How might new configurations of our minds and bodies—the pharmaceutical atomization of memory, everlasting personalized video archives, disease-free living—change what it means to be human? The first part of the audio archive of Speculations (“The future is ______”), organized by Triple Canopy as part of the exhibition “EXPO 1: New York” at MoMA PS1 in 2013. Writers, artists, scientists, activists, economists, and technologists describe worlds to be realized, and reflect on how those worlds make demands on the present.
Speculations Archive: Nano-Prometheanism
by David Auerbach, Alisa Baremboym, Ray Brassier, Ian Cheng, Ted Chiang, Adam Cohen, Joshua Cohen, Esther Dyson, Josh Kline, Ajay Kurian, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Evgeny Morozov & Ben Wizner
01-08: Nano-Prometheanism
As everything from fridges to watches to eyewear becomes “smart,” integrated into our sensory apparatuses, and as scientists synthesize nucleic acids capable of replicating and evolving, how are commonly held notions of what it means to be human shifting, if not eroding? Participants speculated on ambitious Promethean projects that might, through innovations in nanotech, biotech, infotech, and neuroscience, make possible new configurations of our minds and bodies. The prospect of the pharmaceutical atomization of memory, eternal personalized video archives, and disease-free living till one hundred and fifty may provoke optimism as well as concern: Is the concept of humanity static or can it evolve? How might we appraise possible futures without succumbing either to techno-utopianism or pessimism? Who will have access to new technologies that fundamentally alter how we live and who we are? How might these be used toward emancipatory ends rather than the aggrandizement of elites?
01.
Adam Cohen is a professor of chemistry, chemical biology, and physics at Harvard. His research focuses on controlling light-matter interactions in warm, wet, squishy environments. He speculated about the future of stem cells and the brain.
Friday, May 24, 20132 p.m seminar (no audio recording available)4 p.m. lecture (audio recording below)
02.
Artists Alisa Baremboym, Ian Cheng, Josh Kline, and Ajay Kurian, whose works were included in “EXPO 1: New York” in the group exhibition “ProBio,” discussed the future of the body, the future of art, the artist as speculative thinker, and posthumanism. Kline, who organized “ProBio,” introduced the conversation.
Saturday, June 22, 20133 p.m. seminar (audio recording below)
03.
Esther Dyson is chairman of EDventure Holdings and founder of Health Intervention Coordinating Council (HICCup). HICCup is an open-source initiative devoted to defining and testing a business model for investing in health (not health care) that will return profits to investors and health to participants. From October 2008 to March 2009, she lived in Star City, outside of Moscow, and trained as a backup cosmonaut. She delivered a talk entitled “Data, Predictions, and Luck: The Implications of Knowing Almost Everything.”
Sunday, July 7, 20131 p.m. seminar (audio recording below)
04.
Ted Chiang is the author of Stories of Your Life and Others and, most recently, the novella The Lifecycle of Software Objects. His fiction has won the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, and Locus awards. He described how technology will change the way we narrate our lives.
Monday, July 8, 20132 p.m seminar (no audio recording available)4 p.m. lecture (audio recording below)
06.
Ray Brassier is a philosopher and a translator of Alain Badiou and Quentin Meillassoux. A participant in the foundational Speculative Realism conference in 2007, he is author of Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction. Brassier discussed what the future is and what it means to orient oneself toward it.
Friday, July 19, 20132 p.m seminar (no audio recording available)4 p.m. lecture (audio recording below)
07.
Lynn Hershman Leeson is an artist and filmmaker who uses pioneering technologies to investigate the real and the virtual. She described a near future where genetic manipulation and the interfacing of humans and machines render remarkable possibilities for human evolution.
Monday, July 22, 20132 p.m seminar (no audio recording available)4 p.m. lecture (audio recording below)
08.
David Auerbach is a writer and software engineer. Evgeny Morozov is author of The Net Delusion and To Save Everything, Click Here. Ben Wizner is director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. They debated technology’s false utopias and progressive possibilities.
Sunday, July 28, 20133 p.m. seminar (audio recording below)