Posts tagged philosophy

New book: Time and the Digital

This study contributes to an understanding of the new temporal experiences emergent in our interactions with digital technologies. Of interest to scholars in the fields of art and media theory and philosophy of technology, as well as new media artists.

Author: Timothy Scott Barker, lecturer in digital media at the University of Glasgow.

Published by: Dartmouth College Press.

SUMMARY - Eschewing the traditional focus on object/viewer spatial relationships, Timothy Scott Barker’s Time and the Digital stresses the role of the temporal in digital art and media. The connectivity of contemporary digital interfaces has not only expanded the relationships between once separate spaces but has increased the complexity of the temporal in nearly unimagined ways. Invoking the process philosophy of Whitehead and Deleuze, Barker strives for nothing less than a new philosophy of time in digital encounters, aesthetics, and interactivity.

Preview: http://bit.ly/SEkvL7

Purchase: http://www.upne.com/1611682991.html

Article: Pervasion of what? Techno–human ecologies and their ubiquitous spirits

Are the robots coming? Will we be dominated by technology? The usual response to ethical issues raised by pervasive and ubiquitous technologies assumes a philosophical anthropology, separating humans from technology and the natural from the artificial. This paper explores an alternative, less modern vision of the ‘‘technological’’ future based on different assumptions: a ‘‘deep relational’’ view of human being and self, an ecological view of human–technology relations, and ‘‘ubiquitous’’ spirituality.

Author: Mark Coeckelbergh, Department of Philosophy, University of Twente, The Netherlands.

Published in Springer journal AI & Society. Open access: http://www.springerlink.com/content/r3m840m76414472v/fulltext.pdf

ABSTRACT - Are the robots coming? Is the singularity near? Will we be dominated by technology? The usual response to ethical issues raised by pervasive and ubiquitous technologies assumes a philosophical anthropology centered on existential autonomy and agency, a dualistic ontology separating humans from technology and the natural from the artificial, and a post-monotheistic dualist and creational spirituality. This paper explores an alternative, less modern vision of the ‘‘technological’’ future based on different assumptions: a ‘‘deep relational’’ view of human being and self, an ecological view of human–technology relations, and ‘‘ubiquitous’’ spirituality. Moving beyond an ethics of fear and control, it is argued that technology is part of a lived and active whole that is at the same time human, technological, social, and spiritual. Influenced by ecological and Eastern thinking, it is concluded that an ethics of technology understood as a relational ethics of life asks us to adapt and grow within this multi-faced ecology, which is currently—but not necessarily—pervaded by hyper-individualist modernity and its ego-boosting technologies of the self. This growth is only possible by relating to, and learning from, other cultures and from their specific way of pervading and being pervaded.

CFP: Hyperaesthetic Culture and New Technologies of the Senses

Abstracts due 7 November, 2011.

Transformations is calling for submissions for Issue 22: Hyperaesthetic Culture.

We live in a competitive sensory environment. The marketing of consumer goods continually appeals to taste, touch, vision, hearing, and smell, compelling other practices to engage our senses in what David Howes describes as a ‘hyperaesthetic culture’. This environment is saturated with alluring and intense sense experience that proliferates as technologies such as ultrasonography, satellites and computer applications provide access to things previously beyond human perception. Bodies are cultivated to be aesthetically appealing and optimally available to the senses for commercial, medical and security purposes.

This special issue of Transformations will examine sensory regimes and the way in which people respond to them. Recent cultural research into the senses shows that the relationships and hierarchies between them are not static. Varying sensoriums are involved in different understandings of the self and its relationship to the world. This is apparent in cultural studies projects that implicitly and explicitly integrate questions of sensory experience into their investigations.

We invite submissions in the areas of philosophy, critical, cultural and media studies, and creative arts research. Possible topics include:

• new technologies of the senses, such as haptic technologies
• the effects of sensory regimes on bodies and minds
• sensory appeal and the persistence of technologically ‘outmoded’ goods, such as vinyl records
• relationships between hyperaestheticism and thought
• sensory adaptation and substitution, such as human echolocation
• ways of making bodies and objects available to the senses, such as body scans
• senses other than the traditional five senses, such as proprioception
• new media arts projects incorporating biometric feedback

Abstracts (500 words): due 7 November 2011 with a view to submit by 7 February 2012.

Abstracts to be forwarded to: Erika Kerruish erika.kerruish(at)scu.edu.au

For submission guidelines go to: http://www.transformationsjournal.org/journal/

This call is also available here.