We are reaching out to you as an artist who creates inspiring work involving AI, and would like to invite you to participate in an interview study. It would mean the world to us in this WASP-HS research project AI and the Artistic Imaginary!
Our research team at KTH (and LiU) is working on a project that investigates sustainability and ethics of Creative-AI. Our goal is to understand how creative practitioners are using AI technologies in their work processes, and to reflect on this from sustainability and ethics perspectives. Our interviews are expected to inform Creative-AI practitioners (artists as well as engineers) working in the field.
In the future, we plan to expand this to other forms of collaborations (workshops, design and development of Creative-AI systems, etc.) with interested artists.
Some basic information about the interviews:
Interview takes approximately 1 hour and will be conducted at an agreed-upon time (flexible) on Zoom.
Research is anonymized/pseudonymized and your data will be treated according to GDPR guidelines
The interview will be recorded (audio, video) for internal analysis purposes
Transcriptions and other anonymized material will be shared for non-commercial purposes only
We can provide a voucher as a gesture of gratitude for your time and effort.
Please let us know if you would be interested in participating in our study, and do not hesitate to ask for further information. Don’t be shy – email us, Petra and Anna-Kaisa!
Wishing you a nice summer!
Kind regards,
Petra Jääskeläinen (researcher) – email: ppja@kth.se
Online Lecture series: Sculpture on a Burning Planet Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts, Helsinki
Our planet is literally burning, and our present-day Neros are certainly fiddling. Distracted by war and egotistical power struggles, our leaders do nothing to effectively slow climate change. Energy shortages caused by the war in Ukraine lead to renewed exploitation of fossil fuel reserves. Weather systems have become more extreme and destructive – and not just in the usual “hurricane belt” – Europe, China, and Northern America have all seen extreme drought and flooding again this last year. These “once in a hundred years” phenomena are now the new normal. Exploration and mining for rare-earth elements for so-called “clean energy” puts increasing pressure on pristine wilderness and indigenous people’s lands. How do artists and the art world react to these developments? The international art world itself is driven by carbon-hungry practices, in the production, presentation, and marketing of artists and artworks. In this lecture series, four renowned experts (philosophers, artists, and researchers) present hopeful possibilities for future artistic practise in this age of environmental crisis.
Photo: Mirko Nikolić
Wednesday 21 September Elisa Aaltola: Philosophy of Love and the Nonhuman World Wednesday 5 October Pia Lindman: Chill Survive Network Wednesday 26 October mirko nikolić: After Extractivism in the Semi-periphery Wednesday 16 November Maarit Mäkelä: Working with Soil
The series is presented by Professor Andy Best, Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts, Helsinki All lectures start at 17.00 (GMT +2) and are held online using the Zoom platform. They are free and open to all. The language of presentation is English. Please remember to use the passcode to access the meeting, and keep your mic muted unless asking a question. Wednesday 21 September 2022, 17.00 – 19.00 (GMT +2, Helsinki) https://uniarts.zoom.us/j/65689597891 Passcode: 422930
Elisa Aaltola: Philosophy of Love and the Nonhuman World Discussions concerning the climate crisis often ignore nonhuman viewpoints. Yet, it is predominantly nonhuman animals, who suffer most from a warming climate, whether by undergoing agonizing deaths in forest fires, struggling due to loss of habitat or by facing species extinction. The lecture focuses on how moral love holds the potential of reminding us of other-than-human perpectives. Two philosophical definitions of love (by Plato and Iris Murdoch) will be introduced, and the role of art in evoking love toward animals will be mapped out. Can art make us fall in love with the nonhuman world? Elisa Aaltola, PhD, works as a senior researcher and adjunct professor in philosophy at the University of Turku, Finland. Her research has focused on animal philosophy and normative moral psychology. Aaltola has published 12 books on these topics, including Esseitä eläimistä (Into 2022), Varieties of Empathy: Moral Psychology and Animal Ethics (Rowman & Littlefield 2018) and Animal Suffering: Philosophy and Culture (Palgrave MacMillan 2012). In 2021 she was awarded the Pro Animalia Prize for her life’s work for animals, and in 2022 she was awarded the Reformer of the Year Prize by Maailman Kuvalehti. https://www.utu.fi/en/people/elisa-aaltola https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisa_Aaltola Wednesday 5 October 2022, 17.00 – 19.00 (GMT +2, Helsinki)
Pia Lindman: Chill Survive Network https://uniarts.zoom.us/j/65300671383 Passcode: 024187 Chill Survive Network is a platform for mutual exchange and collaboration between researchers, curators, artists, and institutions in the North-beyond-the-global-North. We engage in human and nonhuman entanglements and the development of new strategies, tactics, methodology and language that speak to our present ecological crisis. The objective is to explore, learn, mediate, cope with the future transformations in the Arctic. The network consists of several physical and online meetings including seminars and workshops. Pia Lindman as artist and researcher works with performance art, healing-as-art, installation, microbes, architecture, painting, and sculpture. In “Nose, Ears, Eyes“ (Sao Paulo Biennale, 2016) Lindman gave treatments to members of the audience and made paintings based on the visions she saw during these treatments. As Professor of Environmental Art at Aalto University from 2013 to 2018, Lindman initiated the art/science network Chill Survive focusing on the Arctic and organised the first global Radical Relevances Conference (2018). Since 2017, Lindman is doctoral candidate at the program of Nordic Cultures and Environmental Politics at Lapland University researching her concept of the subsensorial. A result of many years of investigation into the body and its place within the cultural space, Lindman’s work now moves beyond the human body proper to multiple realms of organic and inorganic life. http://pialindman.com/ https://chillsurvive.org/ Wednesday 26 October 2022, 17.00 – 19.00 (GMT +2, Helsinki) https://uniarts.zoom.us/j/62121956520 Passcode: 813978
