Seminars

REAL SMART CITIES

REAL SMART CITIES The closing seminar: A Theoretical Experimentation The closing seminar: A Theoretical Experimentation.

4 sessions: 2 hours each.

Monday 4thApril, Monday 11th April, Monday 25th April, Monday 2nd of May from 4 to 6 pm (Dublin Time).

The seminar will take place in hybrid mode in the TU Dublin EastQuad Room EQ-213.

For those attending virtually, the link will be to the webex platform link here :

Context :

The Real Smart Cities theoretical thread has been weaving itself for almost 5 years now and represents as an example of contributory research carried out by researchers from various disciplines and countries. It has been contributory research in constant progress, a conceptual experimentation with iterations in action overtime, in which the contributions of each discipline have been entangled with the contributions of others, manifesting not a flat harmony or homogeneity, but precisely a heterogeneity and a metastable balance. In this sense, the results of the research are awaiting further reflection at another level as theoretical experimentations in the epistemological, aesthetic, ecological, juridical, clinical, ethical and political fields.

The academic publications produced by the members of the project reflect not only the internal milestones of the project, through which it was possible to go from a representation of what a Smart city is (its state of fact) to what a real smart city could and even should be (its state of law), to a range of concepts that can help to ground our idea of “real smart” as noetic intelligence (noesis requiring an externalized support, a technical support), here understood as the engine of collective ecological individuations and territorial transindividuation.

The attempt to rethink digital networks through the image of the archipelago has a political ethical impetus; to picture a new form of smartness based on noodiversity and technodiversity is an example of such a theoretical creation (see the special issue “Guayaquil Archipelago” of Ethics & Politics), the exploration of the concept of locality is another. Locality no longer as an idyllic and identitarian place, but as a power of openness and differentiation from the micro scale (the individual) up to the meso, macro and meta scales (institutions and the biosphere as a technosphere).

In addition, it is worth remembering the epistemological and sociocultural diagnosis that supports the ideation of the images of locality and archipelago as an alternative and a bifurcation from the present state of fact: algorithmic governmentality; hyper-control; epistemic, aesthetic and ecological proletarianization; the conceptualization of extractivisms (from oils, minerals and plantation to data, attention, dopamine, knowledges, etc.); anthropy, anti-anthropy and neganthropy; digital sovereignty; anti-social sculpture, are only some of the concepts applied or developed over these five years, together with the notion of “work” conceived as a neganthropic ouverture (from the French oeuvre), that ties contributory research to contributory economy as the very engine of the Internation (internation.world).

Conversely, the epistemological plane of exosomatization outlined by Stiegler (via Lotcka), as well as the applied methodology of pharmacology and organology, on the one hand, and the programmatic horizon of the “Internation” set in motion by the homonymous team and through the book Bifurcate (Stiegler et al.) on the other hand, define the conditions of possibility to pass from the final steps of the Real Smart Cities project to the inaugural theoretical phase of the NEST project.

Nevertheless, we are still far from fully comprehending the openness of the set of concepts mentioned above; the modality of their virtual and actual relations outside the texts in which they have been forged. At the same time, we feel the particular complexity of staying in the interstices between the two projects, within a planetary situation that was hard to imagine when Real Smart Cities started. Not only is the worldwide pandemic and its consequences still present, but also the ongoing war in

Ukraine, with its side effects on all scales of the economic, ethical, biopolitical, ecological, noetic, epistemic and territorial spheres are revealing another face of the Capitalocene (Moore) and thus of the Entropocene (Stiegler) along with the urgency of further developing the very perspective of the Internation.

The general goal of the seminar is thus to articulate these concepts in the theoretical contemporary scenario, and to use them even beyond their original textual milieus, as a conceptual toolkit to improve the work packages of NEST project. This is also the challenge to pass from the locality and the intelligence of the city to those of territories.

Methodology:

We invite scholars to elaborate their own re-reading of some key themes of the main publications of Real Smart Cities, in order to find possible ways to connect, extend, stress or reframe the concepts that will orient further research within the Networking Ecologically Smart Territories project.

