Ludic Method Soirée: Daphne Dragona / Oliver Schürer
[S]care Wolves
- a social play performance with the humanoid care robot "pepper"
The theory and practice
of artistic research are concerned with specific ways to approach art, science and epistemic things. Their goals are sometimes
written fictitiously, presented in playful formats and made public in processes of exchange. The methods of artistic research
comprise – in a structural coupling – contradictions, a joyful science and an associative memory play. Ludic agency
is caused by ongoing psychophysical soirées — the next taking place on 19th November, 7 pm. Ludic Method is presented in a
coupling of public lectures and performative play.We embrace gaya sciencia and cognitive settings.
Ludic Method
Soirées. Activist research practice lecture series in playful formats.
Hosted by Prof. Margarete Jahrmann, artistic
PhD program, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Daphne Dragona
is a curator and writer based in Berlin. Through her work, she focuses on artistic practices, methodologies and pedagogies
that challenge contemporary forms of power. Among her topics of interest are: the controversies of connectivity, the promises
of the commons, the challenges of artistic subversion, the instrumentalization of play, the problematics of care and empathy,
and the potential of kin-making technologies in the time of climate crisis. Her exhibitions have been hosted at the National
Museum of Contemporary Art (Athens), Aksioma (Ljubljana), Onassis Stegi (Athens), Le Lieu Unique (Nantes), Goethe Institut
Athen, and Laboral (Gijon). Articles of hers have been published by Springer, Springerin, Sternberg Press, Meson Press and
Leonardo Electronic Almanac, while talks of hers have been hosted at Mapping Festival (Geneva), MoMa (New York), Hek (Basel),
Arts in Society (London), Leuphana University (Lueneburg) and Goethe University (Frankfurt). Dragona was the conference curator
of transmediale from 2015 until 2019. She holds a PhD from the Department of Communicaton and Media Studies of the University
of Athens.
From devices of play to technologies of care
How much do we know about or reflect
upon automated care? What happens when cute robots, artificial human companions and intelligent assistants of all kinds become
part of our everyday life? Playful and tireless, such machines can continuously learn from us and respond to our desires and
needs. Providing services of a machinic and affective character, they come in perfect accordance with the neoliberal call
for optimisation and self-care.They challenge the relationships between humans and machines, and they are introduced as affective
infrastructures that can assist on an individual and societal level. The talk will address the challenges of the emerging
technologies of care, bringing into the discussion artistic responses and critical perspectives. Special attention will be
payed to the instrumentalisation and commodification of care but also play, with references to works and topics that were
discussed in the framework of transmediale festival 2019, the exhibition Tomorrows (Le Lieu Unique 2019), and the Engineering
Care Web Residencies by Solitude & ZKM.
Oliver Schürer is a researcher, curator, editor and
author as well as Senior Scientist and Deputy Director at the Institute for Architecture Theory and Philosophy of Technology
at the Vienna University of Technology. Since 2009 he is developing architecture theory as well as theory of technics by means
of techno-aesthetic experiments. In 2014 he founded the transdisciplinary research group H.A.U.S. (Humanoids in Architecture
and Urban Spaces). Researchers from the domains of architecture, automation technology, HRI, computer science, AI research,
music, media arts, dance, psychology and philosophy research on aspects of social robotics and social AI in lifeworlds. h-a-u-s.org
Human[oid[ ]s]care
The topic is articulated twice in this short lecture: as robot dance performances
and as human-robot interaction experiments. In the dance performances, intimacy and power relations with autonomous machines
are brought to the spectators experience as well as discussed aesthetically. In the experiments, Wittgenstein's philosophical
language-game is getting spatialized, together by both, a humanoid robot and a person. By means of verbal and non-verbal communication
they initiate the constitution of a model of space in an artificial intelligence system. This so called architecture-space-game
emerges a cultural-spatial-model, meant to be harnessed for the empowerment of vulnerable persons in care.
Zentrum
Fokus Forschung dieAngewandte Vienna
19.11.2019
19 Uhr
Rustenschacherallee 2-4
1020 Wien
