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DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260520T150000
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DTSTAMP:20260726T053936
CREATED:20260428T201654Z
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UID:10001299-1779289200-1779296400@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:GAIAi: Artificial Infantilism and the Prompt Poetry of Unblocking all Keywords
DESCRIPTION:Focusing on the concept of General Audience Iterations Artificial Infantilism (GAIAi)\, Ian Haig and Adam Zaretsky will examine how contemporary AI systems are shaped by content moderation\, platform governance\, and cultural expectations around safety and accessibility. \nCensorship and AI\, obsolete models\, using AI the wrong way\, ugly AI and the interior body as an antidote to the idealised perfection of exterior bodies on Instagram. AI as haunted images culled from the collective unconscious\, images that don’t belong and are not of this world. AI slop as abject contamination\, algorithmic parasites\, transhumanism gone bad and AI as noise and error in the system of the AI overlords of Palantir and the emerging AI control grid for the Useless eater class. AI as an occult technology invoking  the residue of culture\, the leftovers and the dead. \nFeaturing Ian Haig and Adam Zaretsky\, the discussion will explore how these forces influence both the production and reception of AI-generated media. The speakers will address how algorithmic filtering\, blocked keywords\, and platform policies shape aesthetic outcomes and public discourse. At the same time\, they are considering the unexpected visual forms emerging from AI systems—ranging from polished synthetic imagery to distorted or unsettling outputs that challenge established aesthetic norms. \n  \nABOUT THE SPEAKERS: \nIan Haig is a multidisciplinary artist working across video\, sculpture\, drawing\, installation\, technology‑based media\, and mutant AI. His practice challenges the idea that low or base cultural forms lack value\, and has long focused on visceral\, body‑centred themes. Over the past thirty years\, his work has examined the intersections of contemporary media\, technology\, and the human body\, addressing attraction and repulsion\, fanaticism\, transhumanism\, and the degenerative effects of pervasive technologies. Haig has exhibited internationally at major institutions\, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York)\, Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris)\, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (Melbourne)\, ACMI\, GOMA Brisbane\, and Artec Biennale (Nagoya). His video work has screened at over 200 festivals worldwide. He is also an experienced curator\, notably of Unco and Very Unco\, at the Torrance Art Museum\, Los Angeles. \n  \n  \nAdam Zaretsky\, Ph.D.\, is an experimental bioartist and former researcher in MIT’s Department of Biology. His work critically examines the legal\, ethical\, social\, and libidinal dimensions of biotechnology\, with a particular focus on transgenic humans. Known for his hands‑on bioart laboratories\, Zaretsky creates participatory spaces for experimental bioart production and discourse. He has taught internationally at institutions including San Francisco State University\, SymbioticA (University of Western Australia)\, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute\, Leiden University\, and the Waag Society. Since 2016\, he has served as Head of Research at Nadlinc\, and since 2022 as a Research Consultant at BEAK in New York. Since 2024\, he is a Visiting Professor at Ionian University\, Creative Director of TTTlabs and TTTfellows\, and part of the EU‑funded Rewilding Cultures project.
