On the 'nature' of the 'artificial'

AbstractSince the work by Herbert Simon, no particular attention has been paid to the distinction between conventional technology and technology directed at the reproduction of natural instances. Nevertheless, if we had a general knowledge of the methodological aspects that any attempt to reproduce natural objects or processes unavoidably requires, then we would understand why, as a rule, no artificial device can 'converge' to its natural counterpart and why, on the contrary, the more it advances, the further away it goes from it. As a result, our efforts should be oriented to deeply investigate the artificial as it were a truly new 'nature' in itself

La cultura dell’artificiale: teoria e realtà

Dagli anni ’90, come alcuni amici sanno, ho avviato a Urbino una ricerca teorica ed empirica sulla vasta ed eterogenea classe che ho definito dei naturoidi ossia dei dispositivi, macchine e processi tecnologici destinati a riprodurre oggetti o processi osservati in natura, opportunamente modellizzati e realizzati secondo strategie diverse da quelle naturali. In buona sostanza, il settore dei naturoidi è sovrapponibile a quello dei dispositivi o processi detti ‘artificiali’ destinati a riprodurre tecnologicamente oggetti o fenomeni naturali. Si tratta di un ambito del quale la storia della tecnologia e dell’arte umane è decisamente da sempre affollata e che, soprattutto attualmente e nel prevedibile futuro, contrassegna una nutrita serie di circostanze sociali e culturali.[... segue nel testo ...]Presentato dal Dipartimento di Scienze della Comunicazione

Post-industrial Virtue Epistemology on Globalized Games and Robotics

With the development of personalized and globalized technologies, a discussion regarding how and why virtue epistemology should be an essential part of post-industrial ethical analysis on augmented technologies and use of robotics in the global age becomes crucial. These globalized technologies in the form of either game apps (i.e., Pokémon Go) or robotics like drones become through the Internet multimedia a structural part of planetary digitalization. While this development takes place, traditional virtue epistemology responds insufficiently to the devitalization of knowledge regarding manners (savoir vivre) and ways (savoir faire) of practicing and the need to respond to the sudden expansion of augmented games and drone use with personal and social intellect, responsibility, and consequently safety. The chapter intends to discuss this analysis in order to argue that a postindustrial epistemic reconfiguration of digital ethics is necessary, since augmented reality games and robotics are taking the form of massive trends for adults and nonadults, while for the first time, digital gaming and robot entertainment exceed the limits of the personal space and the virtual mode of the screen, moving out into the public realm, where reality is mixed with virtuality and human environment with unmanned robots

Towards an Ethics for the Technological World

Este artículo sintetiza y actualiza, en parte, lo que he desarrollado en el libro Ética y mundo tecnológico (2008). La tesis central es que el mundo tecnológico actual es en un sistema global de dominio sobre la naturaleza y sobre la sociedad; una red de sistemas técnicos que interactúan incrementando la complejidad de las interrelaciones y el alcance espaciotemporal de sus efectos, porque está gobernado por una razón tecnocientífica uniforme y basada en una nueva “fuerza mayor”. Por ello, es necesario analizar y repensar las condiciones y estructuras del mundo tecnológico en el que vivimos, así como cuestionar su racionalidad e imperativo tecnológico de transformación y dominación de todos los objetos naturales o técnicos. Los proyectos tecnológicos pueden ser reorientados o modificados si implican riesgos mayores para la naturaleza y para la vida humana. Por ello, es necesario y factible reconstruir una ética para el mundo tecnológico. Se exponen brevemente los cuatro principios fundamentales de una ética que evalúe los efectos del poder tecnológico: responsabilidad social, precaución, justicia distributiva y autonomía individual y comunitaria.This article synthesizes and updates, in part, what I have developed in the book Ethics and Technological World (2008). The central thesis is that the current technological world has become a global system of dominance over nature and society; It is a network of technical systems that interact by increasing the complexity of interrelations and their temporal and geographical effects, because it is governed by a uniform techno-scientific reason, based on the new “force majeure”. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze and rethink the conditions and structures of the technological world in which we live, as well as to question its rationality and technological imperative of transformation and domination of all natural or technical objects. Technological projects can be reoriented or modified if they involve greater risks to nature and human life. To do this, it is necessary and achievable to rebuild an ethics for the technological world. The four fundamental principles of that ethics that assesses the effects of technological power are briefly exposed: social responsibility, precaution, distributive justice and individual and communitarian autonomy

