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Apply for Summer School: The Intersectional Posthumanities w/ Rosi Braidotti (Utrecht)

As longstanding collaborators of Rosi Braidotti’s Posthuman Summer School, we have with The Posthumanities Hub the pleasure to advertise this summer’s upcoming version of “The Intersectional Posthumanities,” Utrecht Summer School Course by Prof. Rosi Braidotti, from August 21 to 25, 2023.

Competition for registration is high so you are advised to apply early, as places are allocated on a first come, first served basis.

Deadline for applications: June 1, 2023

Course fee for students: €750 Course fee for non-students: €1000

For full details about the course and how to apply, please see below:

The Ai Music Generation Challenge 2023: “Artificial Music Traditions”

Associate Professor, Bob Sturm from KTH is putting on The Ai Music Generation Challenge 2023, which focuses on “Artificial Music Traditions”: https://github.com/boblsturm/aimusicgenerationchallenge2023


Unlike the previous three editions (202020212022), the 2023 challenge is focused on generating an artificial music tradition rather than generating a particular form of existing traditional music.

What is the challenge?

Use any kind of artificial intelligence (one system or many different systems) in any way to generate an artificial music tradition. This could entail symbolic music, audio recordings, lyrics, dances, imagery, costumes, myths, instruments, ephemera, websites, ethnomusicological or anthropological studies, and so on. To make this more concrete some possibilities could be:

  • Instrumental music from an imaginary country
  • Teetotaler songs of a Nordic community
  • Music to accompany royal visits to medieval garderobes
  • Alien music practices resulting from the discovery and “decoding” of the record on Voyager 1

Particular inspirations for the 2023 challenge include:

How?

  1. By SEPTEMBER 4, register your intent to participate by notifying the organizer.
  2. Start generating documentary evidence of your artificial music tradition.
  3. Write a document describing your team and technical process, as well as reflecting on issues surrounding cultural appropriation in the submitted work, and clarity regarding its use of data and its intentions.
  4. By DECEMBER 8, email the organizer:
  • a link to download the documentary evidence of your artificial music tradition.
  • your document (pdf).

Evaluation

One can see this challenge as a call for work to be considered for a future festival. The judges are “curators”, who are looking to create a compelling program of “music traditions” generated entirely by, or with the assistance of, artificial intelligence. This future festival aims to delve deep into theoretical and practical questions of the application of artificial intelligence to culture, raising awareness of the many issues and dilemmas involved, from the economic and political to the technological and (post)humanistic. The curators seek to programme works showcasing a diversity of approaches and outcomes, and are especially interested in multi-layered work crossing material boundaries, all the while using artificial intelligence in some way or another. The curators are not necessarily looking for finished or complete work, but instead work that has a clear connection to the theme of the festival, showing evidence of deep reflection on the associated issues, and that can contribute to engaging and productive discussion.

The curators retain the right to not programme submitted work for a variety of reasons, including a lack of transparency, a lack of consideration of the use of data from existing cultures, and so on.

Postdoc Position in Interactive AI for Interdisciplinary Artistic Practices

Assistant Professor, Kıvanç Tatar (Chalmers), and colleagues are looking for candidates for the position, Postdoc in Interactive AI for Interdisciplinary Artistic Practices at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. The deadline for applications is May 1st, 2023.

Description for the Position (provided by Dr. Tatar)

We are excited to share this position as a part of a new research group that I am initiating within my WASP-HS project. The focus of this Post-doctoral Fellowship is researching and understanding interactivity in the applications of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in interdisciplinary art and technology practices. The position responsibilities include research and development of novel interactive systems using machine learning and artificial intelligence for artistic applications such as live performances, artwork installations, tools for artistic practices etc. The research methodologies cover exciting approaches such as research through design, soma design, and post-phenomenology. The research perspective takes a multidisciplinary position to pursue discussions in aesthetics, ethics, and societal aspects of Artificial Intelligence. The candidate is expected to work closely with the current research group members while actively engaging with the development and establishment of the new research group.

We encourage candidates with a background in interdisciplinary Art and Technology topics, such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, evolutionary computation, computational creativity, co-creativity and augmented creativity with machines, embodied performance with technology, robotics, bio-art, music technology, sound synthesis, live coding, new interfaces for musical expression, musical performance, musical improvisation, virtual reality, augmented/extended reality, music-dance practices, cognitive science, cognitive and psychological computational models, human-computer interaction, soma-design, somaesthetics, etc.

This postdoc position is a full-time temporary employment for three years, and the expected start date is September 1st, 2023.

