14.06.2021: "Erste Sekunde Ewigkeit". Symposium on the Schaufler Residency@TU Dresden by Christian Kosmas Mayer

Program as PDF (german only)

The symposium ERSTE SEKUNDE EWIGKEIT accompanies the artistic research of the Viennese artist Christian Kosmas Mayer as part of his artist residency at the Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden. Born in Sigmaringen in 1976, Mayer studied at the art academies in Saarbrücken, Vienna and Glasgow and received the Outstanding Artist Award from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Art and Culture in 2020.

In Dresden, Christian Kosmas Mayer explores the age-old human desire for immortality against the current backdrop of far-reaching technological change in the field of biotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI). In two panels and a key note, the symposium is dedicated to the artist's research-based and speculative approach to this research topic.

The opening panel, BODIES IN SUSPENSION, will discuss the pursuit of immortality in the context of material influence on bodies. Looking at examples of the idea of preserving the bodies of the deceased in order to help them achieve immortality, which dates back to early times, today's manifestations of such endeavors seem to stand out due to their secular and late capitalist logic. One example of this is cryonics, in which bodies are preserved using state-of-the-art refrigeration technology in the hope of being able to revive them in the future. Death appears here only as a cultural artifact that needs to be overcome technologically.

The key note COMPUTATIONAL EXPLORATION OF THE HUMAN MIND by Prof. Björn Andres picks up on these theses and outlines how abstract concepts of machine learning are already being used today to explore the physical foundations of human thought, and how the complexity of the human brain is simultaneously driving us to develop new machine learning methods.

The second panel of the symposium, entitled GLEICHZEITIGKEIT DER GLEICHZEITIGKEITEN, borrowed from Konstantin and Kornelius Keulen, explores the question of how our sense of time is transforming in the face of the interpenetration of simultaneously experienced presents in the post-digital age. While AI is increasingly being used in a predictive way to realize the future in the present, the Internet is growing exponentially into a collective memory that is accessible at all times. Against this backdrop, how can current attempts to realize a form of disembodied immortality with the help of AI be classified?

Program

16.30 Welcome
Kirsten Vincenz, Spokesperson Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden and Director of the Office for Academic Heritage / Dr. Julia Meyer, Coordinator of Library Operations / Deputy Director General, Saxon State and University Library Dresden (SLUB)

16.45: BODIES IN SUSPENSION
With contributions by Christian Kosmas Mayer, Schaufler Residency@TU Dresden 2020 / Prof. Dr. Christoph Haberstroh, Bitzer Professorship of Refrigeration, Cryogenics and Compressor Technology, Institute of Power Engineering, TU Dresden / Michael Klipphahn, art historian and Schaufler Kolleg@TU Dresden scholarship holder, moderated by Gwendolin Kremer, curator Schaufler Residency@TU Dresden

6.15 pm: COMPUTATIONAL EXPLORATION OF THE HUMAN MIND
Key Note by Prof. Dr. Björn Andres, Chair of Machine Learning for Computer Vision, Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Computer Science, TU Dresden

18.45 hrs: Break

7.00 p.m.: EQUIVALENCE OF EQUIVALENCIES
With contributions by Christian Kosmas Mayer, Schaufler Residency@TU Dresden 2020 / Prof. Dr. Kerstin Schankweiler, Chair of Visual Culture in the Global Context at the Institute of Art and Music History, TU Dresden / Richard Groß, Sociologist and Scholarship Holder Schaufler Kolleg@TU Dresden, moderated by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Susann Wagenknecht, Junior Professorship of Micro-Sociology and Techno-Social Interaction, Institute of Sociology, TUD

With the kind support of the Saxon State and University Library Dresden (SLUB)