Tag Archives: Culture

AI will soon become impossible for humans to comprehend – the story of neural networks tells us why

David Beer is Professor of Sociology at the University of York, UK. His most recent book is ‘The Tensions of Algorithmic Thinking: Automation, Intelligence and the Politics of Knowing’ (published by Bristol University Press).
David’s research explores how transformations in technology and media have reshaped culture and society. In recent years his work has focused mainly upon questions around the politics of data, metrics and algorithms. In addition to this, he also works on the history and future of social thought.
He serves on the editorial boards of the journals Theory, Culture & Society; Information, Communication & Society; Cultural Sociology; and Big Data & Society.

Futurists predict a point where humans and machines become one. But will we see it coming?

John Kendall Hawkins is a Philosopher at the University of New England.
“I am an American ex-pat poet and freelance journalist and lifelong student currently residing in Oceania. I’m a philosopher — panpsychism, so residing, when you think about it, everywhere.”
He is a former reporter for The New Bedford Standard-Times, and a former columnist for the Prague Post. His poetry has won multiple awards, including the Academy of Ameican Poets prize in 1984 and the Deakin Literary Award in 1998.

Sandy Boucher is a Lecturer in the Philosophy of Science at the University of New England, NSW Australia.
“My research interests are mainly in the philosophy of biology (especially functions and teleology, the units of selection, species, natural kinds, macroevolution and paleobiology) and general philosophy of science (especially the scientific realism debate), but I also work on issues in metaphilosophy and epistemology. Current research projects include work on pragmatism in the scientific realism debate; arguments for realism about the units of selection; the role of values in science; and naturalised metaphysics.”

Vital Signs

Judith Alder is a British visual artist with a multi-faceted practice, working across a range of media and processes. Central to her work is a fascination with biology, physics and the history of scientific endeavour and science fiction. Alder is interested in how an understanding of life, its origins and evolution can help us think about the future of our rapidly changing world. She sees her work as a means of exploring and communicating complex ideas. In her latest show, ‘Vital Signs’, she assembles a body of interconnected works grounded in research and inspired by accessible science communicators and visionary writers like HG Wells, Primo Levi, Kazuo Ishiguro and Stanislaw Lem.

Lise Autogena & Joshua Portway – Foghorn Requiem

Lise Autogena and Joshua Portway have worked together since the early 1990’s, developing large scale performances, multimedia installations and site-specific work, usually in collaboration with organizations and experts across many specialized fields. In 2013 they developed ‘Foghorn Requiem’, a requiem for disappearing sound, performed by the Souter Lighthouse foghorn, three brass bands and fifty ships out in the North Sea. In this interview with art and ecology author, John K. Grande, they discuss this work as well as their other projects.

Ways of Seeing at 50: an icy blast of a book about male voyeurism, art, capitalism and so much more

Joanna Mendelssohn is Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne. Her first book was the seminal study on Sydney Long (1979). This was followed by a series of studies on Lionel Lindsay. Her most recent book, co-authored with Catherine De Lorenzo, Alison Inglis and Catherine Speck, is Australian Art Exhibitions: Opening our eyes, (T&H 2018). This project is the culmination of an ARC Linkage Project with UNSW, University of Melbourne and University of Adelaide in partnership with the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of South Australia and Museums Australia.

The Bride Stripped Bare: Esoteric Origins for Duchamp’s Large Glass

Hidden as it was for such a long time, Marcel Duchamp’s ‘The Large Glass’, is an esoteric work of art in two ways: first, its private nature, and second, its coded content. This essay by Jacquelynn Baas, a renowned curator, cultural historian, scholar and writer, contains groundbreaking research on Duchamp, Kashmir Shaivism, and Western Esotericism. Her aim is not to furnish a detailed key or step by step guide to Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Large Glass’, as others have attempted to do, but rather to provide a wider global context for interpreting ‘The Large Glass’ and assessing its cultural significance.

Time Traveller: Donald Burgy’s journey from the far future to the distant past

Donald Burgy has been well-known for his futuristic conceptual artworks for more than 50 years. Much less known is his recent work on the interpretation of prehistoric drawings. This essay considers his recent work as a necessary complement to the earlier work and identifies a fundamental change in Burgy’s understanding of the relationship between art and science as part of this complementarity.

COVID-19: Thinking with Art

Matej Peljhan is a clinical psychologist by profession and works as a psychotherapist. He holds the title ‘Master of Photography’, which is the highest title you can obtain in Slovene photography. He has presented his work at 20 independent exhibitions in Slovenia and abroad, and has received over a hundred prizes.

In his photographic series, COVID-19: THINKING WITH ART, he closely monitored the changes and consequences that occur in the mental and social life of people during a pandemic.

ART FOR YOUR WORLD

Art For Your World is a new campaign for WWF, led by curatorial practice Artwise, to mobilise and unite the art world in the fight against the climate crisis. From practising artists to commercial galleries, cultural centres to museums and beyond, this is a wide call to action for the cultural sector to come together with a united voice to say that climate change matters and we must act now. As part of the Art For Your World campaign, WWF commissioned three limited edition prints from acclaimed artists Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Heather Phillipson and Bob and Roberta Smith.