Yung Au

WRITING

Selection of recent academic & public writing:

“Machine Sentries: The Planetary Marketplace that Sells Surveillance” PhD Thesis, University of Oxford. This thesis examines the flows of outsourced surveillance technologies, from its mottled past to its digital data futures today. Technologies, systems and logics have been exported across various borders throughout the centuries, often following colonial and imperial relations. This work untangles the power relations and messy geographies in the planetary marketplace that purports to ‘sell surveillance’.

“Projects in/around the Machine”, University of Oxford. This project examines stories of how AI/ML systems have become entangled in the rhythms of informal work in Asia. By engaging a network of workers, unions, researchers, and artists in the region, we aim to tease out tales of troubles, tinkering, and trickeries of living with AI/ML systems. 

Au, Y. (2023). The sprint to plug in the moon. In C. Cath (Ed.), Eaten by the Internet (pp. 27–34). Meatspace Press.

Herasimenka, A., Au, Y., Bright, J., George, A., Knuutila, A., Joynes-Burgess, K., and Howard, P. (2023). The political economy of digital profiteering: Communication resource mobilization by anti-vaccination actors. Journal of Communication, 73(2), 126–137.

Au, Y. (2022). “Data Centres on the Moon and Other Stories: A Volumetric and Elemental Analysis of the Coloniality of Digital Infrastructures” Special Issue on Earthly Volumes, Voluminous Materialities: Working with Apprehension Edited by Mia Bennett and Klaus Dodds. Territory, Politics, Governance.* Winner of the Decolonial Scholarship Award & Best Student Paper Award at ICA. 2023.

Katta, S., Au, Y., and Neerukonda, M. (2022). Hazy data days: Delivery dispatches from Hyderabad. In R. Singh, R. L. Guzmán, and P. Davison (Eds.), Parables of AI in/from the majority world (pp. 137–155). Data & Society Research Institute.

Au, Y. (2022). “Platforming Hong Kong: A City of Alternatives”. Special Issue on Digital Platforms and Socio-Spatial Justice edited by Chiara Certomà and Filippo Celata. Digital Geography & Society.* Winner of Best Student Paper Award at ICA. 2022.

Au, Y. (2021). “An Electric Brain”.A New AI Lexicon edited by Noopur Raval and Amba Kak. AI Now. New York.

Au, Y. (2021). “Exporting AI”. A New AI Lexicon edited by Noopur Raval and Amba Kak. AI Now. New York.

Au, Y. (2021). “Navigating Data Worlds: On Ubiquitous Surveillance”. In Automated Photography edited by Milo Keller, Claus Gunti, & Florian Amoser. Lausanne and London: ECAL/Mörel Books.

Au, Y. (2021). “Thinking Critically About Maps”, Tactical Tech, Exposing the Invisible.

Au, Y., Project Ainita, & Howard, Philip (2020). “Benefiting on the Back-End of Controversies”. Computational Propaganda Project Data Memo. 2020.7. University of Oxford. Washington Post coverage here.