Green growth or Degrowth: climate action and human prosperity Julia Steinberger Professor of Ecological Economics, University of Lausanne Lisbon, 26 November 2020 New research from ecological economics shows that we need to rapidly physically degrow our economies to avoid the worst effects of climate breakdown. Green growth might have been at best a dream, at worst a narrative designed to delay action. What does this mean for human well-being and political action? Julia Steinberger Prof. Julia Steinberger researches and teaches in the interdisciplinary areas of Ecological Economics and Industrial Ecology at the University of Lausanne (previously University of Leeds). Her research examines the connections between resource use (energy and materials, greenhouse gas emissions) and societal performance (economic activity and human wellbeing). She is interested in quantifying the current and historical linkages between resource use and socioeconomic parameters, and identifying alternative development pathways to guide the necessary transition to a low carbon society. She is the recipient of a Leverhulme Research Leadership Award for her research project 'Living Well Within Limits' investigating how universal human well-being might be achieved within planetary boundaries. She is Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report with Working Group 3. https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/see/staff/1553/professor-julia-steinberger https://profjuliasteinberger.wordpress.com https://medium.com/@JKSteinberger https://twitter.com/JKSteinberger Organised by CADA

Human Entities 2019

Human Entities 2020: Julia Steinberger

On minds and machines Joe Paton Computational neuroscientist, director of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme, Lisbon Lisbon, 19 November 2020 Brains and computers both perform computations, yet for the most part, their similarity ends there. Nervous systems have evolved over the last several hundred million years to support the survival of organisms in which they are situated. Man made computers exist due to theoretical and technical innovations of the 20th century, and are powerless without our explicit instruction. This talk will explore some of the features of nervous system structure and function, highlighting their differences and similarities when compared to computers and modern computer algorithms for machine learning and artificial intelligence. Joe Paton Joe Paton, Ph.D., is a computational neuroscientist and director of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme at the Champalimaud Foundation in Lisbon, PT and co-director of the FENS-Cajal Advanced Training Course in Computational  Neuroscience. Originally trained as a biologist, he received his doctoral degree in Neurobiology and Behavior from Columbia University. His research laboratory focuses on understanding the algorithms and neural circuit mechanisms underlying intelligent, adaptive behavior. http://neuro.fchampalimaud.org/en/person/115/ Organised by CADA

Human Entities 2020: Joe Paton

River systems and the molecular body Margarida Mendes Curator, researcher and activist Lisbon, 12 November 2020 Can we actually trace the exact perimeter of a river’s molecular cartography and the extent of the consequences that these systems of catalytic flux have within and outside living bodies? River systems and their surrounding infrastructures are enormous hydrogeological, chemical and electromagnetic systems that connect their surrounding inhabitants and ecosystems through an irreverent flux of discharges and motions that humans attempt to tame through flowage rights and coastal restoration projects. Hence, aquatic and riverine infrastructures are essential points of departure for system analysis and reflection about the bodies and ecosystems, from the molecular through to the planetary scale. In attempting to understand the connection between river flux, noise, toxicity, and industrialization, I will focus on the habitats of the Mississippi and the Tagus rivers, questioning how the level of background noise and chemical imbalance may be connected with endocrinological disruptions. By investigating the chemical and vibrational continuity between bodies and the environment, I will speculate how different ontologies and mechanisms for sensing and registry might be needed, in order to provide a deeper debate about ecosystems under distress. Margarida Mendes Margarida Mendes's research explores the overlap between cybernetics, ecology and experimental film, investigating environmental transformations and their impact on societal structures and cultural production. She is interested in exploring alternative modes of education and political resilience through her collaborative practice, programming, and activism. She was part of the curatorial team of the 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016), 4th Istanbul Design Biennial (2018), and 11th Liverpool Biennial (rescheduled for 2021). In 2019 she launched the exhibition series Plant Revolution! which questions the interspecies encounter while exploring different narratives of technological mediation and in 2016 curated Matter Fictions, publishing a joint reader with Sternberg Press. She is a consultant for environmental NGOs working on marine policy and deep sea mining and has directed several educational platforms, such as escuelita, an informal school at Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo - CA2M, Madrid (2017); The Barber Shop project space in Lisbon dedicated to transdisciplinary research (2009-16); and the ecological inquiry curatorial research platform The World In Which We Occur/Matter in Flux, (2014-18). She is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Research Architecture, Visual Cultures Department, Goldsmiths, University of London with the project “Deep Sea Imaginings” and is a frequent collaborator on the online channel for exploratory video and documentary reporting Inhabitants-tv.org. http://goldsmiths.academia.edu/MargaridaMendes https://soundcloud.com/margaridamendes http://www.twwwo.org Organised by CADA

