Moving Technical and Scientific Knowledge, People and Objects after 1945: IIT Madras and the RWTH Aachen (Roland Wittje)
2023-01-25 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
c:o/re Lecture Series: Cultures of Research
On Wednesday, January 25th, Associate Professor for the History of Science and Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Roland Wittje, will talk about Moving Technical and Scientific Knowledge, People and Objects after 1945: IIT Madras and the RWTH Aachen. The talk is part of the c:o/re Lecture Series: Cultures of Research.
To participlate, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de

Voodoo science and the missing controversy: Neuroscience as an integration project (Torsten H. Voigt)
2023-02-08 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
c:o/re Lecture Series: Cultures of Research
On Wednesday, February 8th, Torsten H. Voigt, Professor for Sociology at RWTH Aachen University will talk about “Voodoo science and the missing controversy: Neuroscience as an integration project”. The talk is part of the c:o/re Lecture Series: Cultures of Research.
To participlate, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de

From Reciprocity of Formulation to Symbolic Language: A Source of Complexity in Scientific Knowledge - Giora Hon
2023-04-12 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
“From reciprocity of formulation to symbolic language: a source of complexity in scientific knowledge” by Giora Hon (University of Haifa).
This event is part of our summer semester 2023 lecture series “Complexity”.

Instability and Complexity. On the Emergence of Late-Modern Science - Jan C. Schmidt
2023-04-26 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
“Instability and Complexity. On the Emergence of Late-Modern Science” by Jan C. Schmidt (Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences)
Abstract
In my talk, I distinguish between compositional and dynamical complexity – in order to focus on the latter from the perspective of complex systems theory. Complex systems theory, including nonlinear dynamics, chaos-, self-organization- and catastrophe theory, fractal geometry, synergetics and dissipative structures is a fascinating field of scientific inquiry that spans many established disciplines. However, it poses challenging problems for scientific methodology as well as cultural guiding metaphysical assumptions, e.g., predictability, reproducibility, testability and describability/explainability. The common denominator of all of these challenges is instability — that is the main thesis. On the other hand, instabilities are not seen only in the negative sense. They turn out as a relevant factor of dynamical complexity and, in particular, as a source of growth, self-organization, pattern formation and of biological life. However, instability has long been neglected in the history of science. The talk will reconstruct the vibrant history of instability and show how the “dogma of stability” was replaced in the 20th century by a different view of nature and the sciences that includes instabilities – and thus, acknowledges dynamic complexity. This gradual shift within the culture of the sciences and the emergence of a new-late modern regime will be addressed. The late-modern regime does not replace the traditional, classical-modern regime, but complements and extends it.
Jan Cornelius Schmidt is physicist (Ph.D.) and philosopher (Habilitation). Since 2008 he has been Professor of Philosophy of Science and Technology at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. Previously, he was junior researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Physics, Mainz, as well as at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Technology, Darmstadt, and Associate Professor for Philosophy of Technology at Georgia Tech, Atlanta. He was invited Guest and Stand-In-Professor at Universities in Jena, Klagenfurt and Vienna. Schmidt serves on the scientific advisory board of the Transdisciplinarity Net, Swiss Academies of Sciences, Berne, and he is member of the scientific advisory board of the Journal for Technology Assessment in Theory and Practice. His research interests encompass philosophy and history of science and technology; science and technology studies; technology assessment; science, engineering and sustainability ethics; concepts of inter- and transdisciplinarity; and complex systems, nonlinear dynamics, chaos and self-organization theories.
This event is part of our summer semester 2023 lecture series Complexity.

