CyFer Open Call

Researchers from the CyFer project, funded by PETRAS, UK, are examining cybersecurity, privacy, ethics and trust in FemTech. Female-oriented technologies (FemTech) promise to enable people to take control of their bodies and lives, helping them overcome the many existing challenges in medical care and research. There is a lack of data about women and other minority and minoritised groups in medical sciences. There is also bias and discrimination in health studies, data sets, and algorithms. FemTech solutions promise to centre these groups in the design and development of their systems. However, the FemTech industry remains largely unregulated. There is a lack of clarity in the law (e.g. GDPR and HIPAA), and in industry and user practice in relation to this extremely sensitive data on different levels i.e. user consent, third-party sharing, and algorithmic bias which may lead to malicious purposes.

We are looking for artists, designers and creative technologists who are interested in exploring FemTech cybersecurity, privacy, ethics and trust. We invite you to create critical artefacts and interventions that include digital and material speculations. You will have the opportunity to explore the technical and social aspects of this complex issue with the project team throughout your engagement, including workshops and informal interaction.

We want to commission a diverse selection of work, creating various new entry points to this research for new audiences. We are open to all types of creative response to this call, but will require there to be a digital aspect to the work, whether this is the work itself or an accompanying artefact.

Commitment: Successful applicants will be expected to participate in activities designed to deepen your knowledge of the subject matter, provide occasional updates to the project team, create an artefact, contribute to a short video, and partake in an interview with the research team after the project. Anonymous participation can be discussed if required.

The team will engage with you throughout the journey to provide you with the relevant scientific resources around FemTech cybersecurity, privacy, ethics and trust. The specific activities (e.g., workshops) will be announced accordingly. We are not able to provide studio/fablab space.

Timeline:

• The EoI should be submitted by midnight on 21st of August 2022.
• Successful applicants will be informed by 9th September 2022
• Successful applicants will be expected to start in Sept/Oct 2022 and finalise their work by the end Jan 2023.
• The exhibition itself is tbd, dependant on the composition of artists/designers/creative technologists and their anticipated works. However, a launch/exhibition is expected to be held in Mar 2023.