mirko nikolić: After Extractivism in the Semi-periphery As the climate and ecological crises escalate, the metal mining sector is attempting to position itself as a fundamental provider of materials for the “energy transition.” Never before seen quantities of minerals are projected to substitute fossil fuels in the quest for lower-carbon and cleaner energy, transport and infrastructure technologies. While possibly reducing the carbon footprint of material use, the effects of mining on water, air, human and more-than-human communities are less visible in the technocratic discourses and calculations. Well documented are mining industry’s deep relations with colonialism, imperialism and related social engineering techniques of militarisation, policing, racism and sexism. Mining as part of a larger set of strategies of large- and long-term use of “natural resources” coagulates in the logics of extractivism. The concept and discussion was born in Latin America, but has since travelled across fields and geographies to tell many histories and illuminate a multitude of alternative world-making projects. In the discussion we will explore how the evolving notions of extractivism and alternatives relate to our life, work and being. mirko nikolić (Institute for Culture & Society, Linköping University) works through text, place-based performance and organising, often in different collaborative constellations and collectives, in solidarity with climate and environmental justice efforts. Since 2015, the principal focus of activity has been tracing the impacts of “mining booms” in North and South-East Europe, and non-extractivist alternatives from below. https://minoritarianecologi.es/ https://www.hiap.fi/resident/mirko-nikolic/ https://liu.se/en/employee/mirni99 Wednesday 16 November 2022, 17.00 – 19.00 (GMT +2, Helsinki) https://uniarts.zoom.us/j/62423118318 Passcode: 576714
Maarit Mäkelä: Working with Soil Recently I spent one year in New-Zealand. Because of its volcanic nature, the place offered diverse raw materials that were suitable for ceramics making. The core of my creative practice became the natural environment and the earth samples – sand, stones, and clay – I gathered during my walks. The materials were processed further in the studio and then used as raw materials for ceramics. The lecture presents this ‘seed’ project with four interrelated projects where these practices are used in urban context. Three of the projects were conducted together with Working with soil group: first took place in Research Pavilion #3 in the context of Venice Biennale 2019; second in Design Museum Helsinki 202 0-2021; third in Espoo Museum of Modern Art EMMA 2021-2022. All the projects discuss the entangled relationship between human and soil from different perspective. The fourth project is ongoing research with the aim of learning how to use geopolymers to work with soil matters with the result of construction that would not need firing. Doctor of Arts Maarit Mäkelä is an Associate Professor of Practice-led Design Research at Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Finland, where she is leading EMPIRICA research group and Contemporary Design master programme. Her own creative practice locates in the context of contemporary ceramics. She uses her own ceramics making as an embodied, slow practice through which to (re)consider the entangled relationship between human and non-human realms in the context of soil. Her current research interest lies in collaborative creative processes, especially how craft-based practices can be used for raising critical discourse around the stage of the environment. She has published and exhibited widely in international arenas. https://www.maaritmakela.com/ https://empirica.aalto.fi/traces-from-the-anthropocene
A series of lectures and concerts devoted to the themes of the MUSAiC Project and beyond! How can one judge applications of artificial intelligence (AI) to music along dimensions of utility, impact, and ethics? How do creative AI systems affect the use and worth of music in particular contexts? How can ethical considerations be folded into the engineering and application of these kinds of systems? Should there be “laws of AI” that make explicit the responsibility of the AI technologist to the domains where the technology is to be applied? What creative possibilities are hindered or facilitated by the “flaws” of an AI system’s knowledge of music?
Confirmed Keynotes
Jonathan Sterne, Professor and James McGill Chair in Culture and Technology
Cecilia Åsberg, Professor and director of the Posthumanities Hub, Linköping University
Eric A Drott, Associate Professor of Theory, University of Texas at Austin
Wow, we are growing as a research group! Exciting things may be lurking ahead – and challenges for extra-ordinary academics like us. This is why we work together: to support each other and do really inventive, good quality research and edgy research training across the borders of nations, disciplines and universities. Together, apart and in various constellations with other curious research partners.
Call for our first meeting this term, dears!
A warm welcome to all you group members for our first zoom meeting this term, Thursday 1 Sep, 13:15 hrs! Group members and team on location – this is who we are whom work in the closer group. Zoom link will be sent out over email.
September 1 we launch this new fall term of 2022 with a group meeting where new postdoc researchers and visiting scholars say hello, and we meet and greet and discuss our priorities and themes for the year ahead. The Posthumanities Hub research group members commit often to the group one year at the time (with parts of their research), except of course for the PhD candidates and postdocs or more senior research staff whom have longer employment contracts – and visiting scholars who are with us for shorter periods. Together we set the living agenda for online webinars this fall, applications we do best together or for other co-written efforts of research.
Thank you for making the time and the space in your schedules and hearts for the off-road activities of The Posthumanities Hub.
The Faculty of Humanities is looking for a new chair in Gender Studies with a strong, recognised international reputation, whose outstanding qualifications in research and teaching are reflected in an interdisciplinary vision of the field. The chair can articulate an inspired ambition for the development of research, teaching, and public engagement from a humanities perspective of feminist critical theory in relation to questions of diversity and inclusion for contemporary societal and institutional transformations.
The chair is expected to play a leading role in the further development of Gender Studies education and research in the context of Utrecht University’s interdisciplinary strategic themes (Institutions for Open Societies, Dynamics of Youth, and Pathways to Sustainability). In particular, the chair is willing to play a leading role in Institutions for Open Societies’ Diversity & Inclusion and Inequality platforms. As such, the new chair in Gender Studies contributes to the realisation of the strategic plans at the level of the department, the faculty, and Utrecht University, with respect to teaching, research, as well as public engagement and societal impact.
