Human Entities Podcast (CADA)
Explorez tous les épisodes de Human Entities Podcast
| Date | Titre | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 06 Jun 2023 | Human Entities 2023: Orit Halpern | 01:38:39 | |
Human Entities 2023: culture in the age of artificial intelligence Smart Power Today, growing concerns with climate change, energy scarcity, security, and economic volatility have turned the focus of urban planners, investors, scientists, and governments towards computational technologies as sites of potential salvation from a world consistently defined by catastrophes and ‘crisis’. From large scale computer simulations of the weather, to smart cities and infrastructures, to geo-engineering projects, to cryptocurrencies and blockchains, we have arguably transformed the planet into a test-bed and experiment for computational technologies. The penetration of almost every part of life by digital technologies has transformed how we understand nature, culture, and time. But what futures are we imagining, or foreclosing through these planetary ‘experiments’? How have we come to see human survival as fundamentally dependent on computational networks? This talk maps the rise of this ‘smartness mandate’. Tracing genealogies from artificial intelligence, finance, architecture, and art I will develop an account of how ubiquitous computing has become one of the dominant governing logics of our present (and possibly our future) and to what effects. Orit Halpern | |||
| 06 Jun 2023 | Human Entities 2023: Mark Leckey | 01:57:20 | |
Human Entities 2023: culture in the age of artificial intelligence
Artist talk Mark Leckey is one of the most influential artists working today. Since the late 1990s, his work has looked at the relationship between popular culture and technology as well as exploring the subjects of youth, class and nostalgia. He works with sculpture, film, sound and performance – and sometimes all four at once. In particular, he is known for Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (1999) and Industrial Light and Magic (2008), for which he won the Turner Prize. His work has been widely exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at Tate Britain, in 2019, Serpentine Gallery, in 2011, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, in 2008 and at Le Consortium, Dijon, in 2007. His performances have been presented in New York City at the Museum of Modern Art, Abrons Arts Center; at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, both in 2009; and at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, in 2008. His works are held in the collections of the Tate and the Centre Pompidou. https://markleckey.com | |||
| 18 Jun 2024 | Human Entities 2024: Giorgio Gristina | 01:31:41 | |
Human Entities 2024: culture in the age of artificial intelligence Pluralizing psychedelic experiences Potential groundbreaking therapeutic applications are fuelling a resurgence of scientific and clinical interest towards psychedelic compounds. Growing media coverage is popularizing concepts such as “mystical experience” and “ego-dissolution”. Such terms are used in most scientific studies to describe the complex subjective experiences elicited by these substances, possibly playing a role in their therapeutic outcomes. But what’s the history behind these categories? And are there other ways of interpreting the peculiar effects of these substances? The mystical framework has been dominant in western scientific approaches to altered states of consciousness, and was thus adopted by psychedelic research since its inception. However, I argue that it is not the only possible interpretation of psychedelics’ effects. Ethnographic data and anecdotal evidence show that other communities have approached psychedelics through other epistemologies, and that their effects vary considerably across different settings. To widen our understanding of these substances’ effects and their therapeutic applications, scientific approaches to psychedelics should attempt to include a broader diversity of experiences, contexts and methods. Giorgio Gristina https://doutoramento.antropologia.ulisboa.pt/estudantes/giorgio-gristina
Credits Programmed by Jared Hawkey/Sofia Oliveira with guest programmers: Andrea Pavoni, Justin Jaeckle, Lavínia Pereira and Olivia Bina. Funded by: República Portuguesa – Cultura / Direção-Geral das Artes Support: Câmara Municipal de Lisboa; Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia – NOVA LINCS; Instituto Ciências Sociais, Urban Transitions Hub, Universidade de Lisboa; DINAMIA’CET (ISCTE-IUL) and Faculdade Belas Artes, Universidade de Lisboa, Departamentos de Design de Comunicação e Arte Multimédia Design: Pedro Loureiro Photography: Joana Linda Sound: Diogo Melo | |||
| 06 Jun 2023 | Human Entities 2023: Joanna Bryson | 01:42:27 | |
Human Entities 2023: culture in the age of artificial intelligence