Human Entities 2020: Margarida Mendes

navigating the urban fog: on urban adaptation Andrea Pavoni Research fellow at DINÂMIA’CET, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa Lisbon, 4 November 2020 The talk dives into the impalpable atmosphere of everyday urban life, through which we breathe, experience, and feel the city. In times of aesthetic capitalism, politics of fear, ubiquitous computing, and airborne diseases, this inconspicuous background has become the battleground of urban politics. Digital technologies, branded imaginaries and normative regulations increasingly weave into this hazy everyday, deeply affecting the corporeal, emotional and intellectual paths through which we navigate the city. How to make sense of this ongoing reconfiguration of urban experience? Three dimensions may be highlighted: the imperative of adaptation at the core of neoliberal ideology; the politics of comfort informing the engineering of safe and pleasurable atmospheres in the city; and the systemic delegation of intellectual, emotional and ethical urban skills to techno-legal proxies, that feeds functional stupidity, social anxiety, and existential disorientation. After unpacking their composition and the political consequences thereof, the talk will conclude, tentatively, by gesturing towards ways to experience the urban otherwise. Andrea Pavoni Andrea Pavoni is a research fellow at DINÂMIA'CET, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal. Unfolding at the intersection between critical geography, social theory, and philosophy, his research explores the relation between materiality, normativity and aesthetics in the urban context. He is editor of the Law and the Senses Series (University of Westminster Press) and associate editor of the journal Lo Squaderno, Explorations in Space and Society. His book, Controlling Urban Events. Law, Ethics and the Material, is out on Routledge. <a href="https://www.dinamiacet.iscte-iul.pt/research-team/Andrea-Pavoni" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.dinamiacet.iscte-iul.pt/research-team/Andrea-Pavoni</a> Q&A session moderated by <a href="https://www.ics.ulisboa.pt/en/pessoa/simone-tulumello">Simone Tulumello</a> Organised by CADA

navigating the urban fog: on urban adaptation Andrea Pavoni Research fellow at DINÂMIA’CET, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa Lisbon, 4 November 2020 The talk dives into the impalpable atmosphere of everyday urban life, through which we breathe, experience, and feel the city. In times of aesthetic capitalism, politics of fear, ubiquitous computing, and airborne diseases, this inconspicuous background has become the battleground of urban politics. Digital technologies, branded imaginaries and normative regulations increasingly weave into this hazy everyday, deeply affecting the corporeal, emotional and intellectual paths through which we navigate the city. How to make sense of this ongoing reconfiguration of urban experience? Three dimensions may be highlighted: the imperative of adaptation at the core of neoliberal ideology; the politics of comfort informing the engineering of safe and pleasurable atmospheres in the city; and the systemic delegation of intellectual, emotional and ethical urban skills to techno-legal proxies, that feeds functional stupidity, social anxiety, and existential disorientation. After unpacking their composition and the political consequences thereof, the talk will conclude, tentatively, by gesturing towards ways to experience the urban otherwise. Andrea Pavoni Andrea Pavoni is a research fellow at DINÂMIA'CET, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal. Unfolding at the intersection between critical geography, social theory, and philosophy, his research explores the relation between materiality, normativity and aesthetics in the urban context. He is editor of the Law and the Senses Series (University of Westminster Press) and associate editor of the journal Lo Squaderno, Explorations in Space and Society. His book, Controlling Urban Events. Law, Ethics and the Material, is out on Routledge. https://www.dinamiacet.iscte-iul.pt/research-team/Andrea-Pavoni Q&A session moderated by Simone Tulumello Organised by CADA

Human Entities 2020: Andrea Pavoni

Other Intelligences James Bridle Artist and writer Lisbon, 27 March 2019 We have spent the last hundred years attempting to master the world with calculation, with mathematics, physics, and digital technologies. We have come to believe that the world can be reduced to data – and only data matters. And yet the world still teems with life and our algorithms seem incapable of capturing its complexities; our supposedly logical worldview seems to lead us to fear, distrust, and polarisation, and the cognitive collapse is mirrored in an ecological one. How might a different understanding of the role technology plays in the world change our relationship with the world itself? Artist and writer James Bridle will explore the questions and possibilities of artificial and other intelligences through his own work, and new discoveries in ecology, biology, and computation. James Bridle James Bridle is an artist and writer working across technologies and disciplines. His artworks have been commissioned by galleries and institutions and exhibited worldwide and on the internet. His writing on literature, culture and networks has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Wired, Domus, Cabinet, the Atlantic, the New Statesman, the Guardian, the Observer and many others, in print and online. He lectures regularly at conferences, universities, and other events. “New Dark Age”, his book about technology, knowledge, and the end of the future, was published by Verso (UK & US) in 2018. https://jamesbridle.com

Human Entities 2019: James Bridle

Facing Up to Biometrics Stephanie Hare Researcher and broadcaster Lisbon 17 April 2019 Our face, voice, DNA, fingerprints and other data about our bodies (also known as our biometrics) are increasingly being used by governments and companies to identify and monitor us, and to analyse, predict and control our behaviour. The risk to our privacy, our civil liberties and our democracies is so grave that even technology giants such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon are asking for regulation. What role – if any – do we want biometrics technologies to play in our society? How would they transform private and public life? Can regulation prevent the worst-case scenarios? Stephanie Hare Stephanie Hare is a researcher focused on technology, politics and history. Selected for the Foreign Policy Interrupted fellowship and the BBC Expert Women programme, she shares insights on television and radio and has published in the Harvard Business Review, the Financial Times, Project Syndicate, the Herald, CNN and the Guardian. Previously she has worked as a principal director at Accenture Research, a strategist at Palantir, a senior analyst at Oxford Analytica, and a consultant at Accenture. She has held the Alistair Horne Visiting Fellowship at St Antony’s College, Oxford, has a PhD and MSc from the London School of Economics and a BA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. https://www.harebrain.co 

Human Entities 2019: Stephanie Hare

Human Entities is a programme of public talks focused on technological change and its impacts – the ways in which culture and technology shape and influence each other. Organised by CADA the programme takes place once a year in Lisbon. Listen to recordings of the 2019 edition.

hubhopper

Human Entities 2019

hubhopper