Systems Seminar continues with 1000 Plateaus

The Systems Reading Group is starting up again.

This year we’ll focus on the single text: A Thousand Plateaus.

This blog can be used as a hub for activities in much the same way as before here, and here.

Running up to Christmas the meetings are on these Wednesdays:

16th Oct.; 6th Nov.; 27th Nov.; 18th Dec.. All at 6pm at NCAD.

For the 1^st meeting we’ll discuss Introduction: Rhizome (pg. 1-27)

All welcome, email me for more details.

Last Systems Session - summary

Thanks to all participants for a lively discussion at last week’s seminar discussion. I was particularly pleased that there are quite a few disciplinary positions represented around the table including philosophy, art history, art practice, information studies and so on; this should lead to rich discussions as the seminar develops over the coming months.

At this session we outlined some of the main issues that seemed to be at stake in the discussion. This included some key terms. It was agreed, then, that these would form the central themes for our future conversations around the Prince and the Wolf. This means that we will be able to move away from the central text (and read and talk around the topic) whilst also keeping our focus on the main text.

The main topics that we teased out are listed below. And it was agreed that we would discuss Object/ Relation at the next session (Nov. 23^rd). If anyone has comments and suggestions such as those for further reading, then here is the place to post them.

TOPICS

Object/ Relation

Object/ Aggregate

Causality

Disciplinary and Discursive Issues: (i) The reception of Speculative Realism in other disciplines (ii) Historical precedents

Metaphysics and Realism

Infinite Regress

Potentiality and Change

Time

Emergence

Metaphor and Translation

Event this week

[might be relevant to the systems seminar]

Second Nature at the Lab, Foley Street

October 26th 1830-2030

to book a place: email artsoffice@dublincity.ie

This series of presentations provides a public overview and incite into some of the issues engaged by the show Quantified Self. Quantified Self brings together a number of artists working across media and performance with Shimmer Research, developers of wearable sensors with multivariate applications to kinematic, biometric and context-aware data. Forming part of the remit of Innovation Dublin, artists were invited to collaborate with Shimmer technicians to speculatively engage the capabilities of the wireless platform.

Second Nature is a response to the show, and features a number of short presentations from experts in areas such as artificial intelligence, embodied cognition, philosophy, anthropology, art and computer science. This will include Kieran Daly from Shimmer Research Labs, Dr John Kelleher (DIT) speaking on the embodied turn in Cognitive Science, Tim Stott (DIT) who will provide an overview of Foucault’s theory of Biopower, Dr. Cathal Gurrin from DCU’s lifelogging research lab, Musician Mark Linnane, and Quantified Self artists Michelle Browne and Saoirse Higgins, among others.

With the proliferation of intelligent systems for the monitoring and aggregation of human-generated content, including psychographic, geographic and biometric data, we are faced with a number of interrelated issues. How have bodies across history influenced not only cognitive processes but the ongoing design of sentient systems? What new forms of self-knowledge might emerge through networked and pervasive media? As life itself is integrated with artificial systems concerned with storage of information, processing and decision making, what might the future implications be for human cognition?

Kieran Daly – Dr Kieran Daly is VP of Shimmer, developers of a wireless sensor platform that records and transmits physiological, kinetic and context-aware data in real-time. These technologies were used in the QS show.

John Kelleher – Dr. John Kelleher is a Lecturer in the school of computing in DIT, with a focus in Artificial Intelligence and Computational Linguistics. Research interests include embodied cognition, and human computer interaction.

Saoirse Higgins – Saoirse Higgins is a Media artist currently based between Dublin and Manchester where she leads a BA in creative multimedia at MMU. Her background is in product design with a Masters in Interactive Media from the Royal College of Art, London and an MSc in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT Media Lab, Boston. Saoirse is interested in revealing some of the connections between our visions of the world we live in, our expectations for the future and the technology we use to help us with this. She explores the contested spaces of public-private, man-machine, man-nature.

Tim Stott – Tim Stott is a writer, and art critic based in Dublin. He’s currently an assistant Lecturer in the history of art in DIT, and an associate researcher in the Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media, close to completing a PhD on the politics of play and participation.

Cathal Gurrin – Dr Cathal Gurrin is a lecturer in the school of computing in DCU, director of the human media archives group and a collaborating investigator in the Clarity centre for sensor web technologies. This space has facilitated his ongoing research into lifelogging.

Michelle Browne –Michelle Browne is an artist and curator living in Dublin, currently on residence in the Leitrim Sculpture centre. She is the founder of Out of Site, a public and live art festival in Dublin.

Owen Drumm – Is a technologist, designer and all round guru. He has worked at the interface of audio and technology. As well as designing state-of-the-art digital mixing desks and audio processing software he has collaborated with many major recording artists such as Def Leppard and Enya.  Owen founded and runs Rapt Audio and Owen Drumm Designs.

Mark Linnane – Mark Linnane is a video artist, creative technologist and researcher. His work focuses on the relationship between physical gesture, embodied cognition and perception and is realized using image processing and audio synthesis tools. Currently a lecturer in the MSc in music and media technologies in Trinity College Dublin, Mark is completing a PHD in embodied Music Cognition and Sonic Interaction design.

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www.interferencejournal.com

www.data.ie

Next Systems Session: The Prince and the Wolf

After a shorter first meeting the Systems seminar group will begin in earnest on Nov. 2^nd (2011) at the Gradcam building, (just off Thomas St.) and the next sessions this calendar year are Nov. 23^rd, Dec 14^th. Sessions begin at 5:15pm.

The general starting point of the seminar was “systems” thought of in connection with phenomenology, technology and the body. This has now expanded to include debates related to Speculative Realism/ Object Orientated Philosophy.

Specifically: as agreed, the key text this year will be the Harman and Latour debate in The Prince and the Wolf.

We’ll begin discussing this text at the next session and take things from there.

Further information and discussion will be channeled through this blog.

 I’d be most grateful if you could pass this on to anyone who may be interested – all are welcome.

System seminar continues

As the group discussed at our last meeting before the summer, the “System” seminar (subtitle: The body and its systems: phenomenology, technology and modernity) will take the Latour/ Harman debate as its sole theme.

So, we’ll be reading The Prince and the Wolf

 The dates are now set, and will not change. The 1^st session will be on Wed. Oct. 12^th (2011) at 5.15pm in the Gradcam Building, near to NCAD, Dublin. And will follow every three weeks after this.

Also, I want to channel all activity for the seminar through this blog. The previous discussions are available to view here on the old ACW site  NB - please don't post anything more here.

Please pass this on to anyone who you think will find it interesting and useful.