Authorship, Agency, and Moral Obligation How much of our individual human experience can we absorb into machine models when we use machine learning and a huge amount of data? Will AI become sentient? Sovereign? Ambitious? How will living with AI change our daily experience? This talk reflects natural, social, and computing sciences, describing both human and artificial intelligence, then governance, justice, and creativity. What we do matters, and we are obliged to ourselves and our planet to create and maintain good governance of all artefacts of our species. Joanna Bryson https://www.joannajbryson.org Organised by CADA in partnership with Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon | |||
| 19 Nov 2021 | Human Entities 2021: Alexandre Estrela | 01:19:02 | |
Artist talk A conversation about the parallel communication (or the lack of it) between Art and Science in the context of the work of Alexandre Estrela. This includes the collaboration with Moita Lab from the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme, the Company Orange and the Human Language Technology Laboratory INESC-ID/IST. Bio Recent solo exhibitions include All and Everything, Rufino Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, 2020, Métal Hurlant, Fondation Gulbenkian, Paris, 2019, Cápsulas de silencio, Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid, 2016, Roda Lume, M HKA, Antwerp, 2016, Meio Concreto, Serralves Museum, Porto, 2013, among others. His next show, Flat Bells, will be shown at MoMA, New York, in 2022. Alexandre Estrela was in conversation with Jared Hawkey and Sofia Oliveira. | |||
| 17 Nov 2021 | Human Entities 2021: Inês Cisneiros | 01:28:51 | |
The European Union’s regulatory framework for Artificial Intelligence On her appointment as President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen made regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) a top priority. In her view legislation is fundamental to safeguard the European Union’s citizens’ fundamental rights and encourage investment in safe innovation and technological development. As a result, in April 2021, the European Commission presented a proposal which when approved would prohibit harmful AI practices and impose restrictions on high-risk AI systems. This ethical stance will position the EU against the lack of regulation in the US and state control in China. From Cambridge Analytica to the recent Project Pegasus, from facial recognition to social credit system, it is increasingly apparent that the abusive use of digital computation compromises human rights. So, how would this regulation protect citizens in the context of a globalized society? Could the European strategy influence worldwide adoption of good AI practices? How does this proposal relate to the General Data Protection Regulation? A conversation on what will be solved and what remains to be answered by this proposal includes the participation of Eduardo Santos (D3 – Associação dos Direitos Digitais, a Portuguese digital rights association) and João Leite (NOVA LINCS, Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, NOVA University Lisbon). Bio She studied issues regarding artificial moral agency and the need for responsible design for the Master’s Practical Ethics seminar. Her Master’s dissertation will focus on issues regarding democratic engagement across generations, touching on the political impacts of technology. Links: | |||
| 18 Jun 2024 | Human Entities 2024: Matteo Pasquinelli | 01:15:42 | |
Human Entities 2024: culture in the age of artificial intelligence Artificial Intelligence Design and the Logic of Social Cooperation A conversation around the book “The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence” with the author Matteo Pasquinelli. What is AI? A dominant view describes it as the quest “to solve intelligence” – a solution supposedly to be found in the secret logic of the mind or in the deep physiology of the brain, such as in its complex neural networks. Pasquinelli’s book The Eye of the Master argues, to the contrary, that the inner code of AI is shaped not by the imitation of biological intelligence, but the intelligence of labour and social relations, as it is found in Babbage’s “calculating engines” of the industrial age as well as in the recent Large Language Models such as ChatGPT. Matteo Pasquinelli http://matteopasquinelli.com Credits Programmed by Jared Hawkey/Sofia Oliveira with guest programmers: Andrea Pavoni, Justin Jaeckle, Lavínia Pereira and Olivia Bina. Funded by: República Portuguesa – Cultura / Direção-Geral das Artes Support: Câmara Municipal de Lisboa; Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia – NOVA LINCS; Instituto Ciências Sociais, Urban Transitions Hub, Universidade de Lisboa; DINAMIA’CET (ISCTE-IUL) and Faculdade Belas Artes, Universidade de Lisboa, Departamentos de Design de Comunicação e Arte Multimédia Design: Pedro Loureiro Photography: Joana Linda Sound: Diogo Melo | |||
| 20 Nov 2019 | Human Entities 2019: James Bridle | 01:22:04 | |
