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 intelligence through his own work, and new discoveries in ecology, biology, and computation. The public talk will be moderated by Vadim Smakhtin.
James Bridle is a writer and artist working across technologies and disciplines. Their artworks have been commissioned by galleries and institutions and exhibited worldwide and on the internet. Their writing on literature, culture and networks has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Wired, the Atlantic, the New Statesman, the Guardian, and the Observer. They are the author of 'New Dark Age' (2018) and 'Ways of Being' (2022), and they wrote and presented ‘New Ways of Seeing’ for BBC Radio 4 in 2019.
Vadim Smakhtin is a PhD candidate and guest lecturer at University of Innsbruck (Synthetic Landscape Lab, Institute of Urban Design), co-founder of Mathrioshka and ἐphemera ONE studios, CTO of Habidatum, curator of the Arts & Science “Digital Art: The New Spatial” in ITMO University and co-curator of –Digitocene.Net.
The event is held as a part of the public program of the exhibition “HYDRA. New Media Art in the Context of Eco-Anxiety”. Curators: Olga Vad, Lidia Gumenyuk (NADO Curatorial Agency).
The event is held as part of the UK – Russia Creative Bridge 2021-2022 programme with the support of the Cultural and Education Department of the British Embassy in Moscow.