Neither Good nor Old-Fashioned: On the Curious Complexity of Soviet AI - Benjamin Peters
2023-05-10 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
“Neither Good nor Old-Fashioned: On the Curious Complexity of Soviet AI” by Benjamin Peters (University of Tulsa).
Abstract:
This public talk will explore the material media philosophies of Soviet artificial intelligence research and its precursors. In particular, it will examine the case for not-anthropomorphic, even invisual imaginations of smart technologies in the wartime wake of the Soviet experience with damaged bodies.
Benjamin Peters is Hazel Rogers Associate Professor and former Chair of the Department of Media Studies at the University of Tulsa with appointments in the School of Cyber Studies and Russian Studies Program. He is also affiliated fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School and alumnus of Columbia’s Communication PhD program in 2010. He is the author of How Not to Network a Nation: the Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet (MITP 2016, winner of three awards in three fields), editor of Digital Keywords: A Vocabulary of Information Society & Culture (Princeton UP 2016), and coeditor of Your Computer is on Fire (MITP 2021). He has published extensively across the fields of media theory and history, the transnational history and philosophy of information technology & society, and technology criticism with an emphasis on the causes and consequences of the information age in the Soviet century. He is currently conducting research on alternative genealogies of artificial intelligence.
This event is part of our summer semester 2023 lecture series “Complexity“.

Complexity – From Natural and Social Sciences to Artificial Intelligence - Klaus Mainzer
2023-05-17 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
“Complexity – From Natural and Social Sciences to Artificial Intelligence” – Klaus Mainzer (TU Munich).
Abstract:
According to several prominent authors, including Stephen Hawking, a main part of 21st century science will be on complexity research. The intuitive idea is that global patterns and structures emerge from locally interacting elements like atoms in laser beams, molecules in chemical reactions, proteins in cells, cells in organs, neurons in brains, transistors in electronic systems etc. (Mainzer 2007). Complex pattern formation has been reported from many disciplines (e.g., physics, chemistry, biology, brain research, engineering). The causes of complex pattern formation have been analyzed from various perspectives such as Schrödinger’s (1948) order from disorder, Prigogine’s (1980) dissipative structure, Haken’s (1983) synergetics, Langton’s (1990) edge of chaos etc. But concepts of complexity are often based on examples or metaphors only. We argue for a mathematically precise and rigorous definition of local activity as the cause of complex pattern formation which can be tested in natural as well as technical sciences by constructive methods.
Recently, these results of complexity research have become important for machine learning of AI (artificial intelligence) systems (e.g., neural networks, cognitive AI-systems, robots). Instead of complex pattern formation in nature, complex pattern recognition of AI-systems is considered which is modeled in statistical learning theory. But statistical correlations of data cannot replace causal explanations of events. Algorithms of causal learning are necessary to detect causal models behind the statistical distributions of data. Causal learning would be a first step from weak AI with probabilistic learning to strong AI.
References: K. Mainzer, Thinking in Complexity, Springer: Berlin 5th edition 2007; K. Mainzer/L. Chua, Local Activity Principle. The Cause of Complexity, World Scientific Singapore 2013; K. Mainzer, Artificial Intelligence. When do Machines take over? Springer: Berlin 2nd edition 2019; K. Mainzer/ R. Kahle, Grenzen der Künstlichen Intelligenz – theoretisch, praktisch, ethisch, Springer. Berlin 2022.
Klaus Mainzer is professor emeritus at the Technical University Munich of the School of Social Sciences and Technology. While obtaining a PhD in the philosophy of the basics of mathematics, more precisely constructive and algorithmically grounded procedures, he habilitated on their application in geometry and physics. He is a member of The Academy of Europe (Academy Europaea)/London, the European Academy of Science and Arts, the German Academy of Science of Technology, president of the German-Japanese Society for Integrative Science and board member of the Udo Keller Stiftung (Hamburg). From the vantage point of contemplating the computability of the world, he works as a science philosopher of the foundations and future perspectives of science and technology and as a complexity researcher focussed on complex systems in nature, technology, economy and society, as well as the foundations of AI and Big Data. His research seeks for constructively founded solutions, methods and evidentiary procedures which allow to control the algorithmization and digitalization of technology and society.
This event is part of our summer semester 2023 lecture series “Complexity“.

