Dear Colleagues, 

Nonstandard computation and materials science are beginning to meet in work that is both techno-scientifically and philosophically fresh, provocative!

For our bibliography for AME's AI curriculum:

Susan Stepney, "The neglected pillar of material computation”, Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena 237.9, 2008, 1157-1164.

Susan Stepney, Professor Computer Science, York UK

Michaela Eder, Wolfgang Schäffner, Ingo Burgert, and Peter Fratzl, "Wood and the activity of dead tissue”, Adv. Mater. 2020, 2001412. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adma.202001412

Thanks to Adrian Freed for drawing attention to Stepney et al in that Phys. D volume years ago.

WE ARE NOW OPENING UP FOR MORE DIGITAL PARTICIPATION. LINKS TO EACH EVENT WILL BE POSTED THE SAME DAY IN THE SCHEDULE BELOW. WE WILL USE ZOOM.
LINKS FOR TUESDAY ARE UP NOW | LINKS FOR WEDNESDAY ARE UP NOW!

Dear Synthesis Folks and friends,

These Medium articles provide some background to the #NextGen people in the United Nations Development Program with whom Vangelis and I are working to build the alternate reality + role playing scenario game:  “Navigating Crisis 2020” …

The allied younger generations in that program seem be maturely embedded in their respective nations' socio-political and economic milieus, open to ways of thinking that are fresh for that sector,  and committed to ameliorating effects of structural violence.   This comes across with some urgency in my direct conversations with some of the younger staff in South Asia, Africa, South America.  

It will be interesting to see how we can step up our game with experiential / enactive methods that are more rigorous, affectively engaged, and thoughtful than the “innovation” or “accelerator” exercises typical in the “progressive” business / design / technology  world.  It will also be enlightening to work outside the ideological scaffolding of commercial high tech typical of media labs in the United States and Western Europe.  Minimax design in action: from unplugged … custom tech, in that order.

Good news: the United Nations Development Program has awarded Synthesis / ASU the contract for doing the Horizon Scan for emerging techniques, technologies, design methods, and learning sites that prepare the United Nations Development Program staff and constituents to meet unpredictable, inextricably entangled sociotechnical and environmental challenges.     Thanks to Sander for lending his experience and reputation to this brief but intense project.  And thanks to Theo Eckhardt and Emily Fassett for working intricately with the United Nations and Knowledge Enterprise to forge this exceptional consultancy.  

Project Title:

Sea Change 2020

Duration:

29 September 2020 - 31 December 2020

Principal faculty:

Xin Wei

Exactly what I had in mind when I proposed this as a TEL / diagrammatic:

Thursday June 18, we’ll be meeting in the PSF zoom room at 3:00 - 4:30pm (ET), a half-hour later than usual. If that works for people, we’ll confirm this as our regular schedule.

Tomorrow’s speaker is Ylfa Muindi, who will describe her approach to facilitating encounters with the natural world. Her talk will focus on a current work-in-progress: a series of audio programs that will guide listeners through synesthetic exercises so as to prepare them for a variety natural encounters. This new project aims to connect people from many different walks of life, but especially those who feel alienated from forests, to the incredible lives within forests via a variety of storytelling experiences which are designed to work our empathy muscles, expand our sensual capacities (using all available senses to experience the natural world around us), and deepen our connection to and respect for nature.

You can hear more about the project in this podcast interview, starring both Ylfa and Muindi:

A conversation w/ Ylfa Muindi, about a work-in-progress. Ylfa is working a series of audio programs that will guide listeners through a series of synesthetic exercises and natural encounters.  Ylfa’s work aims (i) to heighten our senses for “ex-dividual” experiences and (ii) to encourage us to develop “immediate relations” with forests and other “ex-dividuated” non-human others. We invite you to take a listen and to share this conversation with others.

Inspired by Emanuele Coccia's essay "Reversing The New Global Monasticism"

A beautiful motivation for portals and sutured spaces, telematically mated objects  — objects that are always so that one is aware of and changes state depending on its siblings' state wherever its siblings may be in the world (thanks to tcp-ip + orc or some other network protocol).  

What of there are things X that always come as a set of initially indiscernibly identical, but responsive siblings,  that cannot be owned separately by just one person?  What if they are designed such that N siblings are always to be adopted by N people?  (Simplest case is twins.)

But more profoundly from the point of view of lived experience, the thing’s state and behavior is then sensitive to its relation not only to you / your home, but to wherever else it's homed as well.      It is crucial NOT to think of these things communicating with each other — NOT transmitting data “from" one “to" the other.   But instead design “the” thing so one relates to it as if it exists in more than one place simultaneously —  in but also not in your home, much like a cat.