Days and time: Monday 4th, 11th, 25th April; May 2. from 4pm to 6pm

First session, Monday, April 4th

A general introduction by Prof. Noel Fitzpatrick (15 minutes);

Principal intervention: Dr. Paolo Vignola, “Everybody can be an auto-extractivist. The Anti-social Sculpture and a Diagnose of the Res Extracta” (30 minutes).

General discussion.

Second session, Monday, April 11th

One introduction (10-15 minutes);

2 short presentations (20-25 minutes each).

General discussion

Third session, Monday, April 25th

One introduction (10-15 minutes);

2 short presentations (20-25 minutes each).

General discussion

Fourth session, Monday, May 2nd

One introduction (10-15 minutes);

2 short presentations (20-25 minutes each).

General discussion

ESSENTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baranzoni, S; Fitzpatrick, N; Vignola, P. (eds.). “Guayaquil Archipelago”. Ethics&Politics, XXII, 2020, n. 2.

Stiegler, B. with the Collective Internation (eds.). (2021). Bifurcate. “There Is No Alternative”. London, Open Humanities Press, 2021.

Stiegler, B. (ed.). Le nouveau génie urbain. Paris: FYP, 2019.

ECT Lab+ Seminar ‘Think Human First’

This roundtable discussion will focus on the question of ‘Thinking’ in the statement ‘Think Human First’. The question of what does it mean to think (human first) has become urgent with the growth of AI and social networking platforms and the immanent nature of climate change. There is an inherent tension within the statement to “think human first”, which on the one hand implies recentering technological development on human(ity), such as ethical and societal implications of technology, on the other it implies that a privelaginig the human (anthropocentrism) has led to the climate disaster (Anthropocene). The panel will set out to pose the question of ‘thinking’ in the 21st Century.

The Archive of Everyday Life

This online seminar aims to develop a multidisciplinary research community to study the archive as it has been transformed by multi-scalar computational assemblages. What then are the kinds of spaces being produced by the archive. How, as a research community, might we understand these spaces? Who produces this space? What is it that is being produced? How is it being produced? Why is it being produced? For whom is it being produced? To what extent do these spaces contribute to our ability to participate in the democratic production of space?

The Archive of Everyday Life

The smartphone gathers real-time information while simultaneously archiving, processing and representing that information to me. This is the automatic-everyday where we are sold the myth that our digital prostheses are opening out a world of possibilities when in fact, according to a specific and ever-changing grid of algorithmic governance, they are closing it down. The previously unimaginable changes in speed created by planetary computation, the new technologies of real-time digital tertiary retention have caused a disruption to take place in the very structure of everyday life (which is itself now the mode of production) which has significant implications for spatial production. This is the archive of everyday life.

This archive is not a metaphor it is a material and spatial reality. This archive is vast, cavernous, anonymous looking warehouses filled with seemingly endless aisles of powder coated aluminium cabinets standing to attention, flickering led lights, a cardiograph of data lives — click-like-tweet-porn-share-send-spam-delete — all serenaded by the deafening soundtrack of energy hungry cooling fans.

This archive is human exclusion zones where robots respond to our buy-now-one-click demands, moving objects in the dark, the like of which we never knew we wanted across a military grade infrastructure — orders “fulfilled” by the logistical precariat of digital capitalism.

This archive is Cobalt uploaded from the earth by the hands of child miners in the not so Democratic Republic of Congo, to facilitate the technologies of Tesla Apple, Microsoft, Google and Dell who are currently being sued by International Rights Advocates on behalf of fourteen Congolese families.

The archive is dirty / The archive is material / The archive produces space.

Architecture has become the veil of secrecy that digital capitalism needs in order to survive and the currency of this new city is attention.

Seminar Outline

Save the dates

23 October, 2020

from 15:30 to 17:30

“The Production of Archival Space” presented by David Capener ( Architect, Co-curator of Ireland’s pavilion for the 17th International Architecture Biennale at Venice in 2021. PhD researcher TU Dublin) .

6 November, 2020

from 15:30 to 17:30

“The Geology of the Archive” presented by Dr. Nicole Starosielski (Author of The Undersea Network)

20 November, 2020

from 15:30 to 17:30

“The Data Furnace” presented by Dr. Julia Velkova ( Author of Data that warms: Waste heat, Infrastructural Convergence and the Computation Traffic Commodity)

27 November, 2020

from 15:30 to 17:30

“AI at urban Scale“ presented by Donal Lally ( Architect, Co- curator of Ireland’s pavilion, Entanglement, for the 17th International Architecture Biennale at Venice in 2021. PhD researcher at TU Dublin).