The Visual Culture of Niagara Falls: From Kitsch to Keepsake

This dissertation uses the visual history of Niagara Falls to argue that iconic touristic landscapes promising Sublime moments can benefit from embracing their often-eclectic mixture of images, experiences, artefacts, and small-scaled private collectors and collections. This study takes up two distinct areas of Niagara’s visual history; how the site is depicted and copied, and how the site is collected and memorialized. The natural site, charted through attractions, themed environments, souvenirs and amateur home collections, is an apparatus that generates everlasting spectacle. Niagara’s current attractions connect the earliest physical encounters of the site with contemporary experiences along tourist corridors, bridging the void between eighteenth-century European landscape aesthetics and contemporary discourses of eco-criticism and sustainability. Wax museums draw on the desire to copy, commemorate, and recreate iconic places and settings, embracing the inherent spectacle of sites like Niagara Falls and redirecting it towards commercial and entrepreneurial gain. Souvenirs, mementoes, postcards, and other ephemera help memorialize visits to places like Niagara Falls, demonstrating that personalized experiences can occur at iconic tourist destinations. Amateur collectors, and their smaller-scaled private collections, illustrate that the eclectic visual histories of sites are preserved in the homes of its visitors, rather than larger-scaled accessioned collections of public institutions. This project concludes with an echo of the introduction, which attempts to establish an updated understanding of the Sublime that embraces eclectic and sometimes disparate visual examples

Visions of Water in Lower Murray Country

Waters are contested entities that are currently at the centre of most scientific discussions about sustainability. Discourse around water management underlines both the serious absence and devastating overabundance of water: rising sea levels compete against desertification; hurricanes and floods follow periods of prolonged drought. As we increasingly pollute, canalise and desalinate waters, the ambiguous nature of our relationship with these entities becomes visible. And, while we continue to damage what most sustains us, collective precarity grows. It is therefore unsurprising that shifting our understanding, and subsequent use, of water has been described as one of the biggest—and most pressing—challenges of our time. My research answers to this challenge. It centres on spatial poetics, that is, on the manner in which people engage and interact with their environment through art. More precisely, I explore the relationships between humans, waters and sound—both intrinsic and human-produced—in Lower Murray Country (South Australia). My aim is to unveil, theorise and create maps of these co-evolving relationships to reveal an array of manners to perceive and relate to these waters; and then draw on this plurality to question—and potentially reimagine—their cultural construction and representation. In order to do so, I transform waters into a leitmotif which enables me to weave my investigation together and move in-between theoretical and physical spaces to bring people and their environments into dialogue, both at the local and global levels. In particular, I draw on the watery movements of flow and resonance to operate this weaving, and associate these with rhythmanalysis and resounding (after philosophers Henri Lefebvre and Fran Dyson, respectively). I am also inspired by the work of philosopher and poet Édouard Glissant and use his concept of Relation as a key to enable me to translate these watery movements textually. I apply this aqueous theoretical frame to nearly two centuries of sonic production—ranging from Ngarrindjeri performance and colonial ballads through to contemporary classical music and sound art; and to nearly two centuries of evolution in the sonic character of Lower Murray Country’s waters—ranging from disfiguring deforestation and damming through to rising salinity and irrigation. As such, this thesis is built on the “accumulation of examples” advocated by Glissant (Poetics of Relation 172-4). It is structured around four sections—four punctiform visions of waters written as a prelude to a potential infinity of others. Furtive, partial, oriented and fragmented, these visions denote times of particular significance: times open to challenge; times of hinges and articulations where radical alteration (can) occur.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 201