Talk: “On Implementing the Digital Form: An Arabic-English Web-Based Archive”
Panel: “Digital Politics and Society”

Laila Shereen Sakr is a poet, activist, scholar, and digital artist. Her work critically examines the nature of digital information and cyber existence in a post-9/11 world. She is primarily concerned with digital compositions, particularly in Arabic. In her art practice, she aims to bypass the notion of critic as authority who controls narrative. Instead, she aims to create a new authoritative but participatory role that resonates with web culturethat of co-editor, co-curator, and co-producer all at the same time. This is done by building and performing her work in digital and new media: her current projects include R-Shief, an Arabic-English web-based archive for exchange among activists, scholars, and new media artists; and VJ Um Amel, an interactive, live cinema narrative about an animated cyborg who is also an Arabic-speaking mother. Previously, she has co-founded media and art collectives in Washington, DC, including the Guerrilla Poetry Insurgency and Word of Mouth. Shereen Sakr was awarded the 2009 Jack Shaheen Media Scholarship by the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee (ADC). Her work has been exhibited and performed in international festivals, galleries, and museums–including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Santa Cruz Museum. Presently, she is lecturer and research associate in the Digital Arts and New Media program at UC Santa Cruz. See http://lailashereen.com.