Aroud Simulation
Natasha
Vita-More natasha AT natasha.cc
Leonardo/OLATS, Co Sponsor of YASMIN is pleased to announce
AROUND SIMULATION
A YASMIN discussion January/February 2010
Discussion at :
http://estia.media.uoa.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions
or
follow on the blog:
http://yasminlist.blogspot.com/
AROUND SIMULATION
Moderators:
Pier-Luigi Capucci and Jennifer Kanary Nikolov(a)
Invited
Discussants: Louis Bec, Karin Bervoets,Wafa Bourkhis, Roberta Buiani
,Derrick de Kerckhove ,
Michele Emmer, Laura Gemini ,Derek Hales,Margarete
Jahrmann,Ignazio Licata,Giuseppe O. Longo,
Cristina Trivellin,Natasha
Vita-More,
We extensively use and live into simulation. In our everyday life we imagine situations, events, projects and decline them to the future: we simulate possible worlds and test them in a sort of permanent “what if” which is continuously reworked and modified. This process has been methodologically formalized in the sciences, where we build models, simulations, which try to describe facts, events and phenomena. Models and simulations have a very important cognitive role in knowing and understanding the world we live in.
Simulations are in the way we represent the world, in tools like photography, cinema, and video. It is in the visualization systems we use to model any types of processes (natural, social...). It is in the images we use to communicate, in the computer built stories like the recent movie “Avatar” by Cameron. Simulations doesn’t only refer to images but to sounds too, since the sound synthesis, the acoustic effects, the multitrack recording studio’s possibilities literally build the sound of an artist, creating a sound space which is totally independent from the real, synchronous and direct dimension of the live concert. Moreover simulations can refer to other senses too, involving the taste, the smell and the touch as well, playing a pivotal role in communication and creation.
But there are also other kinds of simulations that could be called “behaviour simulations”. Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Life, Robotics simulate the behaviour of the living organisms. Sometimes certain complex behaviours of the living organisms spontaneously may emerge in robotics, A-Life, synthetic biology, showing a sort of “third life” in evolution.
So, what is simulation? How does it work? Does it only stick to human representations or visualizations or does it refer to a more general realm? What are the layers (technological, social, imaginative, conventional) that construct simulation? Which conflicts and power relations (in material or technological and sociocultural terms) are involved in their construction? And how do we make sense of them? Can these mechanisms be modified, enhanced, re-elaborated through artistic practice?
Maybe you can find some insights in this paper (“Simulation as a Global Resource”) I presented to Consciousness Reframed X in Munich the last November, which you can find here ( http://www.noemalab.org/sections/ideas/ideas_articles/capucci_simulation_global_resource.html ).
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The simulation topic on Yasmin will be moderated by Jennifer Kanary Nikolova and Pier Luigi Capucci.
Pier Luigi Capucci plc AT noemalab.org
Since the early ‘80 Pier Luigi
Capucci has been concerned with the communication’s studies, the new media and
the art forms, and the relations among arts, sciences and technologies.
Currently he is professor at the University of Urbino, at the SUPSI - University
of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, at the NABA in Milan, and
supervisor in the M-Node PhD Research Program of the Planetary Collegium. In
1994 he founded and directed the first italian online magazine. He is the
director of Noema, a web magazine devoted to culture-sciences-technologies
interrelations.
Jennifer Kanary Nikolov(a) jenniferkanary AT yahoo.com
Jennifer's current PhD at Plymouth
University, Planetary Collegium, aims to improve psychosis simulations developed
in a scientific context by suggesting a new immersive model that makes use of
installation art techniques: The Labyrinth Psychotica. Jennifer is currently the
main tutor of the Honours Program Art and Research, an experimental
collaboration between the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and The University of
Amsterdam.
We have the following confirmed discussants (in alphabetical order):
Louis Bec louis.bec.isrp AT wanadoo.fr
Louis Bec is an artist and a
biologist and his research was focused on the study of the interrelationships
among art and science, keen on a dialogue between the biological evolution and
the new simulated life forms. His research is keen in new zoomorph typologies
and communication ways between natural and artificial species. He was the first
to introduce the issues of artificial life in the artistic research, and in this
field he collaborated with many scholars, scientists and artists, among others
with the philosopher Vilém Flusser.
Karin Bervoets moyao63 AT t-online.de
Karin Bervoets, high school and
some philosophical studies in Munich, followed by medical studies in Berlin
& Jerusalem, MD, 1989-1994 scientific research and clinical work, university
hospital Berlin & Frankfurt, since 1997 in his own private clinic for
chinese medicine and systemic therapy, mainly working on infertility issues with
acupuncture, chinese herbal medicine and psychotherapy. Interests: Research on
Consciousness, Neurosciences, NeuroArt.
Wafa Bourkhis w_bourkhis
AT msn.com
Wafa Bourkhis is a painter, engraver,
Digital and SL Artist. Phd Student in University of Tunis and University of
Artois (France). Born and live in Tunisia (North Africa) and work as teacher of
fine arts.