Other Intelligences James Bridle Artist and writer Lisbon, 27 March 2019 We have spent the last hundred years attempting to master the world with calculation, with mathematics, physics, and digital technologies. We have come to believe that the world can be reduced to data – and only data matters. And yet the world still teems with life and our algorithms seem incapable of capturing its complexities; our supposedly logical worldview seems to lead us to fear, distrust, and polarisation, and the cognitive collapse is mirrored in an ecological one. How might a different understanding of the role technology plays in the world change our relationship with the world itself? Artist and writer James Bridle will explore the questions and possibilities of artificial and other intelligences through his own work, and new discoveries in ecology, biology, and computation. James Bridle James Bridle is an artist and writer working across technologies and disciplines. His artworks have been commissioned by galleries and institutions and exhibited worldwide and on the internet. His writing on literature, culture and networks has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Wired, Domus, Cabinet, the Atlantic, the New Statesman, the Guardian, the Observer and many others, in print and online. He lectures regularly at conferences, universities, and other events. “New Dark Age”, his book about technology, knowledge, and the end of the future, was published by Verso (UK & US) in 2018. https://jamesbridle.com Organised by CADA | |||
| 06 Jun 2023 | Human Entities 2023: Manuel Arriaga + Pedro Magalhães | 01:52:10 | |
Human Entities 2023: culture in the age of artificial intelligence Rebooting democracy Democracy is a technology of collective decision-making that aggregates intentions and defines a course of action. However, according to the diagnosis of many, it’s a technology ‘in crisis’. An important part of the contemporary experience of ‘democratic frustration’ seems to result from the contrast between the stagnation of ways of doing politics and the rapid evolution of digital technology. As consumers, we have long learned to expect – and demand – innovation. Yet, as citizens, we regularly confront ourselves with the immutability of mechanisms of governance. In representative democracy, who is effectively represented? How, and to what extent, are the interests and preferences of people – and different people – converted into policies? With regard to the issue of the environment and climate change, in every election cycle there seems to be a kind of myopia, or short-sightedness, which exclusively focuses on the articulation and resolution of (some) short-term problems. To what extent can forms of ‘democratic innovation’, especially those that serve to create greater opportunities for political participation, serve to address long-term problems, in particular the climate crisis? What is the potential of other forms of political organisation as a complement, or even alternative, to representative democracy? This discussion will be moderated by Catherine Moury, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the PhD programme, Political Studies Department, NOVA University of Lisbon. Manuel Arriaga https://www.rebootdemocracy.org Pedro Magalhães https://www.pedro-magalhaes.org/ | |||
| 29 Jul 2022 | Human Entities 2022: Bram Büscher | 02:05:13 | |
#NatureTruthPower: Política ambiental na era da pós-verdade e das plataformas digitais How should we share the truth about the environmental crisis? At a moment when even the most basic facts about ecology and the climate face contestation and contempt, environmental advocates are at an impasse. Many have turned to social media and digital technologies to shift the tide. But what if their strategy is not only flawed, but dangerous? In this presentation, Bram Büscher traces how environmental action is transformed through the political economy of digital platforms and the algorithmic feeds that have been instrumental to the rise of post-truth politics. Building on a novel account of post-truth as an expression of power under platform capitalism, he shows how environmental actors mediate between structural forms of platform power and the contingency of environmental issues in particular places. Key in understanding this mediation is a reconfiguration of the relations between nature, truth and power in the 21st century. Its upshot is the need for an environmental politics that radically reignites the art of speaking truth to power. Bio https://brambuscher.com | |||
| 05 Dec 2020 | Human Entities 2020: Margarida Mendes | 00:53:11 | |
River systems and the molecular body Margarida Mendes Curator, researcher and activist Lisbon, 12 November 2020 Can we actually trace the exact perimeter of a river’s molecular cartography and the extent of the consequences that these systems of catalytic flux have within and outside living bodies? River systems and their surrounding infrastructures are enormous hydrogeological, chemical and electromagnetic systems that connect their surrounding inhabitants and ecosystems through an irreverent flux of discharges and motions that humans attempt to tame through flowage rights and coastal restoration projects. Hence, aquatic and riverine infrastructures are essential points of departure for system analysis and reflection about the bodies and ecosystems, from the molecular through to the planetary scale. In attempting to understand the connection between river flux, noise, toxicity, and industrialization, I will focus on the habitats of the Mississippi and the Tagus rivers, questioning how the level of background noise and chemical imbalance may be connected with endocrinological disruptions. By investigating