4 December, 2020

from 15:30 to 17:30

“Thermocultures of Memory and Memory Machines“ presented by Samir Bhowmik (multi-disciplinary Finnish artist and architect.)

18 December, 2020

from 15:30 to 17:30

“Archive of Everyday life“ presented by Dr. Robert Porter (author of Meanderings Through the Politics of Everyday Life).

Reading List: To be supplied on registration.

For enquiries contact: donal.lally@tudublin.ie

Philosophy of Science and Technology

This module introduces students to the history of philosophical concepts in relation to understanding the basis for science as a positivistic world view. The Module aims to frame science and technology as forms of the mediation in the world which do not happen in a vacuum. The premise of the module is that technology is built in and for society. The social, political and cultural framing of questions raised by the development of specific forms of technology will be base of the module. The module will investigate in the first instance the epistemological frameworks of scientific thought, then it will investigate the development of specific forms of science as techno-science. The module will also introduce fundamental elements of the philosophy of science and technology in relation to the development of digital technologies. For the session 2018-2019 the seminar will concentrate on the question what is Technology and will unfold alongside the development of a Manifesto with Prof. Bernard Stiegler.

The dates for this semester are, the seminar will take place on the Grangegorman Campus

RD004 - 26th September 12- 2 pm

GW402 - 11th Oct 12- 2pm

GW402 - 24th Oct 12- 2pm

GW402 - 7th Nov 12- 2pm

RD004 - 22nd of Nov 12 – 2pm

GW402 - 5th of Dec 12 – 2 pm.

Environmental Art and Design

“The environmental crisis is a design crisis. It is a consequence of how things are made, buildings are constructed, and landscapes are used”.

Sim van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan

“For the first time in my lifetime, natural scientists are looking for help from humanists in knowing the world”.

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

This seminar aims to develop a research community to study contemporary art and design that addresses ecological and environmental challenges. The seminar discusses the environmental crisis as a crisis in how and by whom environments are designed, represented, and narrated. It asks how art and design might then promote knowledge of human and non-human ecologies, sustainability, and social responsibility, and engage otherwise neglected client bases and communities. Of particular concern is what contribution contemporary art and design might make to the recently-emerged environmental humanities, which study and promote ecologically-minded cultural production and which advocate a renewed importance for the humanities in relation to the biological, earth, and environmental sciences.

The Environmental Art and Design research seminar develops TU Dublin’s contribution to the Irish Environmental History Network and, using the research networks of the Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media, will build research programmes and initiatives with national and international partners with an interest in the contribution of art and design to the environmental humanities.

Fridays, 2pm to 4pm, NA003 TU Dublin Grangegorman.

The Aesthetics Research Group

The Aesthetics Group is a research group affiliated with The Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media (GradCAM) and based in Dublin. We are researchers and practitioners from a variety of different backgrounds such as philosophy, visual art, digital media, theatre and performance. Since 2012 we have collaboratively engaged with aesthetic theory, practice and policy to develop new critical positions in aesthetics and related fields.

An important outcome of our research involves performative pedagogy. The group collaboratively write texts around which they then enact performances. This has included ‘A Unique Press Conference’ for their text ‘Turn, turn, turn: Civic Instrumentalisation and the Promotion of Autonomy in Contemporary Arts Funding’ at the European Society for Aesthetics Conference in Dublin, 2015 (pdf available here). The conference was organised and hosted by GradCAM. The Aesthetics Group also performed ‘A Re-turn to Schiller: Dublin v Barcelona’ a live link between Dublin and The European Society for Aesthetics conference in Barcelona 2016. This performance was based around Schiller’s mobilisation of ‘play’. The group are currently researching the aesthetics of the digital. All members of the group are also members of The Digital Studies Network Seminar.

Institutions of Memory: Documentary, Time and the Archive

A series of seminars exploring the archival practices of institutions of memory – such as museums, exhibitions, commemorative projects and memorial sites – and the time-based relation between the articulation of such documentary representation and their audiences.

