STS Journal Club @ CY Alliance
STS Journal club @ CY Alliance
The STS Journal club is a CY Alliance-wide club of artists-researchers and academics willing to discuss contemporary issues, ideas, works and emerging practices in the field of Science & Technology Studies. This may include new methodologies (e.g., practice-based research) and novel publication frameworks (e.g. videos, performances, installations, etc). The group is open to artists, academics, PhD Candidates and students in an institution belonging to CY Alliance.
The club currently gathers members from ETIS (UMR 8051), Agora, IDHN (Digital Humanities) and Paris-Cergy Art School. Sessions are being held on a monthly basis, in english or french.
Contact : S. Reynal (ETIS UMR 8051), reynal@ensea.fr
Program 2023-2024
21st March 2024 @ 2pm (ENSEA, room 384)
Syd Reynal, ETIS
From stochastic processes to evaluation metrics: creative-AI pitted against strangeness
The huge amount of data produced by the Big Tech in the last twenty years has contributed to the emergence of creative artificial intelligence as an automated tool that could allegedly produce works of art ex nihilo by itself. Only distantly reminiscent of the human brain, these algorithms produce pure statistical models by sifting through millions of images, videos or songs and identifying statistical correlations that occur between their constituents. As they lack historicity by nature, these systems are only able to generate novelty by relying on random number generators. This work explores the foundations and intricacies of what appears to be a paradigm of creation based solely on stochastic processes and statistical models. We specifically examine the hyperrational perspective from which engineers envision creation, how this perspective thrives on the assumption that the post-modern subject is void of all intrapsychic conflict, how it may catch on finally in an environment where normative-referenced evaluation has become paramount.
1st February 2024 @ 2pm (ENSEA, room 384)
Joffrey Becker, ETIS
Beyond optimism and pessimism: The reconfiguring power of machines
Abstract: This chapter argues for a pragmatic approach toward artificial intelligence and robotics by addressing some of the specific issues encountered in laboratories, in experimental human-machine interaction contexts and in user experience research. Adopting the perspective of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, the chapter aims to address the multiple reconfigurations that intelligent machines and robotic systems may have on societies. Drawing on Lucy Suchman’s study of human-robot interaction, we will see that reconfigurations take place in various contexts and at various scales, inviting us to extend this notion well beyond the mere scope of human-machine interaction experiments. This chapter will show that it is in fact not possible to fully grasp the social reconfigurations resulting from robotics and computer science research without considering at least three categories of problems. The first one is ontological. It concerns the ambiguous status of objects imitating vital and cognitive processes which existence affects our representations of life. The second, which concerns interaction, is about the new relations we have with these technical objects. Finally, the third concerns the way in which the increasing hybridization of socio-technical systems is participating in a reconfiguration of the community which affects not only activities but also their organization.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Reconfigurations, Robotics, Social Anthropology, Society.
18th January 2024 @ 2pm (ENSEA, room 384)
Lili M. Rampre, ETIS
Artistic Research on Ways of being Cyborg
14th Decembrer 2023 @ 2pm (ENSEA, room 384)
Yann Giraud, Agora
Economis and Engineering: Institutions, Practices, and Cultures, Ed. by Pedro Garcia Duarte and Yann Giraud.