the chemical and vibrational continuity between bodies and the environment, I will speculate how different ontologies and mechanisms for sensing and registry might be needed, in order to provide a deeper debate about ecosystems under distress. Margarida Mendes Margarida Mendes's research explores the overlap between cybernetics, ecology and experimental film, investigating environmental transformations and their impact on societal structures and cultural production. She is interested in exploring alternative modes of education and political resilience through her collaborative practice, programming, and activism. She was part of the curatorial team of the 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016), 4th Istanbul Design Biennial (2018), and 11th Liverpool Biennial (rescheduled for 2021). In 2019 she launched the exhibition series Plant Revolution! which questions the interspecies encounter while exploring different narratives of technological mediation and in 2016 curated Matter Fictions, publishing a joint reader with Sternberg Press. She is a consultant for environmental NGOs working on marine policy and deep sea mining and has directed several educational platforms, such as escuelita, an informal school at Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo - CA2M, Madrid (2017); The Barber Shop project space in Lisbon dedicated to transdisciplinary research (2009-16); and the ecological inquiry curatorial research platform The World In Which We Occur/Matter in Flux, (2014-18). She is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Research Architecture, Visual Cultures Department, Goldsmiths, University of London with the project “Deep Sea Imaginings” and is a frequent collaborator on the online channel for exploratory video and documentary reporting Inhabitants-tv.org. http://goldsmiths.academia.edu/MargaridaMendes https://soundcloud.com/margaridamendes http://www.twwwo.org Organised by CADA | |||
| 29 Jul 2022 | Human Entities 2022: Paola Torres Núñez del Prado | 01:16:42 | |
Artist Talk Somewhat similar to what it is commonly said about migrants, autonomous machines are taken to be a potential threat to some human labour. In military environments, these systems and their efficiency can, in fact, be more lethal than those controlled by people. This idea allows us to roll back to the core definition of intelligence which, since the Industrial Revolution has been deeply linked with efficiency-as-productivity, and subsequent avoidance of errors. This definition which is the heir of a type of rationality, with origins in the Enlightenment, is placed at the top of a hierarchy above all other human thought systems. Problems linked to managing the natural environment, where other later ‘non-rational’ human cultures are encountered, have been solved through domination and even annihilation. We can now see that some AI systems continue this legacy. In this context, AIELSON [a machine learning model Torres trained to generate spoken-word poetry] reflects upon the zeitgeist, incorporating a complex critique where the system is seen to be connected to humanity (as a reflection) since imperfections are not discarded but embraced. Consequently this contradicts the notion of intelligence as the epitome of flawless efficiency and perfection. Hence, Torres proposes that we should now discuss machine creativity, and how creativity informs human imagination. Her work asks the question: Can we envision another future of possible cooperation between humans and machines, where the natural world is no longer seen as a territory to conquer? Bio Her performances and her artworks, which are also part of the collections of Malmo Art Museum and the Public Art Agency of Sweden, have been presented in several countries of the Americas, Central Europe, and Scandinavia, where she is currently based. https://autodios.github.io | |||
| 08 Nov 2022 | Human Entities 2022: Wendy Hui Kyong Chun | 01:33:15 | |
Organized in partnership with the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon, Communication Design and of Multimedia Arts departments Discriminating Data, a conversation with Wendy Hui Kyong Chun In Discriminating Data [2021], Wendy Hui Kyong Chun reveals how polarization is a goal—not an error—within big data and machine learning. These methods, she argues, encode segregation, eugenics, and identity politics through their default assumptions and conditions. Correlation, which grounds big data’s predictive potential, stems from twentieth-century eugenic attempts to “breed” a better future. Recommender systems foster angry clusters of sameness through homophily. Users are “trained” to become authentically predictable via a politics and technology of recognition. Machine learning and data analytics thus seek to disrupt the future by making disruption impossible. In this conversation, Chun will discuss the themes of her book with Andrea Pavoni, assistant research professor at DINAMIA’CET and then take questions from the audience. Wendy Hui Kyong Chun https://www.sfu.ca/communication/team/faculty/wendy-chun.html Human Entities is a public programme of talks organised by CADA. | |||
| 18 Jun 2024 | Human Entities 2024: Monica Gagliano | 02:19:38 | |