A Philosophy of Artscience: Something Old, Something Novel - Clarissa Lee
2023-06-07 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
“A Philosophy of Artscience: Something Old, Something Novel” by Clarissa Lee (transdisciplinary researcher, c:o/re Aachen).
Abstract:
This talk explores how one could develop and apprehend a philosophically intuited syzygy that is art and science, giving way to art-science and artscience (without the hyphen). However, this is not merely about what philosophy could do for artscience (the un-hyphenated version is the speaker’s preferred choice for reasons to be explained in the talk), but also untangles and highlights the simultaneous (and comparative) philosophical arguments that invariably, even if not intentionally, exert the co-existence of art-like (filtered through aesthetics) and science-like (filtered through cognitive acts of logic) subjects in epistemological discussions that often reinforce reductive representations of art and science. This talk traces the philosophy of artscience as it transports from fledgling theoretical constructs on ways of knowing and making knowledge to the recuperation of knowledge practices marginalized by the ‘over-professionalization’ of disciplines that led to the dehistoricization and decontextualization of contemporary technoscientifc knowledge, while disrupting the chain of evidence following the tracks of such knowledge over space, time, and culture. This talk will also promulgate philosophy of artscience as a method for research and creative interventions within Science and Technology Studies + Art through some choice examples.
Clarissa Ai Ling Lee was a senior lecturer with the Faculty of Creative Arts at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with research specialization at the intersection of performance studies, design studies, science and technology studies, cultural studies, and digital media studies. Previously she has held research positions at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies at the National University of Malaysia (UKM), the Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development and Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia, both at Sunway University Malaysia. She has researched and published on diverse topics in STS ranging from Malaysia’s history in the physical/nuclear sciences, participatory-speculative design in policy development, digital infrastructures and social hacking, as well as epistemologies of artscience. She is presently working on her monograph, Speculative Technoscience, that proposes a review of scientific epistemology of the global south through the mediating concept of ‘science-like’ knowledge as contextualized by artscience and queer epistemologies.
This event is part of our summer semester 2023 lecture series “Complexity“.

Exposures, Photographic and Otherwise: Complex Encounters with Toxicity - Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou
2023-06-21 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Exposures, Photographic and Otherwise: Complex Encounters with Toxicity – Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou.
Abstract:
“Exposure,” as a term, freely flows in different contexts, from environmentalist and activist circles to scientific and medical discourse. Levels of exposure—to radiation, to lead, to asbestos, and beyond—are deemed safe or unsafe by shifting regulatory frameworks. And more often than not, these levels are “terribly uneven” in their social distribution (Alaimo 2010). In the practice of photography, exposure precedes the revelation of the image—it registers on the negative an image that is latent. Photographic and toxic exposures unexpectedly came together in uranium mines in the 1960s and 1970s, when workers used photographic film to measure levels of exposure to radon (Hecht 2012; van Wyck 2010). This talk moves through intersecting meanings of “exposure” in an attempt to think together figures that usually sit apart: the photographer and the miner.
Dr. Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou is a historian of modern and contemporary art, specializing in the relationship between art and science with an emphasis on nuclear technologies. Her interdisciplinary scholarship, at the intersection of art history and the environmental humanities, engages nuclear aesthetics, the visual culture of extraction, and material histories of art and the environment. She was awarded her PhD from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris in 2021, supported by an Onassis Foundation scholarship, with a dissertation entitled Dwelling, Extracting, Burying: Nuclear Imaginaries in Contemporary Art (1970-2020). She is an affiliate researcher at the Centre Georg Simmel, EHESS, Paris. She has held visiting fellowships in environmental humanities centres at Carleton University, Ottawa (2018) and VU University, Amsterdam (2019) and was a curatorial fellow of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (2020-21). Currently, she is working on an exhibition about the atomic age at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (fall 2024).
This event is part of our summer semester 2023 lecture series “Complexity”.

