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 ViennaDaphne 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