Human Entities 2024: culture in the age of artificial intelligence Plant consciousness
Monica Gagliano PhD is an internationally award-winning research scientist, selected by Biohabitats as one of the 24 most Inspiring Women of Ecology, together with Jane Goodall, Rachel Carson, Sylvia Earl, and Terry Tempest Williams. She has been an invited lecturer at the most prestigious universities, including UC Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, Dartmouth and Georgetown. Monica’s pioneering work has been widely featured by prominent media, such as The New York Times, Forbes, The New Yorker, The Guardian, National Geographic, and many others. Monica is Research Associate Professor (Adjunct) of evolutionary ecology based in Australia. She is currently Chief Scientist at Kaiāulu|Coherence Lab in Hawaii, and Research Associate at the Takiwasi Centre in Perú. Monica has pioneered the brand-new research field of plant bioacoustics, which for the first time, experimentally demonstrates that plants emit voices and detect and respond to the sounds of their environments. Her work has extended the concept of cognition in plants. By demonstrating experimentally that learning and memory are not the exclusive province of animals, Monica has reignited the discourse of plant subjectivity, as well as ethical and legal standing. Inspired by encounters with nature and indigenous elders from around the world, Monica applies an innovative and holistic approach to science, one that is comfortable engaging at the interface between areas as diverse as ecology, physics, law, anthropology, philosophy, literature, music, the arts, and spirituality. By re-kindling a sense of wonder for the beautiful place we call home, she is helping to create a new ecology of mind that inspires the emergence of revolutionary solutions toward human interactions with the world we co-inhabit. Monica’s studies have led her to author numerous ground-breaking scientific articles and books, including Thus Spoke the Plant (2018) and The Mind of Plants (2021). https://www.monicagagliano.com Credits
Funded by: República Portuguesa – Cultura / Direção-Geral das ArtesSupport: Câmara Municipal de Lisboa; Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia – NOVA LINCS; Instituto Ciências Sociais, Urban Transitions Hub, Universidade de Lisboa; DINAMIA’CET (ISCTE-IUL) and Faculdade Belas Artes, Universidade de Lisboa, Departamentos de Design de Comunicação e Arte Multimédia | |||
| 18 Jun 2024 | Human Entities 2024: Jay Springett (Solarpunk) | 01:26:10 | |
Human Entities 2024: culture in the age of artificial intelligence Solarpunk means dreaming green Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?” In our current age of popular dystopia, climate grief, and biosphere collapse, Solarpunk has become a ‘creative container‘ for more fertile futures. Not one future singular, but many. Solarpunk encourages everyone to re-imagine what life might be like en-route to a better world. Our collective future will not be imposed upon us from above, but instead created bottom up by individuals in polyphony. A texture consisting of multiple simultaneous lines of independent melody. The future never passively arrives fully formed, instead, it must be dreamed. Solarpunk is one such dream. In this talk Jay will cover the story of how solarpunk came to be and its attempts at inspiring people to ‘remake our present and future history’. Jay Springett He is known as a leading voice in the speculative genre of Solarpunk, which described in 2019 as a ‘memetic engine’ – a tool to power the ‘refuturing’ of our collective imagination. In 2020 his Solarpunk short story ‘In The Storm, A Fire’ was long listed for the BSFA Award for Short Fiction. Jay is a Fellow of Royal Society of Arts in London and was selected as one of WeAreEurope’s 64 Faces of Europe in 2019. He is currently an instructor at The New Centre and speaks regularly about the future, technology and culture at events around the world. He currently hosts two podcasts: PermanentlyMoved.Online, a 301 second long personal journal and Experience.Computer, an interview show about aphantasia, creativity, and the imagination. Jay has been writing online at http://www.thejaymo.net since 2010. Credits Programmed by Jared Hawkey/Sofia Oliveira with guest programmers: Andrea Pavoni, Justin Jaeckle, Lavínia Pereira and Olivia Bina. Funded by: República Portuguesa – Cultura / Direção-Geral das Artes | |||
| 05 Dec 2020 | Human Entities 2020: Julia Steinberger | 01:15:09 | |
Green growth or Degrowth: climate action and human prosperity | |||
| 09 May 2016 | Human Entities 2016: !Mediengruppe Bitnik | 01:18:10 | |
