[ecrea] The Art of Living with ICT - colloquium

Announcement

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The Art of Living with ICT:
Exploring the Range of Options from “Adoption” to “Rejection”
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iMinds-SMIT Lecture Series – Friday April 25th, 2014
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Speakers:
Andrew Feenberg, Pieter Lemmens, Søren Riis, Ike Kamphof, Mark 
Coeckelbergh, Yoni Van Den Eede

http://smit.vub.ac.be/event/103/The_Art_of_Living_with_ICT


Our lives are nowadays impregnated with information and communication 
technologies and digital media, to the extent that it is all 
but impossible to distinguish between who “we” are and what those 
“media” are. We define ourselves, even give meaning to life, by way 
of technology.

This process of meaning-making can be framed as a project, a work that 
one must carry out on an everyday, personal-existential basis. But 
the process comes in different sizes and shapes. First, not all of it is 
done in an equally conscious way. Second, the larger frameworks – 
or worldviews – within which meaning is sought after, can differ: 
functionalist, consumerist, ethical, … Depending on where the emphasis 
lies, another form of “living with ICT” gets instantiated. Third, 
exactly the degree to which one understands oneself as either 
intertwined with or independent from his or her media, may influence 
implicit or explicit decision-making processes concerning the place and 
meaning of ICT in one’s life.

In this colloquium, we explore these issues, in general through the 
prism of philosophy of technology, and in particular by way of the 
guiding notion, significant in the recent history of philosophy, of 
“the art of living.”

More precisely, we apply the idea of life conceptualized as an artistic, 
creative undertaking – exemplified in the work of, to name a few, 
Nietzsche and Foucault – to the study of everyday interaction with ICT. 
In the philosophy of technology, concepts potentially convergent with 
this notion have been developed by amongst others Andrew Feenberg, who 
with his theory of “technical micropolitics” has outlined a 
comprehensive program of user appropriation or modification of 
technology. That very denomination serves to illustrate that even in 
everyday projects of living and dealing with technology, “the 
political” is never far off.

Living with ICT, indeed, never takes place in a vacuum. Thus, over and 
above personal choices ranging from “adoption” to “rejection,” there are 
of course larger overarching social, cultural, and political frameworks 
in which people partake and that may be said to vary on a scale 
from “left,” i.e., (neo)marxist to “right,” i.e., (neo)liberal. In the 
lectures at hand, we aim to probe the interfaces between personal 
conduct and larger cultural contexts, in function of the question as to 
how a personal, existential “art of living with ICT” can be creatively 
conceived nowadays.


Location: iMinds-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 9 - 
1st floor, 1050 Brussels

Admittance is free, but registration is required at 
http://smit.vub.ac.be/seminar/form.aspx?id=617c3da6-dbd7-4e8a-b716-af007b9b2de1

Organization:
Digital Cultures & Arts cluster of iMinds-SMIT – Studies on 
Media, Information & Telecommunication, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
In collaboration with ETHU – Centre for Ethics and Humanism, Vrije 
Universiteit Brussel & CDO – Centre for Sustainable Development, 
Universiteit Gent

More information:
Dr. Yoni Van Den Eede – (yvdeede /at/ vub.ac.be) <mailto:(yvdeede /at/ vub.ac.be)>

http://smit.vub.ac.be/event/103/The_Art_of_Living_with_ICT

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Kind regards,

Yoni Van Den Eede
Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)
iMinds-SMIT - Studies on Media, Information & Telecommunication
Centre for Ethics and Humanism
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Office: Pleinlaan 9, 1st floor
B - 1050 Brussels, Belgium
Phone: +32 486 52 58 30
E-mail: (yvdeede /at/ vub.ac.be) <mailto:(yvdeede /at/ vub.ac.be)>

http://www.smit.vub.ac.be <http://www.smit.vub.ac.be/>
http://www.ethu.be <http://www.ethu.be/>