Department of Philosophy
Events involving Stirling philosophers
Third AHRC Workshop on
The Interactive Mind, Sussex
Supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
The third AHRC workshop on The Interactive Mind is being organised and staged in collaboration with the AHRC funded DrawBots project and the Brighton-based arts-science forum, Blip
The Interactive Mind and (Art)efacts
Dates
Tuesday 19th and Wednesday 20th July 2005
Venue
Sussex Arts Club, Brighton
Local Organiser
Jon Bird (Research Fellow on the AHRC DrawBots project and co-organiser of Blip)
Rationale
Recent work in many disciplines, such as psychology, computer science, artificial intelligence, robotics, neuroscience, philosophy, linguistics and the visual arts, has rejected the conventional assumption that thinking goes on entirely within minds. The alternative is to view human intelligence as emerging from an interaction between mind and environment. According to this alternative, intelligent activities such as reasoning, imagination and even creativity are not simply a matter of processing information internally, but of manipulating and responding to external structures, sometimes in ways that involve bodily skills as much as mental ones. If mind and its contexts are theoretically inseparable and there is no fixed essence of mind that exists prior to its historical and cultural manifestations, then minds are made in the ongoing interactive nexus with other agents and objects – in short the environment both natural and cultural. In this way arts and humanities research, which has clearly always studied minds, becomes an essential ingredient in the explanatory process. One of the great pioneers of this approach was the artist Edward Ihnatowicz whose interactive robots (SAM 1968, Senster 1970, Bandit 1974) demonstrated his belief that machines would never attain intelligence until they could interact with their environment.
A central theme of this workshop will be the active role that material artefacts play in human creative activity. Invited speakers will examine this theme from the perspective of their own disciplines, which include fine arts, cultural studies, robotics, philosophy and architecture. The workshop will also examine the extent to which artworks and performances can count directly as research into the nature of mind – as explorations of the structure and bounds of our interactivity. The creative and performance arts offer a suite of research tools that have the potential to act as a vital complement to the logocentrism of standard academic discourse. As part of the workshop Blip has organized an evening of performances using leading-edge technologies, including swarm music, netjacking and motion-capture DJing.
Confirmed Speakers
Caroline Bassett (Media and Film, Sussex)
Tim Blackwell (Computer Science, Goldsmiths)
Paul Brown (Artist and writer specialising in art and technology)
Charlie Gere (Institute for Cultural Research, Lancaster)
Owen Holland (Computer Science, Essex)
Richard Menary (Philosophy, Hertfordshire)
Daro Montag (Visual Arts, University College, Falmouth)
Alan Penn (Architecture, UCL)
Mitchell Whitelaw (Media and Multi-Media, Canberra)
The workshop will run from 1.30pm – 5.15pm on Tuesday 19 July and from 9.30am – 4pm on Wednesday 20 July
Evening performances begin at 8pm on Tuesday 19 July.
Registration
There are a limited number of places for this event and registration costs £15. To register please send a cheque for £15, made payable to the "University of Sussex", to:
Jon Bird
Deparment of Informatics
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON
BN1 9QH
UK
The AHRC funds postgraduate training and research in the arts and
humanities, from archaeology and English literature to design and
dance. The quality and range of research supported not only provides
social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic
success of the UK. For further information on the AHRC, please see
our website www.ahrc.ac.uk