Complexity beteween hype and history - Arianna Borrelli
2023-07-05 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
“Complexity beteween hype and history” by Arianna Borrelli (TU Berlin).
Abstract:
Speaking about the history of computing, Michael Mahoney stated that “hype hides history” (2005) and, indeed, the same could be said of the history of complexity. Between the 1980s and the early ’90s the study of complex systems and related areas (deterministic chaos, nonlinear systems) established itself as a new disciplinary field, and did so amid a sweeping wave of consensus that this development represented both a breakthrough for and an epochal break in the sciences. These claims originated from the academic community, but reached well beyond it and were supported and expanded by successful popular science books published at the same time as the first scientific journals devoted to the new field appeared. Both academic and popular discussions supported the claims of novelty by offering reconstructions of the history of the field rich in stories of forgotten classics, chance discoveries and parallel developments which suddenly converged. Hype and history were closely bound right from the beginning and, rather than attempting to unravel them, in my presentation I will take a closed look at the way in which earlier and later historiography might have shaped the complexity hype, and possibly the notion of complexity itself.
Arianna Borrelli is a historian and philosopher of natural philosophy and modern science. Her overarching research interest is the relationship between scientific knowing and the strategies employed to mediate it, like words, images, formulas or code. Her fields of research include medieval cosmology, early modern meteorology, natural magic and quantum physics, with current work focusing on the historical-epistemological premises and implications of the increasing use of computational tools in science. She holds degrees in both physics and philosophy and a PhD and habilitation in history of science, the latter with the thesis: Formulating phenomena: concept formation and the materiality of theory in the early modern and modern period (TU Berlin 2018). Borrelli held research positions in physics (Rome, CERN) and in history and philosophy of science (MPIWG, Wuppertal, TU Berlin, Lüneburg). She is currently President-Elect of the Commission on History and Philosophy of Computing (HaPoC).
This event is part of our summer semester 2023 lecture series “Complexity“.

