Visions of Posthuman Futures

Two panel discussions in the context of Episode 2: Alien Introspection from The Future Of Demonstration | Season 1.

In the age of automation, due to new technologies, the conventional, western, and largely humanistic understanding of the human being is questioned. The boundaries between human and machine, woman and man, subject and object, and nature and culture, are getting blurred. Together with our artificial creatures we now seem to live in a universe of promiscuity. The metamorphosis of the human and the human world results in significant political, economic, scientific, and aesthetic changes. Posthumanists discuss this crisis of the humanistic understanding of the human in the age of automation from various perspectives.

In one panel discussion, we would like to shed some light on the journey of the humanistic human being, its transformation into a posthuman being, visions of posthuman futures, the negative and positive effects, and the potential artificial alterities that we are about to meet on this way.

In the other panel, we will demonstrate the embodiment of machine intelligence in a humanoid robot to form an artificial agent. It will serve you in being your soliloquy-bot. This single entity agent is contrasted by the multi entity of a swarm of robots. Agents that do not resemble any life form on this planet but that are self-organising to adapt.

✳ PANEL 1 18:00h - free admission
Demonstration: Variations of Machinic Intelligence(s)

With statements by
Robert Trappl
—general outline of AI, Neural Nets, Scientific Developments
Christoph Müller
—bAm robots’ demonstration, introduction of swarm intelligence
Clara Haider and Oliver Schürer
—a demonstration of humanoid / A. I. natural language technology

Discussion, moderated by Christiana Tsiourti

19:20h Break

✳ PANEL 2 19:40h - free admission
Automation, Art, Feminism & Posthumanism

With statements by
Mark Coeckelbergh
—ICT’s Posthumanism and Economic Relations
Janina Loh
—Responsibility, Ethics for Human/Machinic Coupling
Patricia Reed
—Automation, labour, care, gendered labour
Kristian Lukić
—On Algorithmic Saturnization

Discussion, moderated by Marlies Wirth (MAK)

20:00h Wrap-up and global questions
20:30h End

20:30 open bar / music