[artinfo] Fwd: Beyond the Obvious 2018

[János Sugár]

Culture Action Europe is delighted to invite you to our upcoming
Beyond the Obvious Conference:

ctrl+shift HUMAN: Arts, Sciences and Technologies in Coded Societies

will take place in Timisoara, Romania from 25 to 27 October, 2018.

This will also include Culture Action Europe Members' Forum and 
Annual General Meeting (open for members only). More information 
about the programme and registrations will follow soon.

https://cultureactioneurope.org/news/save-the-date-beyond-the-obvious-2018/

			Code, algorithms and artificial intelligence 
complement the human condition, can solve problems, accelerate 
decision-making, and help complete complex tasks through 
self-learning processes. The framework in which these operate is 
often defined as a communication system that is universal, 
transparent, simple and accessible.
However, algorithmic processes are inscribed in our infrastructures 
and, beyond the purely functional transmission and transformation of 
the data, they often work invisibly, shaping and influencing social, 
cultural, economical and political spheres and redefining our 
individual and common identities.
Beyond the Obvious (BtO) Conference 2018, entitled ctrl+shift HUMAN: 
Arts, Sciences and Technologies in Code Dependent Societies will 
focus on that paradigm: between the fascination generated by the 
possibilities of this hybrid and augmented condition bring, and the 
awareness of the new patterns that leads to redefinitions of 
creativity, disciplines, representation, globalization, production, 
labor within the framework of an increasing code dependence.
We will look also into the environmental impacts of the cultural and 
media content and data generation, storage and transfer. Algorithmic 
processes require ever-increasing infrastructures, supported by 
networks of servers, putting pressure on available natural resources 
and on the physical environment where citizens, cultures and states 
develop.
Approaching these issues means being able to recognize the strategic 
importance of creating a wider outlook beyond disciplinary silos, 
including arts, sciences, education, research, etc. that encourages 
the enormous possibilities of crossing knowledge and the mediation 
through sectors. That includes discussions of the levels of policy 
intervention and funding - local, national and European -how to build 
synergies between them and how to foster collaborations between 
different agents and institutions.
For doing so, we will bring together various approaches, experiences 
and practices from the fields of arts and culture, sciences, 
technologies, activisms, theory and politics, to explore possible 
cross-disciplinary answers and diverse actions towards the 
challenging relations between Technology and Humans. How to keep our 
humanity in this and find new forms of sense making in a post 
productive and global society? What are the new models in those 
relations, and which role does culture, the arts and the education 
play? Are our institutions ready for it, aware of their new role? 
Which organizations and policies are needed to foster alternative, 
trans-sectorial and intercultural competences?

TAGS:  AI, Anthropocene, Algorithms, Cultural Policies, Data 
Harvesting, Data Forensics, Decision Making Processes, Identities, 
Media Competences, Posthumanism, Research, Science-Fiction, STEAM, 
STAD.


GOALS: ctrl+shift HUMAN: Arts, Sciences and Technologies in Coded 
Societies aims to achieve the following goals


METHODOLOGY: Beyond the obvious is a participatory, cross- and 
inter-disciplinary conference. We bring speakers from various 
approaches, experiences and practices, including the arts and 
culture, science, technology, activism, theory, and politics