Human Entities 2016: Alice Benessia, Sara M. Watson

Alice Benessia Do we really want and need to be smart? Can we? The imaginaries of the Internet of Things and their inherent contradictions Emergent information and communication technologies (ICT), such as the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), constantly redefine the texture of our culture, society and lifestyle, raising a number of fundamental epistemic, normative and ethical issues, in a constant co-evolution. These technologies are constructed, named, offered, and ultimately regulated, according to and through specific techno-scientific imaginaries, here defined as collections of visual and verbal metaphors that are created and communicated both in the specialized literature and in the mass media for the public at large. Wonder, power, control and urgency can be defined as standard imaginaries of techno-scientific innovation: the fundamental axes defining an ideal space in which the multifaceted vision of the IoT can be projected and analyzed, in terms of what we want (wonder), we can (power and control) and we need (urgency) to be smart. Within this ideal space, we will examine together a variety media available on the web and produced by some of the key actors of the IoT revolution. This exploration leads to an open-ended reflection on the underlying aims and contradictions of the ICT enhancement, in relation to the possible decline of some of the fundamental attributes of our integrity and agency. Bio Alice Benessia holds a PhD in Science Technology and Law, an M.A. in the Philosophical Foundations of Physics and an M.F.A in Photography and Related Media. She is a research fellow on Epistemology of Sustainability at the Interdisciplinary Research Institute on Sustainability (IRIS) based at the University of Torino. She has been appointed expert at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. She is a founding member of the Italian Association for Sustainability Science. She also works as a visual artist and has lectured on photography and visual arts in numerous national and international participatory workshops. Her interdisciplinary research deals with epistemological issues arising in the framework of art, science and sustainability with special interest in visual language. http://alicebenessia.it Sara M. Watson Liquid Data: The Power of Seductive Metaphors By examining the dominant metaphors we use to talk about data, Sara M. Watson dissects the industry-centric bias at the core of our cultural understanding of data today. She argues more embodied data metaphors can better animate public consciousness and, in turn, shape policy positions, technology designs, and business models going forward. The power of metaphorical framings feeds into her recent work as a research fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, examining the rhetoric and ideology of technology on the public imagination. Sara argues that a constructive approach to technology criticism can improve the broader cultural discourse about technology, not only commenting on the technologies we have, but influencing and shaping the technologies we want. Bio Sara M. Watson is a technology critic and a Research Fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism. She is also an affiliate with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Her work explores how we are learning to live with, understand, and interpret our personal data and the algorithms that shape our experiences. She investigates the ways that corporations, governments, and individuals use data from wearable sensors, the internet of things, and other digitally processed systems. http://www.saramwatson.com Audio recording Stress.fm