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/gaiai-artificial-infantilism-and-the-prompt-poetry-of-unblocking-all-keywords/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Panel Discussion
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20250410T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20250410T190000
DTSTAMP:20260726T053936
CREATED:20250313T151456Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250403T202331Z
UID:10001191-1744306200-1744311600@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:Book Launch and Talk with Jeremy Stolow
DESCRIPTION:Join the Media History Research Centre on April 10th for the last event of their Montreal Media History Seminar. \nProfessor Jeremy Stolow will give a lecture about his latest book Picturing Aura: A Visual Biography (MIT Press). \nThe talk will be followed by a reception. \nThe event is free and open to all! \n  \nABOUT THE AUTHOR: \nJeremy Stolow is Professor of Communication Studies at Concordia University\, where he teaches and conducts research on religion and media\, the history of technology\, occultism and science\, and visual culture. In addition to his latest book\, Picturing Aura (MIT Press 2025)\, he is the author of Orthodox By Design (U of California Press 2010) and Deus in Machine: Religion\, Technology\, and the Things in Between (Fordham u press\, 2013). \n  \n  \n  \n  \nABOUT THE BOOK: \nPicturing Aura (MIT Press\, 2025) offers a historical\, anthropological\, and philosophical study of modern efforts to visualize that hidden radiant force encompassing the living body known as our aura. This book chronicles the rise and global spread of modern instruments and techniques of picturing aura\, from the late nineteenth century to the present day\, exploring how its images are put to work in the diverse realms of psychical research\, esotericism\, art photography\, popular culture\, and the New Age alternative medical and spiritual marketplace. These sometimes complementary\, sometimes conflicting histories – shaped by exchanges among professionals and amateurs\, scientists and occultists\, countercultural artist and entrepreneurs\, metropolitans and hinterland figures – show how the aura operates as a boundary object: something ontologically plural and somehow serviceable to the varying tasks and making art\, healing bodies\, and mapping technologies\, and images migrations\, while also reflecting on the very enterprise of picturing aura and the challenges it poses to settled assumptions about religion\, science and art. \n  \n  \n📅 April 10\, 2025 | 5:30-7 PM\n📍: Now in Speculative Life Room EV. 10.625 (was Milieux Resource Room EV 11.705)\n🔗 Please confirm your attendance here\n 
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/book-launch-and-talk/
LOCATION:Speculative Life Research Cluster  EV 10.625
CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Panel Discussion,Reception
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20250317T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20250317T180000
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CREATED:20250306T200627Z
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UID:10001189-1742227200-1742234400@milieux.concordia.ca
SUMMARY:An Evening of Output with Nick Montfort
DESCRIPTION:Join us on March 17 for a reading and panel discussion of OUTPUT: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text\, 1953-2023 edited by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montfort. \nWe’re thrilled to welcome authors Sofian Audry\, Bill Kennedy\, Erín Moure\, and Darren Wershler for a conversation about the book and the fascinating world of computer-generated writing. \nCopies of OUTPUT will be available for purchase\, and there will be free giveaways of other books featuring computer-generated writing. \n  \nABOUT THE AUTHOR: \nNick Montfort uses computation to develop literary art. His work includes ten computer-generated books (in print from seven presses)\, the collaborations The Deletionist and Sea and Spar Between\, and Memory Slam: Batch-Era Text Generation. Among his MIT Press books are The Future and two co-edited volumes\, The New Media Reader and Output: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text\, 1953–2023. He’s professor of digital media at MIT and principal investigator in the University of Bergen’s Center for Digital Narrative. Montfort directs a lab/studio\, The Trope Tank\, and lives in New York City. \n  \n  \n  \nABOUT THE BOOK: \nAn anthology of seven decades of English-language outputs from computer generation systems\, chronicling the vast history of machine-written texts created long before ChatGPT. \nThe discussion of computer-generated text has recently reached a fever pitch but largely omits the long history of work in this area—text generation\, as it happens\, was not invented yesterday in Silicon Valley. This anthology\, Output\, thoughtfully selected\, introduced\, and edited by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montfort\, aims to correct that omission by gathering seven decades of English-language texts produced by generation systems and software. The outputs span many different types of creative writing and include text generated by research systems\, along with reports and utilitarian texts\, representing many general advances and experiments in text generation. \nOutput is first and foremost a collection of outputs to be encountered by readers. In addition to an overall introduction\, each of the excerpts is introduced individually and organized by fine-grain genre including conversations\, humor\, letters\, poetry\, prose\, and sentences. Bibliographic references allow readers to learn more about outputs and systems that intrigue them. Although Output could serve as a reference book\, it is designed to be readable and to be read. Purposefully excluded are human–computer collaborations that were conceptually defined but not implemented as a computer system. \n🔗 More about the book here \n  \nThis event is supported by the Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur les humanités numériques (CRIHN) https://www.crihn.org/ \n  \n🗓 March 17\, 2025 \n⏱️ 4 – 6 PM \n📍Milieux Resource Room EV 11.705 \n 
URL:https://milieux.concordia.ca/event/an-evening-of-output-with-nick-montfort/
LOCATION:Milieux Resource Room EV 11.705
CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Panel Discussion
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