Life from scratch - Gabriele Gramelsberger
2023-10-25 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
For more than a decade, scientists have been exploring the transition from non-living to living entities in order to create life from scratch, i.e., to move chemically from protoplasm to protocells and finally to artificial organisms. Today, synthetic biology aims to genetically engineer life from scratch, such as the synthetic Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn3.0—an artificial single-celled organism with a minimal genome consisting of 473 genes. With the use of computer-aided design (CAD) for genome editing, rapid design of new organisms is now a “one-stop-shop” business. This talk will provide a brief introduction to the history of the re-genesis of life, followed by an overview of the current practice of synthetic biology of programming life. It will conclude with some reflections on the proliferating “domain of synthetica.”
Gabriele Gramelsberger holds the Chair for Theory of Science and Technology at RWTH Aachen University and is one of the two directors of c:o/re. In 2018 she founded the Computational Social Systems Lab, supported by the NRW Digital Fellowship 2017. Her aim is to develop a conceptual framework for Philosophy of Computational Sciences as well as an open science infrastructure for Computational Science Studies. She is a member of the RWTH Human Technology Center and serves as Vice Dean for Research of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the RWTH Aachen University.
This event is part of our winter semester 2023/24 lecture series Lifelikeness.
To take part either online or in presence, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Robot, a Laboratory "Animal": Producing Knowledge through and about Human-Robot Interaction - Andrei Korbut
2023-11-08 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
The lecture focuses on the use of robots (primarily humanoid) in robotics laboratories to produce knowledge about human–robot interaction (HRI). Robotics is a large and diverse field, but with the recent development of artificial conversational systems and the increasing availability of human-like machines, HRI is now one of the fastest growing and most dynamic subfields in robotics. The lecture will introduce the conceptual framework for studying robots as contemporary laboratory “animals”, based on the notion of different types of lifelikeness that can be ascribed to humanoid robots. It will argue that robots, unlike other types of laboratory “living instruments”, allow for a much closer connection between tools and objects in knowledge production because they hinder the perception of them as “natural objects”.
This event is part of our winter semester 2023/24 Lecture Series Lifelikeness.
To take part either online or in presence, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Neuromorphic Computing: Inspiration from the Brain for Future AI Technologies - Emre Neftci
2023-11-22 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
The importance of understanding the principles of brain computation and incorporating them into artificial systems is often considered necessary to advance AI technologies. However, the recent advent of large, “Foundational” vision and language models casts doubt on this assumption, as recent AI architectures differ considerably from the brain. Yet, the human brain consumes far less energy to solve tasks similar to large AI models while demonstrating greater resilience to ambiguous cues, physical damage, and superior reasoning capabilities. This raises important questions: Can one emulate the brain’s efficiency and robustness? Will such brain-inspired solutions enhance state-of-the-art AI algorithms or will they lead to fundamentally different solutions? This lecture aims to shed light on these questions from the perspective of brain-inspired “neuromorphic computing”, explaining how current AI was shaped by neuroscience, what stands in the way of emulating the brain, and the potential benefits of taking a deeper dive into how life shaped computation.
This event is part of our winter semester 2023/24 Lecture Series Lifelikeness.
To take part either online or in presence, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Art's Mediation as Remediation: On Some Artworks and their reuses of Toxic Materials - Esther Leslie
2023-12-06 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
There is so much toxicity and contamination in the world. It is incontestable that vast parts of nature are poisoned, ailing or in retreat, and under threat. We live amongst poisoned materials. Drawing on the various ways in which Adorno and Benjamin addressed both the assault on nature, in the name of progress, and the possibility – or significance – of art in and after catastrophe, a number of contemporary art practices are examined in this lecture as a working through of art as a form of mediation. This mediation is multiple: between nature and culture, between world and self, between politics and aesthetics, The works and practices under examination engage directly with toxic materials, actual or evoked. In this way, the toxic materials are re-mediated, in a double sense. They are used and reused as toxic materials, but in addition, they are remediated, which is to say provide some sort of remedy or alleviation of the dire circumstances. Through such practices, the transmutational capacities of art practice are engaged, but without negating the actual hurt in the world.
Esther Leslie is a Professor of Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck, University of London. She has research interests in political theories of aesthetics and culture and the poetics of science and technology, as well as animation, in an expanded sense. She has a particular focus on thinkers associated with the Frankfurt School, including Walter Benjamin, T.W. Adorno, Kracauer and Bloch. Recent work includes a thorough and experimental history of Weimar radio and BBC exile history through the figure of Ernst Schoen.
Keynote by Dr. Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou.
This event is part of our winter semester 2023/24 Lecture Series Lifelikeness.
To take part either online or in presence, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Plea for the Political Philosophy of Engineering and Technology - Carl Mitcham
2023-12-20 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
My thesis is that discussion of ethical and other issues in the philosophy of technology needs to be complemented with political philosophy. Development of the thesis takes place in three parts. Part one notes the absence of political philosophy in the first, classic European period in the philosophy of technology. Part two reviews developments in the philosophy of technology from 1970s to the 2020s, and how early efforts to think political philosophy of technology were progressively marginalized in favor of ethical, ontological, and epistemological questions. Part three looks at some nascent political philosophical discourse in current philosophy of technology that calls attention to the failure in ethics of technology to address “the problem of many hands” as well as “cultural lag” gaps between technological power, regulation, and political governance.
To take part either online or in presence, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Towards an Ecology of Technoscience - Massimiliano Simons
2024-01-10 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
New emerging sciences and technologies – such as AI, synthetic biology, or robotics – are too often discussed in isolation. As a result, little attention is paid to the potential commonalities and ways in which they can inform each other. In this talk, I want to focus on aspect of what many of these technosciences have in common: attempts to harness the self-organization of systems in order to design new technological artifacts. This involves a certain loss of control: the scientists do not have full control over the outcome, but grant the system under study a certain autonomy.
The most obvious case of this is machine learning in data science, where a problem – often in the form of discriminating between data – is solved not by rational design, but by letting a self-learning algorithm find patterns for us. While this can be effective, it also leads to the problem of opacity: the process by which the problem was solved often remains a black box, with all the risks that implies. In this talk, I will argue that this problem is not unique to data science, but is also at work in other sciences. I will focus on the life sciences, and in particular the method of directed evolution in synthetic biology, which follows similar lines: solving a set of problems – how to design specific molecules or enzymes – not by rational design, but by creating a context in which natural selection solves the problem for us.
The goal of this talk is to work toward a more general framework for how and why the technosciences can be characterized by this fascination with self-organization and loss of control.
This event is part of our winter semester 2023/24 Lecture Series Lifelikeness.
To take part either online or in presence, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Flowers for Agouti: Epigenetics and the Genealogy of Uplift - Ben Woodard
2024-01-24 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
The notion of uplift has a science-fictional and social justice connotation: it is the raising up of one species by another as well as a historical (and often racially codified) way of speaking of how one group raises itself up above limiting structural conditions. While these notions seem disparate they in fact have a shared history that hybridizes fictional and non-fictional aspirations for future humanity as well as the origins of civilization as such.
This talk examines how recent discussions of epigenetics complicates notions of a too hasty equation of cognition and agency both within humanity and across species that the concept of uplift as championed as an anti-Darwinian politics of Eurocentric teleology.
This event is part of our winter semester 2023/24 Lecture Series Lifelikeness.
To take part either online or in presence, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Bio-inspired Materials and Dreams of Inspiration - Michael Friedman
2024-02-07 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
Materials are found at the very center of our life, situated in the complex zone between nature and society. In the recent decades, new discoveries in the natural sciences and in the materials sciences have enabled to develop new materials, so called ‘active materials’ and ‘Bio-inspired Materials’. These new materials are considered as entities that are able to ‘sense’ and respond to their environment. Furthermore they are not only associated with a technical claim, but also with the hope that they can do ‘more with less’, i.e. perform complex tasks, but use fewer resources and produce less waste to do so. Such materials are considered new ‘ideal’ materials, but they are materials that cannot be taken as such from nature as they have to be constructed in engineered in a sophisticated way. Nevertheless, the model for these manufactured active materials is often organic materials found in nature, such as the grown wood of trees and the bone formation in living organisms – and in this sense the scientists are ‘inspired’ by nature. The scientific analysis of these organic materials may lead to the fabrication of synthetic and bio-inspired active materials, and this in turn raises the question – which I will discuss in my talk – whether the dream of inspiration from nature is not a revision of a much older view, or rather metaphor, to read and finally write the ‘book’ of nature.
This event is part of our winter semester 2023/24 Lecture Series Lifelikeness.
To take part either online or in presence, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Distilled, Extruded, Suspended: Lessons in Lifelikeness from the Metabolism of Mass Production - Hannah Landecker
2024-04-23 17:30 - 19:00 (Europe/Berlin) | RWTH Aachen University – Super C – Generali Saal 639, Templergraben 57, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Keynote “Politics of the Machines” Conference
Abstract:
This talk is about quite ordinary matters, such as the prevention of perishability in rubbers and oils, and how one makes a non-dairy creamer that lasts without refrigeration. Yet these are also extraordinary matters. The harvesting and remobilization of metabolically powerful objects and processes proceeded apace in the twentieth century, a process of industrialization not just of agriculture or craft production, but of metabolism itself. Cells, enzymes, antioxidant molecules, polymers, fats and many other capacities and pieces of living things were pulled apart and then pieced back together, re-articulated into new sequences of material transformation at augmented volume or manipulated speed, sometimes suspended here, or driven forward there. Three lessons in lifelikeness from the historical annals of enzymes and antioxidants will invite listeners into the maw of a vast and reticulate petro-animate metabolism, where novelty concatenates with mimicry and the synthetic is fed to the natural for dinner. Today, as we begin to ask whether our material things are lasting too long – or not long enough – and the technical parameters of planetary costs of consumption figure prominently in negotiations of ageing, biodegradability and toxicity, it is useful to engage directly with the history and future of these technical lifespan objects into which values and temporalities are built.
This event is part of our summer semester 2024 Lecture Series Lifelikeness.
If you would like to attend, please write a short email to events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Lifestyle Transitions in Human Microbiome Research: A View from History and Philosophy of Science - Abigail Nieves
2024-05-08 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Berlin) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
This event is part of our summer semester 2024 Lecture Series Lifelikeness.
If you would like to attend, please write a short email to events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

