First Annual Conference of the European Culture and Technology Lab+

Mission Statement

“Our human-centered conception of technology also has implications for research, which we address in the European Culture and Technology Lab+. True scientific achievements do not necessarily arise from the “fundamental” theoretical work of great thinkers, whose discoveries and results can then be “applied” by engineers and technicians to the messy material and economic world. We do not think in a vacuum. We do not build technology in a vacuum. Thinking is always thinking “about” - about people, about values, about actions, about objects in the immediate or distant environment. There is no fundamental difference between thinking about and acting upon, or between the fundamental and the applied. Technology too can be curiosity-driven. Whenever there is thinking there is an objective, and therefore there is technology.”

The First Annual Conference of the European Culture and Technology Lab+ 9th/10th Dec 2021
Technological University Dublin, (hybrid conference online and presential).

Confirmed Key notes speakers Carl Mitcham (Colorado School of Mines), Yuk Hui (City University of Hong Kong).
 

Techne logos and the (Neg) Anthropocene

The first annual Conference hosted by the European University of Technology and organized by the European culture and technology Laboratory ‘ECT Lab+’ aims to bring together experts from Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and Technology discussing on the idea of ‘Thinking Human First’. The papers for the conference should address selected areas that focus on the relation between technology and the (Neg) Anthropocene. The announcement of the Anthropocene by Paul Crutzen (Nobel) in February 2000, at the international geosphere- biosphere conference at Curenavaca, Mexico heralded the beginning of a new geological era, the new era (kainos) of human kind (anthropos). The impact of human kind on the planet was so great that it was changing the very geology of the planet earth. This is an intolerable condition and one which has to be overcome. There are two main schools of thought about the advent of the Anthropocene, one gives the origin with the development of human industrial technologies (1820s), from the second law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy, led to the development of the steam engine, which led to the development of the railway system, which in turn enabled the development of industrialization and the movement of goods. A second date of origin is the date of the grand acceleration of the modern consumer capitalism from the 1950s onwards. The 1950s is also the period when Erwin Schrödinger develops his conceptualisation of ‘negative entropy’ from biology (biosphere) in his lecture series ‘What is life’ and corresponds also to Shannon’s development of entropy of information systems (technosphere) and new modes of information as end product (Castells, 2000). Fourthly, with the development of planetary computational systems a new form of entropy (noosphere), the anthropic has appeared. As with Schrödinger, we could envisage the force of Life as negative entropy or what Bernard Stiegler et al (2020) have called a neganthropocence, a way of getting beyond the current predicament of imminent climate disaster with new forms of economy, research and new forms of technologies. The papers for the conference should address the following areas by focusing on the relation between technology and the (Neg) Anthropocene.

 

Call for papers

Please submit a 500-word abstract (excluding references) for a paper or artistic intervention
*Deadline extended to September 20th, 2021*

Please use the PDF-file format for submission and render your text completely anonymous (metadata included) to allow for blind refereeing. To submit your abstract, please use the EasyChair online submission system (first-time users will be asked to register with EasyChair): https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tela2021

The notification of acceptance is 1st October 2021 Proceeding of the conference will be published.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:
 

1. Climate Change, Collapsology and Biodiversity.
2. Noodiversity - diversity of forms of thinking (noetic),
3. Fourth Industrial Revolution
4. Affect and Emotion in Artificial Intelligence.
5. Ethical and Green AI.
6. Critical Data Studies, Software Studies, and Digital Studies.
7. Critical Speculative Design &Aesthetics.
8. Speculative Fabulations and Future Technological Imaginaries.
9. European Green Deal and technological development.
10. Ethics of responsible technological development.
11. Creative technology and critical maker culture.
12. Ethics of Care – securitas and new technologies.