[S]care Wolf a Parlor Game with Robot Machina and lecture by Oliver at Ludic Method Soirée, 19_11_19, University of Applied Arts Vienna

Robot Machina (Photo H.A.U.S.)

Ludic Method Soirée program:

a lecture by
Daphne Dragona
From devices of play to technologies of care

a lecture by
Oliver Schürer, H.A.U.S.
Human[oid[ ]s]care

hosted by Margarete Jahrmann,
artistic PhD program, University of Applied Arts Vienna 
http://zentrumfokusforschung.uni-ak.ac.at/
http://zentrumfokusforschung.uni-ak.ac.at/index.php/2019/11/12/17-event-ludic-method-soiree-16_10_19/

Ludic Method is presented in a coupling of public lecture and performative play. We embrace gaya sciencia and cognitive settings. 

Ludic CARE is discussed in this soirée —19th October, 7 pm
at the multidimensional Prater-Cubes,
Rustenschacherallee 2-4-, 1020 Wien

Including [S]care Wolf
Participatory Parlor Game with the Humanoid Android Pepper. Pianofication of the care robot log provided by MF Schreiber.
Please join in! Register as “player” under the address: margarete.jahrmann@uni-ak.ac.at 

Robot programming and control Helena Frijns and Darja Stoeva.

Host Margarete’s intro to the game.
Lost in the [S]care Wolf Game: on the left two-ladies giving the wolf, in the middle Machina gives the dog.
Approaching the dog Machina.

Daphne Dragona is a curator and writer based in Berlin. Through her work, she focuses on artistic practices, methodologies and pedagogies that challenge contemporary forms of power. Among her topics of interest are: the controversies of connectivity, the promises of the commons, the challenges of artistic subversion, the instrumentalization of play, the problematics of care and empathy, and the potential of kin-making technologies in the time of climate crisis. Her exhibitions have been hosted at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (Athens), Aksioma (Ljubljana), Onassis Stegi (Athens), Le Lieu Unique (Nantes), Goethe Institut Athen, and Laboral (Gijon). Articles of hers have been published by Springer, Springerin, Sternberg Press, Meson Press and Leonardo Electronic Almanac, while talks of hers have been hosted at Mapping Festival (Geneva), MoMa (New York), Hek (Basel), Arts in Society (London), Leuphana University (Lueneburg) and Goethe University (Frankfurt). Dragona was the conference curator of transmediale from 2015 until 2019. She holds a PhD from the Department of Communicaton and Media Studies of the University of Athens.

From devices of play to technologies of care
How much do we know about or reflect upon automated care? What happens when cute robots, artificial human companions and intelligent assistants of all kinds become part of our everyday life? Playful and tireless, such machines can continuously learn from us and respond to our desires and needs. Providing services of a machinic and affective character, they come in perfect accordance with the neoliberal call for optimisation and self-care.They challenge the relationships between humans and machines, and they are introduced as affective infrastructures that can assist on an individual and societal level. The talk will address the challenges of the emerging technologies of care, bringing into the discussion artistic responses and critical perspectives. Special attention will be payed to the instrumentalisation and commodification of care but also play, with references to works and topics that were discussed in the framework of transmediale festival 2019, the exhibition Tomorrows (Le Lieu Unique 2019), and the Engineering Care Web Residencies by Solitude & ZKM.

Oliver Schürer is a researcher, curator, editor and author as well as Senior Scientist and Deputy Director at the Institute for Architecture Theory and Philosophy of Technology at the Vienna University of Technology. www.attp.tuwien.ac.at/oliver
Since 2009 he is developing architecture theory as well as theory of technics by means of techno-aesthetic experiments. In 2014 he founded the transdisciplinary research group H.A.U.S. (Humanoids in Architecture and Urban Spaces). Researchers from the domains of architecture, automation technology, HRI, computer science, AI research, music, media arts, dance, psychology and philosophy research on aspects of social robotics and social AI in lifeworlds. h-a-u-s.org

Human[oid[ ]s]care
The topic is articulated twice in this short lecture: as robot dance performances and as human-robot interaction experiments. In the dance performances, intimacy and power relations with autonomous machines are brought to the spectators experience as well as discussed aesthetically. In the experiments, Wittgenstein’s philosophical language-game is getting spatialized, together by both, a humanoid robot and a person. By means of verbal and non-verbal communication they initiate the constitution of a model of space in an artificial intelligence system. This so called architecture-space-game emerges a cultural-spatial-model, meant to be harnessed for the empowerment of vulnerable persons in care.

Oliver lecturing
Discussion during the lecture (left to right) Oliver, Helena, Darja, Daphne, Margarete.
Hostess Margarete prepares Absinthe for everyone.