On the Origin and Development of Scientific Concepts: Light Rays and Lines of Force - Friedrich Steinle
2024-05-22 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Berlin) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
In studying the historical dynamics of scientific knowledge, concepts constitute central objects. Their study, however, poses difficulties and challenges that have to do with their specific character as basic components of scientific thought: Much as in everyday life, they are constantly used but scarcely addressed as such. While we speak about chairs, cats and cauliflower, or about temperature, bacteria, and oxygen, we rarely put those concepts themselves in question. At the same time, processes of their formation and development are shaped by a bewildering variety of factors, including wider cultural aspects. Historical studies help us understanding both the complexity of scientific concept formation and its implications, i.e. the historical baggage of scientific concepts. In my talk, I shall discuss those features and illustrate them by two cases from the history of physical sciences: light rays and lines of force.
This event is part of our summer semester 2024 Lecture Series Lifelikeness.
If you would like to attend, please write a short email to events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Life-Like Artificial Music: Understanding the Impact of AI on Musical Thinking - Nikita Braguinski
2024-06-05 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Berlin) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
This lecture explores the impact of machine learning on the future of music research and theory. It argues that AI-generated music poses a deep challenge for existing theories: AI systems can learn to imitate musical styles without receiving any information about human music theory concepts, raising questions about the validity of those concepts. Additionally, music-generating AI systems can be trained on audio directly, bypassing notation, while human music theory almost always works with notation as a simplified and abstracted proxy.
As an example of the conceptual challenges and shifts that now arise in music research, the talk examines a recent paper that compares Western music theory concepts with structures that emerge in a machine learning model trained on musical notation. While the paper finds similarities between the two, the talk argues that the machine learning system’s output is still influenced by human biases and choices in the training data and model architecture – and that this influence may in fact be unavoidable.
Finally, the talk argues that while AI may be able to generate novel structures for analyzing music, their applicability to human music theory and practice may prove to be extremely limited due to the differences between human cognition and machine learning. Overall, the talk raises questions about the future potential for AI to disrupt human theory-making – and not only in the discipline of musicology.
No knowledge of musicological concepts is required for understanding the presentation and participating in the discussion.
This event is part of our summer semester 2024 Lecture Series Lifelikeness.
If you would like to attend, please write a short email to events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.
Dr. Nikita Braguinski is a 2023-2024 Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg “Cultures of Research” at RWTH Aachen University. In his work he currently concentrates on the possible impact of machine learning and big online listening datasets on the future of music research. His book “Mathematical Music. From Antiquity to Music AI” (Routledge, 2022) was translated into Korean, receiving the Sejong book prize in 2023. He was a Fellow at Harvard University, a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge, and a Researcher at Humboldt University of Berlin with funding from the Volkswagen Foundation. In 2023, he co-convened, together with Eamonn Bell and Miriam Akkermann, the ZiF Bielefeld Visiting Research Group “The Future of Musical Knowledge in the Age of Machine Learning”.

