems | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science for — funded by the Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst (HMWK) University of Kassel, Kassel, DE.

Events organized within position:

Sollfrank, C.; Klumbyte, G.; Draude, C.; Britton, L. Workshop: “Cyberfeminist legacies, technofeminist trajectories, computational practices: where are we today?”, Reconfiguring Computing Through Cyberfeminism and New Materialism (CF+), ITeG, University of Kassel, DE, November 2018.

Sinders, C.; Klumbyte, G.; Britton, L.; Draude, C. Workshop: “Building a feminist data set and a feminist technological praxis”, Reconfiguring Computing Through Cyberfeminism and New Materialism (CF+), ITeG, University of Kassel, DE, January 2019.

Snelting, F.; Klumbyte, G.; Britton, L.; Draude, C. Workshop: “m-e-t-h-o-d-o-l-o-g-i-e-s (or not): doing things together with computational practice and feminist theory”, Reconfiguring Computing Through Cyberfeminism and New Materialism (CF+), ITeG, University of Kassel, DE, March, 2019.

Buchmüller, S.; Britton, L,; Klumbyte, G; Paehr, I.; Treusch, P. “Pulling the Strings Together: Techno-politics, practices and strategies at the intersection of computing/theory/arts”, Reconfiguring Computing Through Cyberfeminism and New Materialism (CF+), ITeG, University of Kassel, DE, April, 2019.

Teaching

2020

“Pedagogy of Captivating Technologies”, The New Centre for Research and Practice, Online School, Michigan, US. & Berlin, DE.

2019

“Germinar: Language, Power, Storytelling”, Gestik, Gender Studies, University of Cologne, DE.

co-taught with Jespa Jacob Kleinfeld

Impressum:
Loren Britton
Gender Queer e.V., Donaustrasse 52, 12043 Berlin, Germany
hello@lorenbritton.com
+49 173 41 71 865
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Website by Rosen Eveleigh