Roberta Buiani robb AT yorku.ca
Roberta Buiani received her PhD in
Communication and Cultural Studies from York University (Canada), where she
completed a dissertation on the cultural significance of computer viruses and on
the viral aspects of tactical media and online activism. Calling for a sustained
critical analysis of science and technology, her work asks the question “why
should we take the technologies we encounter on a daily basis as a given?” She
published her work in Parachute, Fibreculture, Public, and The Spam Book (eds.
Parikka and Sampson).
Derrick de Kerckhove d.dekerckhove AT utoronto.ca
Derrick de Kerckhove, Director of
the McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology. His books are translated in a
dozen languages including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Polish and Slovenian. He
was a member of several government task forces on developing a
telecommunications policy, designing a cultural policy for the francophone
community in Ontario, and also appeared before the CRTC Public Hearing Committee
on the Information Highway. Starting in January 2007, he is in Italy to engage a
three year national Fellowship “Rientro dei cervelli”, at the Faculty of
Sociology of the University Federico II in Naples.
Michele Emmer
emmer AT mat.uniroma1.it
Michele Emmer
is full professor of mathematics at the University of Rome "La Sapienza".
Filmmaker, his movies in the series "Art and Math" have been broadcasted by the
State Italian television and distributed in many countries in english, french,
spanish. He organized several events on "Art and Mathematics", including the
annual conference on "Mathematics and Culture" at the University of Venice, the
exhibitions and conferences on M.C. Escher (1985 and 1998) at the University of
Rome and the section on Space at the Venice Biennale (1986). He has been
responsible for the math section at the Science Center in Naples and for many
other travelling exhibitions on math.
Laura Gemini laura.gemini AT
uniurb.it
Laura Gemini is a researcher at the
University of Urbino "Carlo Bo", Faculty of Sociology, member of the Research
Lab for Advanced Communication - LaRiCA, member of the Dept. of Communication
Studies. Media, languages, spectacle. Professor of Sociology of Theatre and
Spectacle and Theory and Practises of Contemporary Imagery. Her interests
concern contemporary imagery supported by media with peculiar attention on
travel and artistic performances.
Derek Hales hales.derek AT gmail.com
Derek Hales is an architect and
researcher. He works on interdisciplinary studies in culture and innovation
including R&D commissions, public events and creative
labs.
Margarete Jahrmann margarete.jahrmann AT zhdk.ch
Margarete Jahrmann, artist and journalist,
studied at the Vienna University of Applied Arts and at the Gerrit Rietveld
Academy Amsterdam. Since 1994 she has realized a variety of CD-ROMs, net
projects, Superfem online performances, and Web 3D projects. Jahrmann is
co-founder of Konsum.net, an art server. Her university teaching positions
include the University for Applied Arts (Vienna), the University for Artistic
and Industrial Design (Linz), and the University for Design and Art
(Zürich).
Ignazio Licata ignazio.licata AT ejtp.info
Ignazio Licata is a theoretical
physicist and epistemologist, Director of the Institute for Scientific
Methodology for Interdisciplinary Studies (ISEM), Palermo. His work spans from
foundations of Quantum Physics to Emergence theories and Complex Systems, Mind
& Life Physics and Biomorphic Computing. The interest for Maturana and
Varela, Bateson and Goodman works led him to study the relations between art and
science considered as the cognitive attitude in seeing by representations of an
“immersed-in-the-world” observer. On this he edited “Unexpected Connections. The
Science/Art Crossing”, Politi, Milan, 2009.
Giuseppe O. Longo
giuseppe.longo41 AT gmail.com
Giuseppe O.
Longo is an information theoretician, epistemologist and writer. He contributed
to the diffusion of mathematical information theory in Italy. He has done
reasearch mainly in source coding theory. Currently, his interests involve
artificial intelligence, roboethics and the relationships between man and
computer, art and science, science and technology, cognition and ethics. He
translated works by Gregory Bateson, Marvin Minsky, Douglas Hofstadter and
others into Italian. As a writer, he has published novels, short stories and
theatre pieces translated in several languages.
Cristina
Trivellin critriv AT alice.it
Cristina
Trivellin graduates in Humanities at Bologna University. Journalist, curator,
she is the editorial coordinator of D’Ars magazine. She designed, curated and
set up exhibitions and cultural events in Italy and abroad, mainly focused on
young artists and new media art. She is a member of AICA (International
Association of Art Critics). She will pick up and collect the most important
discussion topics to eventually get them published.
Natasha
Vita-More natasha AT natasha.cc
Natasha Vita-More, media artist and
theorist, PhD research concerns human enhancement and radical life extension.
Natasha's design "Primo Posthuman" has been featured in Wired, LAWeekly, The New
York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Net Business, Teleopolis, and The
Village Voice and over twenty-four televised documentaries. Currently, Natasha
is a fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, a Visiting
Scholar at 21st Century Medicine, Advisor to the Singularity University, Board
of Directors for Humanity Plus, Scientific Board of the Lifeboat Foundation, and
Advisor to the Alcor Foundation and Kenya SIYM International.