These practices will be considered in light of contemporary thinking on spectators’ embodied experiences in place; the limits of the archive as a documentary source; an expanding representative field of collections as active and interactive; the relation of narrative forms to collective memory; the fault lines between intangible heritage, after-images and material culture.

The initial seminar meetings will be centred on readings selected to reflect on and provoke discussion on the first three themes:

Beyond Looking – 11 November 2016 RD006, Rathdown House, Dublin Institute of Technology, Grangegorman, Dublin 7

Witness and Re-membering – 9 December 2016 Studio 5, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Royal Hospital, Military Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8

Witness and Re-membering – 3-5pm 24th February 2017, Studio 5, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Royal Hospital, Military Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8

Collections and Inclusivity – 24th March 2017, 10.00-12.00, Learning Resource Room, National Museum of Ireland, Decorative Arts & History, Collins Barracks Benburb Street, Dublin 7

The seminars are open to the public – including post-graduate students researching related disciplines and anyone working in connected industries or projects. The seminar will continue through the academic year until May 2017 and will be held at various venues around Dublin. The only requirement for attendance is to read through the suggested material in advance of seminars, as will be updated on this page.

For queries, bookings and circulation for texts for these seminars, please email gradcamseminars@gmail.com

The Enquiry Group

The Enquiry is a seminar group affiliated with GradCAM, the Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media based in Dublin, Ireland and meets at IMMA the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

The group are concerned with a performative analysis of exhibition modalities and strategies both historical and contemporary. There is a current focus on the relationship between ‘Dematerialization’ citing Lucy Lippard’s construct and more recent considerations of ‘immateriality’ encompassing its digitized and professional/cultural modalities.

Link to Inquiry Blog ( https://theenquiryblog.wordpress.com/)

Location:
IMMA, Royal Hospital, Military Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8, Ireland

Digital Studies Seminar

Digital Studies is a seminar series that meets every second Tuesday evening @ 5.00pm in Studio 6 at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios with a view to discussing literary texts circulated in advance of the meeting. The seminar is affiliated with the Digital Studies Network inaugurated by the Institute for Research and Innovation, at the Pompidou Centre (Paris), with the aim of building an international forum for cultural critique and debate around all things digital.

This semester are reading and discussing the new book, Automatic Society: Vol. 1, The future of Work, by renowned technological philosopher Bernard Stiegler. We are also also reading a selection of supplemental texts that relate to the dominant themes of each chapter.

Digital Studies concerns research and discussion about the new pressures brought to bear, without exception, on all sectors of knowledge and professional practice, as a result of the proliferation and penetration of digital technologies.

The goals of the seminar are:

To promote interdisciplinary discussions in relation to digital technologies. Digital Studies is conceived to encompass the impact of digital technologies on the construction of knowledge in both techno-scientific and arts–humanities domains.
• To explore the implications of digital techniques on academic and professional practice, and to conceive new modes of conversing, interacting, teaching, researching, working and expressing by repurposing and reinventing digital technologies.
• To establish an international, bilingual and interdisciplinary publication with regular outputs relating to findings discussed in the seminars.

The outputs of the seminar series are regular publications and practice-based exhibitions.

If interested, please contact Néill O’Dwyer <odwyernc at tcd.ie> to register your attendance and to request a copy of the literature.

Typography Ireland

See www.typographyireland.ie for further information on current activities

Typography Ireland was initiated in March of 2005, to create a centre of excellence for the practice of typography in Ireland, based, in its formative stages at least, in the School of Art, Design & Printing at TU Dublin.

Typography Ireland has developed as an all-island organisation that aims to provide a focus point, resource and forum within which to promote typography along the lines of practice, education, history and research. It is also hoped that the organisation will help to provide a sense of community amongst interested parties as presently the practice of typography and typographical research is uncharted within the country.

One of the proposed purposes of Typography Ireland is to build a comprehensive narrative of the history of typography in Ireland from its earliest inception to the present day, along historical and theoretical lines. It is also hoped to create an archive and library of typographical work from Ireland or from abroad where it is deemed to be of Irish concern either practically, historically or culturally. In particular, the creation of an Irish typographical archive is important because at present there is no central archive for significant Irish typographical works. As a result, there exists a large body of uncatalogued work in the form of sketches, original and printed or digital artwork in the country.