We are looking forward to receiving your applications. The full details of this position and the link to the application portal can be found at the official call.

Apply for Postdoc on Frictions between Data Infrastructure and Energy Grids

Please spread the word and apply for this excellent opportunity with associate professor Julia Velkova located at the Department of Technology and Social Change at LiU.

Post-Doc position on frictions between data infrastructure and energy grids

We are currently looking to hire a post-doc to join our new project  “Megabytes vs Megawatts: Understanding Infrastructural Frictions between Data Centers and Energy Grids for Sustainable Digitalization” funded by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation. 

The project aims to study societal conflicts and sociotechnical imaginaries around “sustainability” that arise at the intersection between energy-intense data infrastructure and energy grids in transition. The project draws upon interdisciplinary perspectives, combining critical studies of media infrastructures; environmental media; anthropology, and science and technology studies (STS). The postdoc is expected to conduct critical qualitative, empirical research, focusing on the interplay between data infrastructure and energy in relation to sustainability. Candidates with a wide variety of backgrounds are eligible for the position, including media studies, science and technology studies, anthropology, sociology, human geography, political science or related fields.

The post-doc position is full time, for 2 years with the possibility of extension up to a total maximum of three years. A certain amount of teaching will be part of the post-doc duties, up to a maximum of 20% of working hours.

Deadline to apply: 28 February
More information about the position and link to the application form:  https://liu.se/en/work-at-liu/vacancies/21055
More information about the project: http://juliavelkova.org/megabytes-vs-megawatts-data-vs-energy/

DUE 31 Dec. Conference CFP: “Narrating the Multispecies World. Stories in Times of Crises, Loss, Hope”

For those of you interested, consider submitting your work for this upcoming conference. Here are the details as provided by the organisers:

Narrating the Multispecies World. Stories in Times of Crises, Loss, Hope
August 3 to 5, 2023, University of Würzburg
An interdisciplinary, hybrid conference, organized by the Chair of European Ethnology


We are living in a multispecies world. Although the world is constantly changing, this change has accelerated extraordinarily in recent years, bringing forth substantial and manifold crises. Essentially caused by the capitalist pervasion of almost every part of our everyday, we are currently experiencing an increasing loss of diversity, particularly in the more-than-human world: due to changing circumstances in their original habitats, numerous living beings such as plants, insects, and mammals (including humans) migrate all over the world; some of them become extinct, and others are forced to adapt to new ecologies.

Narrating is a powerful practice. It allows us to understand what happens, and it enables us to shape the world, particularly in times of crises. Storytelling can also be seen as a practice of other-than-humans, as anthropologists Deborah Bird Rose and Thom van Dooren remind us of in their work. What are the stories of our multispecies world today? Which observations, needs, desires, dreams, nightmares, aspirations, and ethics are shared by narrating? Who is narrating which stories for whom, where, when? What is the role of the past, and which parts of our narrative heritage do we still maintain? What is the role of multispecies temporalities in narratives? What are the new powerful stories developing possibilities for a peaceful cohabitation in the multispecies world?

We are looking for critical scholarly studies and artistic projects focusing on narratives dealing with the effects of the current crises on the more-than-human world, particularly those involving more than one single species. The scope of possible topics is wide and ranges from the extinction of species, the loss of bio-diversity in the everyday lives, memories of former ecologies, historical experiences with extinction to present-day narratives about the returns of species and stories of the living together in emergent ecologies.
We will work with a broad concept of narrative culture to encompass, in addition to verbal art, diverse forms, genres, and media such as everyday narrations, films, fictional texts, multimodal artefacts, photographs, art installations, collages, inscription into landscapes etc. We invite scholars of any career level (including students) from different fields such as  

  • Ecocriticism
  • Econarratology
  • (Environmental) Humanities
  • Multispecies Studies
  • Extinction Studies
  • Cultural and Social Anthropology, European Ethnology, Visual Anthropology etc.
  • Literary Studies
  • Arts and Art History
  • History

Please send your proposal with your name and email-address until December 31, 2022 to: multispecies.conference@uni-wuerzburg.de
For more information, please visit: https://www.phil.uni-wuerzburg.de/eevk/multispecies-conference/

We can offer up to ten stipends of 500,00 Euros each to cover the cost for travel and accommodation of accepted speakers. Please inform us whether you are interested to apply for one of the grants when submitting your proposal. For those who will participate in person, we request a conference fee of 40,00 Euros for lunches and the conference dinner, and 20,00 Euros for the optional excursion, for which registration is needed.

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