Professor Ted Hiebert discusses the aesthetics of transparency in the context of his new book, In Praise of Nonsense: Aesthetics, Uncertainty and Postmodern Identity. His lecture explores the codes and aesthetics of transparency, engaging questions of nonsense, perception and technology as ways to re-imagine the possibilities of the posthuman.
Focusing on questions of social identity, empowerment and computation, Fox Harrell explores the emerging world of “phantasmal identities,” that moment when the meaning of social identity is complicated by its intersection with computing technologies including social networking, gaming, virtual worlds and more. Here, social identities are not addressed only through persistent issues of class, gender, sex, race, and ethnicity, but also through dynamic construction of social categories, body language, discourse, metaphorical thought, gesture, fashion, and so on. When these “real” identities meet their counterparts in the virtual world, the results are identities that are a sudden blend of cultural ideas and sensory imagination, namely the increasing development of “phantasmal identities.”
Dr. Mary Bryson, Professor, Language and Literacy Education, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia.
Past-President of the American Society for the Study of Social Problems and an acclaimed social theorist, Professor Pfohl explores the fallout from the imploding American dream in a time of economic insecurity, political insurgency, and campaign politics.
Professor Tim Murray, Director of the Society of the Humanities and curator of the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media discusses “The Aesthetics of Digital Longing” by way of an evocative discussion of Rancière and Deleuze in the content of interactive installations. He illustrates his talk with a number of installations and sound pieces from Asia that are rarely discussed, in the interests of broadening the global perspective of what we think of as politics and art.
This research project maps emotions and visualises the virtual emergence of emotions. Rauch uses 3D-surface capturing devices to scan facial expressions in animals (taxidermy) and humans to then sculpt with the Phantom Arm/ SensAble FreeForm device in 3D virtual space. When working with the haptic sculpting tool one receives a physical feedback on the hand and arm; the experience of touching and sculpting digital data in cyberspace is still awkward, as if the virtual data was not quite real data.
Ted Hiebert’s talk is an exploration of the technological imaginary, with a particular focus on the area of overlap between digital culture and artistic practice. Bringing together Roland Barthes’ theory of technology as an extension of theatre and Nicolas Bourriaud’s formulation of relational art, the talk examines spaces where technology might be understood as relational, deeply embedded in discourses of aesthetics and performance, but equally invested in maintaining the creative possibilities of social living. Situated amidst questions of theatre, technology and art, this talk is also as a series of reflections on the possibilities of posthuman living. Using three art projects as catalysts for the discussion, a theory born of photographic practice will be expanded, as a visualization of technology and of the aesthetics of posthuman possibility.
Faced with growing unrest that is (at least in part) facilitated by digital communications, repressive nation-states have integrated powerful new surveillance systems into the depths of their nations’ communications infrastructures. In this presentation, Christopher Parsons first discusses the capabilities of a technology, deep packet inspection, which is used to survey, analyze, and modify communications in real-time. He then discusses the composition of the Iranian and Tunisian telecommunications infrastructure, outlining how deep packet inspection is used to monitor, block, and subvert encrypted and private communications. The presentation concludes with a brief reflection on how this same technology is deployed in the West, with a focus on how we might identify key actors, motivations, and drivers of the technology in our own network ecologies.
In this talk, Meagan Timney draws on McLuhan’s notions of the medium and the message to question how our interaction with the world around us changes through the use of the technologies that facilitate information transfer. Using examples from both past and present, she discusses how these technologies extend the human self through the creation of a virtual avatar.
This talk walks through a brief history of androids in the past and present. Citing Japan as a special case, Aya Walraven explores how androids, cyborgs, and humans alike fit into society with a growing need for robotic assistance and enhancement, and touches upon the cultural roots and psychology that affects how we receive our mechanical partners.
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