Demons in the Machine
Orit Halpern and Matteo Pasquinelli in conversation
Scholar of digital cultures Orit Halpern and philosopher Matteo Pasquinelli discuss the potentials and pitfalls of today’s increasingly algorithmic reality and the demons that inhabit its apparatus. Both AI and smart cities are reactions to mounting crises and accumulating traumas, designed to handle an information overload and enforce a securitized reality. How can we prevent digital augmentation from acting as a malignant force, how can we better understand its (predigital) roots and predefined structures?
Orit Halpern is full professor and chair of digital cultures at Technische Universität Dresden. Her work bridges the histories of science, computing, and cybernetics with design. Halpernʼs first monograph, Beautiful Data: A History of Vision and Reason (Duke University Press, 2015), investigates histories of big data, design, and governmentality. Her latest book The Smartness Mandate (MIT Press, 2022), cowritten with Robert Mitchell, traces our obsession with smart technologies and artificial intelligence.
Matteo Pasquinelli is professor of media philosophy at the University of Arts and Design Karlsruhe, where he coordinates the research group on Artificial Intelligence and Media Philosophy (KIM). His research focuses on the intersection of the philosophy of mind, political economy, and the automation of knowledge and cultural production. He has written the monograph The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence (Verso, 2023) and coedited Alleys of Your Mind: Augmented Intelligence and Its Traumas (Meson Press, 2015).
7.10., 17:00
Forum Stadtpark
Stadtpark 1
8010 Graz ♿
Free admission
Registration: tickets [at] steirischerherbst.at
In English