[Commlist] CfP: Media Philosophy and Theological Aesthetics of Algorithms, May 14-15, 2020 Prague

*Call for Proposals

Annual Workshop of the Working Group Media Philosophy of the German 
Society of Media Studies – Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft (GfM)

**Charles University Prague, May 14–15, 2020*
*
Deadline for the call: December 31, 2019*
**
*MEDIA PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGICAL AESTHETICS OF ALGORITHMS*

A sublime yet rumbles. What was once conceived as providence, theodicy, 
and angel is, today, called Big Data, AI, and algorithm. A radical 
theological legacy of reception haunts the development of algorithmic 
computation and machine-learning. Entanglements between god, faith, and 
the coding of contingency is tacitly embedded within the 
algorithmization and datafication of contemporary lifeworlds; how can 
such a relation be described from a media philosophical perspective?

Firstly, one can turn to the history of philosophy with Leibniz who 
incorporated combinatorics and calculus into /theodicy/; Pascal`s 
insistence on “/the machine/” of faith calculation, Hume’s critique of 
providential miracles anticipating probabilistic and inductive logic, or 
Thomas Bayes’ Calvinist understanding of ‘chance’ as he formulates the 
base probability ‘algorithm’ (employed by the Google ‘search’-engine and 
the digital data-mining of cloud computing, to this day, referred to as 
Bayes` theorem).

Secondly, one can ask how this encoded theology reveals itself 
throughout bleeding-edge luminaries of posthuman computer science; e.g., 
in Norbert Wiener’s consistent engagement of cybernetics with 
Augustinian theology and the vocation of ‘the church’ (/The Human Use of 
Human Beings/), Ray Kurzweil’s confessed indebtedness to /syncretism/ 
and comparative religion while theorizing the coming singularity of AI 
(/The Spiritual Age of Machines/), and appeals to /theogony/ and 
“afterlife” by Nick Bostrom in addressing the simulation hypothesis 
(/Superintelligence/) at play in the hierarchical and layered 
optimization of algorithmic information-processing (e.g., in the optical 
imaging of video codecs or facial recognition software). The “digital 
hierarchy” suggested by Bostrom is indissociable with the /angelology/ 
put forth by Pseudo-Dionysus as he invents the very word (‘heir-archy’). 
Similarly, the very word /cybernetics/ is a variation of the Latin 
/gubernatio /and Greek /kubernetes/ that ever conditions social 
governance, governmentality, geolocation, surveillance, or the /glory/ 
of control, critiqued in the ‘political theology’ of Giorgio Agamben, 
indebted as much Foucault, Schmitt, and Hegel as to Simone Weil, Thomas 
Aquinas, and Paul of Tarsus. What the prophets once grappled with as 
/original sin/ and /radical evil/ is, today, performed in the critical 
warnings of Cathy O’Neil’s /Weapons of Math Destruction /and Shoshana 
Zuboff’s /The Age Surveillance Capitalism./ It is worth considering that 
the functionality of algorithmic data-mining and its collateral AI 
machine-learning has roots embedded as much in Bernoulli’s mathematical 
‘law of great numbers’ as in Paul’s divine vantage point—from which 
/many/ are called but /few/ are chosen—both of which appeal to 
proto-algorithmic /weight(s)/, rather than arithmetical enumeration.

Such approaches remain within the framework of the medium of language. 
But how do algorithms allow for other mediums to do or perform media 
philosophy? What kind of aesthetic practices such as images, film, sound 
or especially algorithmic based media reveal theological implications of 
algorithms? What kind of sense of reality do algorithmic based media 
show?Perhaps only aesthetic theory can salvage the art of the advent of 
'artificial intelligence'.

The 2020 workshop of the AG Medienphilosophie aims at debates on the 
intersection of media philosophy and theology with a specific focus on 
algorithmic based technologies, their operations and aesthetic 
practices. From a media philosophical standpoint, we want to initiate a 
debate on theological legacies in thinking algorithms and conversely ask 
for operations and aesthetic practices that highlight the functionality 
of algorithms.

The call addresses the members of the AG Medienphilosophie and invites 
all researchers interested in media philosophy. The workshop takes place 
at the Faculty of Protestant Theology, Charles University in Prague, 
14th to 15th of May 2020 and is organized by Virgil Brower (Charles 
University Prague) and Johannes Bennke (Bauhaus University Weimar). The 
workshop language is english.

Please send an abstract of about 200 - 400 words for a 20 minute 
presentation and a short academic biography with your current 
institutional affiliation until the 31st of December 2019 to

(virgil /at/ u.northwestern.edu)

(johannes.bennke /at/ uni-weimar.de)

You will receive an answer until January 31, 2020.

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