Conference papers
Abstracts
1. Ethnography and Technology in relation to Gilles Deleuze's Philosophy, University of ITU, Copenhagen, May 2007
How practice makes no[n]sense in an affectual study of software agents
The presentation will begin to understand how the affect of software agents can be represented in a practice-led PhD. I will focus on a triangulation of practice: 1. Intuitive 2. Practical 3. Reflective, as cited in L'Anti-Oedipus.(1) The machine is expressed as a triangulation of 1. Artistic 2. Revolutionary 3. Analytical.(2)These two triangulations of practice and machine by Deleuze and Guattari are recondite and will be made visible through the practical study.
My doctoral research is situated on the edges of STS and ethnography, within art and design research. Voice recordings and graphic design are fused in a critical design methodology. It is within this area that my main questions take on a particular meaning of both practice and intervention.
My study continually involves interacting with bots, which have resulted in bots that swear and researchers that interact drunkenly. These interactions have been performed by advertising voice over specialists to make audible a topology of affect. The main question will be to consider how is this study an intervention of technology?
1. Introduction by Mark Seem, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: Univ' of Minnesota Press. 1983. p.xix.
2. Ibid.
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REPEAT REPEAT, April 2007, University of Visual and Performing Arts, Chester
'Going to the middle of nowhere: The repetition of subjugated knowledge in software agents'
"I have been in the middle of nowhere" is a quote from a chatterbot in discussion with a drunk human. This is taken from a series of online conversations that form part of a fine art, doctoral research project in social interaction. This paper will reveal the intimate stories between human and machine performed as a series of audio recordings, by online advertising voice over specialists and children. Performance and performativity are used to study the affectual nature of online social interactions. I use chatterbots which are software agents to collect what Foucault describes as subjugated knowledge. This knowledge comes from automated systems where repetition and re-sampling are dominant. The paper will question how software agents can shape their own history through repetition and difference. Following the work of Winner and Latour, the paper seeks to explore how artefacts are inherently political things. This enables the project to think through technology as mediating power relations.
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Dorkbot, London, December, 2006
AIM of the talk:
1. To introduce my current work on mapping robotics projects
2. To discuss my recent involvement in the exhibition, Artbots, Belgium, December 2006
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Identifying the Agent, an artist talk at the exhibition, Artbots, Belgium, December, 2006
AIMS of the talk:
1. To discuss the work in light of the history of AI, to use two resources, Artbots shows and 'wemakemoneynotart'. The latter is of interest because it is an online archive that doesn't differentiate academic, industrial and artistic robots and bots made worldwide. The main objective is to look at how other interventions such art interventions have made an impact on the history of this technology.
2. To discuss the works in relation to particular historical traditions and then to discuss my project. DISCLAIMER, that I realize the artists have not expected their work to be subjected to an AI history and did not make their work with these aims in mind. How do these projects fit into this historical framework of cognitive psychology and AI.
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EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGIES CONFERENCE, Wimbledon college of Art, October 2006
I co-organised the one day conference along with Eva Verhoeven, New Scholars Conference with workshops by Lucy Kimbell, Dr Paul Halliday and Dr Malcolm Quinn. Experimental methodology practices, includes inter, trans and fused methodologies that challenge conventional research structures.
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Home Interactions Group, UCCA, Farnham, September 2006
Presentation to the group and sharing of best practice. The Home Interaction Research Group is driven by an interest in the role of design and design research in making a contribution to the development of future new media/interactive/information and communications technologies (ICT) for home and personal consumption and use.
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If you'd like to contact me in the meantime, please email: windle_amanda@hotmail.com