Symposium
Posthuman art:
Robots, Aliens, Chess, and Tokens
Fri, 10 Sept 2021
9pm – 12am HKT II 3pm – 6pm CET
on Zoom https://cityu.zoom.us/j/99997707088
Meeting ID: 999 9770 7088
Presentations by:
Prof. Maurice Benayoun (HK/FR)
Posthuman art : far too human?
Dr. Martin E. Rosenberg (US)
Contextualizing Chess as Metaphor, Model and Allegory in Maurice Benayoun’s Power Chess (2021) with 20th Century Avant-Garde Philosophy and Art
Prof. Beatrice de Gelder (FR)
Sub-subjective art perception
Dr. Tanya Ravn Ag (DK)
Speculations on Entanglements of the Art-Subject with Human Technogenesis
RAY LC, Artist (HK/US)
MIND THE MACHINE: storytelling via (mis)perception
Lisa SoYoung Park (HK/KR)
Towards an ontologically pluralistic media art-world
Moderated by:
Prof. De Kai (HK/US)
Is Post-human art far too human?
Taking this question as a starting point, the six speakers of this symposium expand this inquiry in six disparate trajectories: Media artist Maurice Benayoun (HK/FR) questions how artworks can open new perspectives by engaging the world as subjects rather than objects; Philosopher Dr. Martin E. Rosenberg (US) examines how an artwork can make visible problematic epistemological baggage by deploying a metaphor, model and allegory of human-computer interaction; Neuroscientist Beatrice de Gelder discusses her investigations on nonverbal communication and emotions in view of gestures, faces, bodily movements, and voices; Curator-theorist Dr. Tanya Ravn Ag (DK) inquires how art’s ontological bearing shifts through the entanglement of art and technogenesis; Artist Dr. RAY LC (HK/US) experiments with the impact of anthropomorphic behavioral design on human perception of their machinic counterparts; and artist-scholar Lisa Park SoYoung (HK/KR) advocates for the need to cross-examine diverse ontological conceptions of art and technology in seeking alternative trajectories forward.
Starting with introductory presentations from each of the six speakers, a discussion and a Q&A session moderated by AI Ethics expert De Kai (HK/US) follow, as a means to interface, question, and distillate the ideas emerging from disparate disciplinary, cultural, philosophical, and ludic standpoints
Program Sessions
Posthuman art : far too human?
Prof. Maurice BENAYOUN
SCM, CityU HK
Maurice Benayoun is a media art pioneer, theorist,
curator, and professor based in Hong Kong and Paris, whose accolades include the Ars Electronica Golden Nica, and the SIGGRAPH Award amongst others. Traversing freely between media boundaries, from virtual reality to large-scale public art installations, and from BCI to the Blockchain, Benayoun has exhibited across major international museums in about 30 countries. His recent research focuses on Urban Media Art, Critical Fusion, Behavioural Design, the Blockchain, Transactional Art, BCI driven neuro-design, and the morphogenesis of human values. www.moben.art
Contextualizing Chess as Metaphor, Model and Allegory in Maurice Benayoun’s Power Chess (2021) with 20th Century Avant-Garde Philosophy and Art
Dr. Martin E. Rosenberg
Martin E. Rosenberg’s dissertation (UM, 1990) addressed how 20th C. avant-garde artists and philosophers deployed the scientific concept of “emergence.” He published on Freud and Deleuze, Pound, Duchamp and Pynchon, Beckett, Cage, Kiki Smith, and Arakawa and Gins. He designed instructional software, theorized about hypermedia, taught hybrid on-line graduate courses, and published on the role of metaphors like chess in trans-disciplinary inquiry. He writes now on the cognitive neuroscience of jazz improvisation.
Sub-subjective art perception
Prof. Beatrice de Gelder
Beatrice de Gelder is Professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and director of the Brain and Emotion Lab. Her main areas of expertise are the neural basis of visual and audio-visual processes and associated clinical deficits of visual perception and communication. Her current research focuses on face and body perception using a variety of brainimaging methods, also in combination with VR and, recently, the neuroscience of art. She has published over 300 scientific articles and her book on “Emotions and the Body” was published by Oxford University Press in 2016. She obtained major funding from the EU (FET, ERC-Advanced, ERC-Synergy). beatricedegelder.com
Speculations on Entanglements of the Art-Subject with Human Technogenesis
Dr. Tanya Ravn Ag
Tanya Ravn Ag, Ph.D., is a Danish curator and scholar focused on perceptual experience and technogenesis in relation to media art and urban media aesthetic phenomena. Following a research fellowship at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, she is currently a postdoc researcher at the Center for Art as Forum, Institute of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen. She chairs the IIAC (ISEA International Advisory Committee) and has edited Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art (Intellect, 2019) and co-edited What Urban Media Art Can Do – Why, When, Where, and How? (av edition, 2016).
MIND THE MACHINE: storytelling via (mis)perception
RAY LC
Artist
SCM, CityU HK
RAY LC’s practice creates interactions and environments for building bonds between human beings and between humans and machines, by utilizing the nonverbal communication media of movements, sounds, and cinematic storytelling. He studied computer vision at UC Berkeley and neuroscience at UCLA, applying such technologies to performance, media art, and fashion at Tokyo. He holds an MFA from Parsons School of Design and a PHD from UCLA before becoming Assistant Professor at City University HK SCM. https://raylc.org/
Towards an ontologically pluralistic media art-world
Lisa Park SoYoung
SCM, CityU HK
Lisa is a scholar and media artist who also dabbles with organizing art events. Her art practice, events, and general life experiences drive her academic research, which is currently focused on cultural imperialism in the new media art-world. She performed, presented, and organized an exhibition in ISEA2016, published in Leonardo Journal, and is the editor-in-chief for Ars Electronica Garden HK. She has a BFA from York University, and an MFA and PhD from City University of HK. www.lisapark.net
Panel Moderation
Prof. De Kai
SENG, HKUST
De Kai’s work in AI, language, music, creativity, and ethics urges cultures to interrelate. Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at HKUST and Distinguished Research Scholar at Berkeley’s ICSI, he was named ACL Founding Fellow for pioneering contributions to machine learning of AIs like Google/Yahoo/Microsoft Translate. De Kai is also creator of one of Hong Kong’s best known world music collectives, ReOrientate, and was one of eight inaugural members of Google’s AI ethics council. http://dekai.org