Artists’ group !Mediengruppe Bitnik will present recent works exploring internet subculture, surveillance and bots. They will talk about their recently completed work Random Darknet Shopper which directly connected art spaces with the darknet via an automated online shopping bot. With a weekly budget of $100 in Bitcoins, the bot went shopping on the deep web where it randomly chose and purchased one item and had it mailed directly to the exhibition space, creating a landscape of traded goods from the darknet. Bitnik will also present Same Same – Watching Algorithms, a software bot which replaces all imagery on the website of the art space Cabaret Voltaire with algorithmically similar images. !Mediengruppe Bitnik (read: not mediengruppe bitnik) live and work in Zurich/London. They are contemporary artists working on and with the internet. Their practice expands from the digital to affect physical spaces, often intentionally introducing a loss of control to challenge established structures and mechanisms. !Mediengruppe Bitnik’s works formulate fundamental questions concerning contemporary issues. In early 2013 !Mediengruppe Bitnik sent a parcel to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The parcel contained a camera which broadcast live on the internet its journey through the postal system. They describe Delivery for Mr. Assange as a SYSTEM_TEST and a Live Mail Art Piece. The art group are also known for sending a bot called Random Darknet Shopper on a shopping spree on the darknets where it randomly bought objects like ecstasy and had them sent directly to the gallery space. !Mediengruppe Bitnik are the artists Carmen Weisskopf and Domagoj Smoljo. Their accomplices are the London filmmaker and researcher Adnan Hadzi and the reporter Daniel Ryser. Their works have been shown internationally including: Shanghai Minsheng 21st Century Museum, City Art Gallery Ljubljana, Kunsthaus Zürich, NiMk Amsterdam, Space Gallery London, Cabaret Voltaire Zurich, Beton7 Athens, Museum Folkwang Essen, Contemporary Art Center Vilnius, Beijing Get It Louder Contemporary Art Biennial, La Gaîté Lyrique Paris, Gallery EDEN 343 São Paulo and the Roaming Biennale Tehran. They have received awards including: Swiss Art Award, Migros New Media Jubilee Award, Honorary Mention Prix Ars Electronica. https://wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.bitnik.org Audio recording Stress.fm | |||
| 20 Nov 2019 | Human Entities 2019: Stephanie Hare | 02:16:32 | |
Facing Up to Biometrics Stephanie Hare Researcher and broadcaster Lisbon, 17 April 2019 Our face, voice, DNA, fingerprints and other data about our bodies (also known as our biometrics) are increasingly being used by governments and companies to identify and monitor us, and to analyse, predict and control our behaviour. The risk to our privacy, our civil liberties and our democracies is so grave that even technology giants such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon are asking for regulation. What role – if any – do we want biometrics technologies to play in our society? How would they transform private and public life? Can regulation prevent the worst-case scenarios? Stephanie Hare Stephanie Hare is a researcher focused on technology, politics and history. Selected for the Foreign Policy Interrupted fellowship and the BBC Expert Women programme, she shares insights on television and radio and has published in the Harvard Business Review, the Financial Times, Project Syndicate, the Herald, CNN and the Guardian. Previously she has worked as a principal director at Accenture Research, a strategist at Palantir, a senior analyst at Oxford Analytica, and a consultant at Accenture. She has held the Alistair Horne Visiting Fellowship at St Antony’s College, Oxford, has a PhD and MSc from the London School of Economics and a BA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. https://www.harebrain.co Organised by CADA | |||
| 05 Dec 2020 | Human Entities 2020: Joe Paton | 01:46:05 | |
On minds and machines Joe Paton Computational neuroscientist, director of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme, Lisbon Lisbon, 19 November 2020 Brains and computers both perform computations, yet for the most part, their similarity ends there. Nervous systems have evolved over the last several hundred million years to support the survival of organisms in which they are situated. Man made computers exist due to theoretical and technical innovations of the 20th century, and are powerless without our explicit instruction. This talk will explore some of the features of nervous system structure and function, highlighting their differences and similarities when compared to computers and modern computer algorithms for machine learning and artificial intelligence. Joe Paton Joe Paton, Ph.D., is a computational neuroscientist and director of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme at the Champalimaud Foundation in Lisbon, PT and co-director of the FENS-Cajal Advanced Training Course in Computational Neuroscience. Originally trained as a biologist, he received his doctoral degree in Neurobiology and Behavior from Columbia University. His research laboratory focuses on understanding the algorithms and neural circuit mechanisms underlying intelligent, adaptive behavior. http://neuro.fchampalimaud.org/en/person/115/ Organised by CADA | |||
| 19 Nov 2021 | Human Entities 2021: Jennifer Gabrys | 00:59:45 | |
