Laila Shereen Sakr

Biography

Laila Shereen Sakr is a media artist and Associate Professor at UC Santa Barbara where she is also a faculty affiliate in the Art Department, Feminist Studies Department, Media Arts and Technology Department, Center for Responsible Machine Learning, Center for Information Technology and Society, and the Center for Middle East Studies. Her art exhibitions like Capital Glitch (Qualcomm Institute, 2021) and publications like the book Arabic Glitch (Stanford University Press, 2023) explore algorithmic systems and critical AI, using glitches aesthetically and as a metaphor to reveal global disruptions and interconnections. As VJ Um Amel (moniker or video jockey “Mother of Hope”), she combines artistic innovation with critical inquiry, using data like clay to transform how we understand our contemporary worlds and future possibilities. 

At UCSB, she co-directs Wireframe, a studio promoting collaborative theoretical and creative media practice with investments in global, social, and environmental justice. She also co-founded the Creative Critical AI Undercommons (2024), the Autonomous Futures (2024), the R-Shief media system (2009), and the D.C. Guerrilla Poetry Insurgency (2003). As both artist and scholar of emergent media, she writes prolifically in venues like Minnesota University Press’ Debates in Digital Humanities series and Middle East Critique, develops machine learning (ML) software and natural language processing (NLP) analytics of social media, and is developing an Arab futuristic video game about liberation.

Her work has shown in venues such as the SF MoMA, National Gallery of Art in Jordan, Camera Austria, Cultura Digital in Brazil, Kirchner Cultural Centre in Argentina, Tahrir Cultural Center in Egypt, Lagos Biennial in Nigeria, and the Qualcomm Institute in San Diego.