Indoor Atmospheres: Comfort, Aerial Hygiene and the Microbiome of the Built Environment - Sven Opitz
2024-06-19 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Berlin) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany

Organising Life: Biocuration, Bio-Ontologies, and the Conditions of Academic Work - Sarah Davies
2024-07-03 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Berlin) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
In this talk I discuss biocuration as a field of scholarly practice. In creating and managing data and knowledge bases, biocuration is essential to research in the biosciences, but the skilled human labour it involves is often rendered invisible to its users. At the same time, this ordering work is central to rendering scientific knowledge thinkable. I therefore reflect on what biocuration tells us about the intersections of knowledge production with digital tools and the material conditions of academic work. What practices constitute knowledge, and how are these rendered visible and valuable (or not) within academic systems?
This event is part of our summer semester 2024 Lecture Series Lifelikeness.
If you would like to attend, please write a short email to events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Towards Expanded STS? - Stefan Böschen
2024-10-09 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Berlin)
This event is part of our winter semester 2024/25 Lecture Series Expanding Science and Technology Studies.
To take part either online or in presence, please write a short email to events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

An IAEA for AI? The Regulation of Artificial Intelligence and Governance Models from the Nuclear Age - Elisabeth Röhrlich
2024-10-30 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Berlin)

STS between the Climate Crisis and the Einstein Telescope - Harro van Lente
2024-11-13 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Berlin)

Cancelled: From IP and Cookies to IDFA/GAID. Towards a Historical Sociology of (Digital) Addressing - Ricky Wichum
2024-11-27 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Berlin)
Unfortunately, this lecture has been canceled due to health reasons. We will continue our lecture series on December 18. Thank you for your understanding.
This event is part of our winter semester 2024/25 Lecture Series Expanding Science and Technology Studies.
To take part either online or in presence, please write a short email to events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Spaces of Research Beyond the Laboratory? The University as a Neglected Research Object in STS - David Kaldewey
2024-12-18 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Berlin)

Communicating Science and Technology. How Can STS Benefit From Historical Semantics? - Désirée Schauz
2025-01-08 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Berlin)

What Role for History and Philosophy of Science in STS? Critical Engagements with Empirical Inquiry - Sabina Leonelli
2025-01-21 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Berlin)
