Politics of Machines WS 2021/22

Politics of Machines 
Prof. Dr. Michelle Christensen & Prof. Dr. Florian Conradi

Dates 
Tuesdays 10:00 – 13:30 / Introduction: 26.10.2021 at 10:00

Registration
Please register beforehand to: michelle.christensen@tu-berlin.de and florian.conradi@tu-berlin.de 

Details
English / 4 SWS / 6 ECTS
Room: tbd
Max. 15 participants

Description:
In a state of ‘ontological crisis’, all boundaries between human and machine, nature and culture, and the organic and inorganic have been severely blurred. These are times of curious contrivances, novel natures, inescapable automation and posthuman performances – where human and nonhuman find themselves being entwined, meshed and muddled into new unwitting entanglements. But from biased machine-learning to surveillance capitalism and digital colonisation – what power-structures are implicitly and covertly being embedded into these technologies? When are we still at the centre of the social algorithm, and when do we become extensions of the extensions that we built? Do we have to raise a discussion about political systems of things – about ‘ubiquitous capitalism’, ‘algorithmic aristocracy’ or ‘object-mediated democracy’?

In this studio class we will discuss ethical, social and political implications of technology with a focus on ‘automation’ versus ‘autonomy’. We will practice and formulate critical perspectives on the politics of machines, discovering novel phenomena and shadowing the material regimes of power that we ourselves live within – hindering and compromising personal devices and thus conducts, in order to uncover latent power structures embedded in everyday life. Furthermore, drawing on the approaches of research-through-design and critical making, we will prototype possibilities and provocations, integrating critical thinking and designing (no prior experience with design or technology necessary).

Modules

  • BA-KulT IS 4 (Text und Wissen)
  • BA-KulT IS 5 (Modernisierung)
  • BA-Studiengänge Kultur und Technik Freier Wahlbereich
  • MA Geistes- und bildungswissenschaftliche Masterstudiengänge Freier Wahlbereich
  • MA Design and Computation (Wahlpflichtbereich III: Design, Technologie und soziale Prozesse)
  • This studio class is open to students of all all disciplines and levels at all Berlin universities in the framework of a free elective