Saturday, June 29, 2019

Yasmin_discussions Digest, Vol 9, Issue 6

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THIS IS THE YASMIN-DISCUSSIONS DIGEST


Today's Topics:

1. Dangerous Art, True AI and Posthuman Knowledge
(YASMIN DISCUSSIONS)


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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 11:31:42 +0200
From: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
To: yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr
Subject: [Yasmin_discussions] Dangerous Art, True AI and Posthuman
Knowledge
Message-ID:
<mailman.2.1561714511.58402.yasmin_discussions_ntlab.gr@ntlab.gr>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

bill, welcome back to the yasmin village

re your comment re 'true AI"- i am more disposed to try and shift our
definitions of intelligence- in the jargon of the time we need to
become "post anthropocentric' in the ways we think about intelligence.
Braidotti has a fascinating summer school that addresses these areas
from a very different perspective of the humanities- read below the
workshop with the seminal thinking of Rosi Braidotti
https://rosibraidotti.com/summer-school/ on new approaches on thinking
about the nature of intelligence ( Rosi Braidotti is a Philosopher and
Distinguished University Professor at Utrecht University as well as
the founding director of the Centre for the Humanities in Utrecht.)

by coincidence i am at IMERA in marseille and just me the artist
abdessamad-el-montassir who is working with thierry gauquelin to
understand how the Daghmous cactus has embedeed in it the various
'memories' of post climatic and human caused traumas- abdessamad is
from south moroco where this cactus keeps morphing over the
generations- certainly a form of intelligence we may need to learn as
climate change makes current forms of human beings unsurvivable !
check out his work https://imera.univ-amu.fr/fr/resident/abdessamad-el-montassir

yasminers please join in our discussion !

roger malina

bill joel's post:


So glad Yasmin discussions are reemerging; I've missed them.

Regarding AI and Art, I'm reminded of John Cage, and his use of
I-Ching to compose music. In many ways, he was using an algorithm to
compose, just not using a computer. Is this any different from the
types of AI programming we see today? BTW, I have an issue with folks
calling what we currently have AI. I see these programs more as expert
systems. "True" AI, in my view, is "something" that can learn on its
own within any realm of knowledge.

Bill Joel


Summer School 2019

Posthuman knowledge(s)
Rosi Braidotti is a Philosopher and Distinguished University Professor
at Utrecht University as well as the founding director of the Centre
for the Humanities in Utrecht.

https://rosibraidotti.com/summer-school/

The intensive course ?Posthuman Knowledge(s)? offers an overview of
contemporary debates around the ?posthuman turn?, in the framework of
Braidotti?s brand of critical theory.
It explores the implications of the posthuman convergence of
posthumanism and postanthropocentrism for the constitution of
subjectivity, the production of knowledge and the practice of the
academic humanities. How can scholarship in the critical humanities
move beyond the old dualities in which Man/Anthropos defined himself,
beyond the hierarchical production of sexualized, racialized and
naturalized others as excluded from humanity ? To what extent do
current posthuman forms of knowledge critique anthropocentrism and
Eurocentric humanism?

In 2019, Braidotti?s intensive course will focus on ?Posthuman
Knowledge(s)? , which is also the title of Braidotti?s new monograph,
published by Polity Press. The other textbook that will be adopted for
the course is The Posthuman Glossary (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018).

The aim of this interdisciplinary course is to offer a critical
overview of the contemporary scholarship dealing with the applications
and implications of the ?posthuman turn,? for knowledge production and
research, notably in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The posthuman
turn is defined as the convergence, within the context of advanced or
cognitive capitalism, of post-humanism on the one hand and
post-anthropocentrism on the other. Although these two lines of
critical thought often overlap, they are rather distinct phenomena
both in terms of their theoretical genealogies and in their practical
applications. Their current convergence is triggering a number of
qualitative developments of a very original nature, which we will try
to study.

A related aim of the course is to introduce the participants to
Braidotti?s specific brand of neo-materialist, critical posthuman
theory. This theory rests on two main concepts: the emphasis on the
embodied and embedded, relational and affective structure of
subjectivity and the grounded and accountable nature of knowledge
claims. These aspects will be connected through the emphasis on
perspectival politics of locations on the one hand and affirmative
ethics on the other. To strengthen this aspect of the course,
participants will be required to read Braidotti?s The Posthuman
(Polity Press, 2013) prior to the start of the course.

In order to evaluate posthuman knowledge(s), the course will present,
explore and assess the defining features of a selected number of
fields within the fast-growing Posthumanities, such as the
Environmental, Digital and Medical Humanities, asking questions such
as: what is the object of enquiry of these emergent areas of research?
What is the knowing subject of the Posthumanities? How do these new
fields of knowledge affect the constitution of subjectivity and
practice of academic research today? Mindful of the differences in
power and access that structure the debate on the posthuman, we will
also investigate how posthuman knowledge(s) can assist us in moving
beyond the patterns of exclusion of the sexualized, racialized and
naturalized ?others? that were not recognized as belonging to humanity
and were also disqualified as subjects of knowledge. Special attention
will also be given to the continuing efforts to learn to think beyond
anthropocentrism.

Next to outlining the main features of the Posthumanities, the course
will also endeavour to present in a collaborative fashion ? through
panels and tutorials ? a selection of concrete case-studies drawn from
the Environmental, Digital and Medical Humanities. These cases will be
presented by teams of participating scholars from a range of
disciplines and interdisciplinary areas of research, notably:
literature and animal studies, pedagogy, media and technology studies,
legal theory, philosophy and the arts. Throughout the course, special
efforts will be made to highlight the crucial contribution of art
practices to all areas of posthuman scholarship and research.



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