Ben Gansky (he/him) is an NSF/NRT Fellow in Citizen-centered Smart Cities and a PhD student at Arizona State University’s Human and Social Dimensions in Science and Technology program. In his work as an STS scholar, he explores the philosophy, history, theory, and political economy of data governance. His research focuses on how organizations enact their politics through the ways in which they negotiate the digital aspects of their ecosystems.
Ben is a co-founder of Free Machine, a nonprofit collective bringing to bear a toolkit of creative expression and interactive storytelling to make salient the political dimensions of technology policy to particular publics. Ben is a formally trained artist; his award-winning creative work braids together Marxist analyses of digital infrastructures, aesthetic playfulness, and a dramaturgical sensitivity to the epistemic and cultural valences of his materials. A community organizer and advocate for participatory democratic approaches to digital governance, Ben currently serves as the Director of Clinical Programs for Digital Public, a public interest advocacy organization.
website: www.bengansky.com · also: www.digitalpublic.io