Sensing Smart Forests Forests are increasingly sensorized environments. Whether in the form of camera traps to monitor organisms or the Internet of Things to detect wildfires, there are an array of sensor technologies that observe and constitute forests in relation to scientific inquiry, Indigenous land claims, environmental governance, and disaster prevention and mitigation. This presentation will investigate the sensory arrangements that Smart Forests generate. It will ask how sensory infrastructures materialize as distributions of power and governance, while considering the sensory practices that transform and potentially re-constitute dominant regimes of perception toward other inhabitations and milieus. Bio She writes on digital technologies, environments and social life, with recent publications including How to Do Things with Sensors (2019) and Program Earth: Environmental Sensing Technology and the Making of a Computational Planet (2016). Links: Jennifer Gabrys was online with a live connection to the venue. Her talk was followed by a Q&A session. | |||
| 06 Jul 2016 | Human Entities 2016: Alice Benessia, Sara M. Watson | 01:56:35 | |
Alice Benessia Emergent information and communication technologies (ICT), such as the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), constantly redefine the texture of our culture, society and lifestyle, raising a number of fundamental epistemic, normative and ethical issues, in a constant co-evolution. These technologies are constructed, named, offered, and ultimately regulated, according to and through specific techno-scientific imaginaries, here defined as collections of visual and verbal metaphors that are created and communicated both in the specialized literature and in the mass media for the public at large. Wonder, power, control and urgency can be defined as standard imaginaries of techno-scientific innovation: the fundamental axes defining an ideal space in which the multifaceted vision of the IoT can be projected and analyzed, in terms of what we want (wonder), we can (power and control) and we need (urgency) to be smart. Within this ideal space, we will examine together a variety media available on the web and produced by some of the key actors of the IoT revolution. This exploration leads to an open-ended reflection on the underlying aims and contradictions of the ICT enhancement, in relation to the possible decline of some of the fundamental attributes of our integrity and agency. Bio Sara M. Watson By examining the dominant metaphors we use to talk about data, Sara M. Watson dissects the industry-centric bias at the core of our cultural understanding of data today. She argues more embodied data metaphors can better animate public consciousness and, in turn, shape policy positions, technology designs, and business models going forward. The power of metaphorical framings feeds into her recent work as a research fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, examining the rhetoric and ideology of technology on the public imagination. Sara argues that a constructive approach to technology criticism can improve the broader cultural discourse about technology, not only commenting on the technologies we have, but influencing and shaping the technologies we want. Bio Audio recording Stress.fm | |||
| 05 Dec 2020 | Human Entities 2020: Andrea Pavoni | 01:26:02 | |
navigating the urban fog: on urban adaptation Andrea Pavoni Research fellow at DINÂMIA’CET, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa Lisbon, 4 November 2020 The talk dives into the impalpable atmosphere of everyday urban life, through which we breathe, experience, and feel the city. In times of aesthetic capitalism, politics of fear, ubiquitous computing, and airborne diseases, this inconspicuous background has become the battleground of urban politics. Digital technologies, branded imaginaries and normative regulations increasingly weave into this hazy everyday, deeply affecting the corporeal, emotional and intellectual paths through which we navigate the city. How to make sense of this ongoing reconfiguration of urban experience? Three dimensions may be highlighted: the imperative of adaptation at the core of neoliberal ideology; the politics of comfort informing the engineering of safe and pleasurable atmospheres in the city; and the systemic delegation of intellectual, emotional and ethical urban skills to techno-legal proxies, that feeds functional stupidity, social anxiety, and existential disorientation. After unpacking their composition and the political consequences thereof, the talk will conclude, tentatively, by gesturing towards ways to experience the urban otherwise. Andrea Pavoni Andrea Pavoni is a research fellow at DINÂMIA'CET, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal. Unfolding at the intersection between critical geography, social theory, and philosophy, his research explores the relation between materiality, normativity and aesthetics in the urban context. He is editor of the Law and the Senses Series (University of Westminster Press) and associate editor of the journal Lo Squaderno, Explorations in Space and Society. His book, Controlling Urban Events. Law, Ethics and the Material, is out on Routledge. <a href="https://www.dinamiacet.iscte-iul.pt/research-team/Andrea-Pavoni" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.dinamiacet.iscte-iul.pt/research-team/Andrea-Pavoni</a> Q&A session moderated by <a href="https://www.ics.ulisboa.pt/en/pessoa/simone-tulumello">Simone Tulumello</a> Organised by CADA | |||