Criticisms of media have become an essential component for the academic debate over social and power-related structures. Usually, they focus the contents of the media, and not their technology. But what about the critical analysis of the technological apparatus itself? How can we make explicit what has been tacitly built into the devices and the infrastructures that we rely on in our daily lives? What is it that makes technology relevant for our understanding of environmental problems, labor relations and other issues?
This discussion group is open to participants from all disciplines. Its goal is the establishing of connections between PhD graduates, PhD students and Master’s candidates who strive to augment the existing critique of media contents by a new critical perspective centered on technology.
The group holds monthly meetings at the Humboldt University’s media theory department to discuss academic positions and read influential, as well as new literature on this subject.
The next meeting is on January 19 at 6 pm at the Humboldt University’s media theory department (Georgenstr. 47, room 0.09). Please read pages 1 and 2 from Bostrom/Yudkowsky, The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (PDF). To start the discussion, there will be a hands-on presentation of an artificial intelligence program from 1986 on a C64 computer.
For more information, please contact the organizer Nikita Braguinski.