[Commlist] CFP: The Aesthetics of Bio-Machines and the Question of Life

*The Aesthetics of Bio-Machines and the Question of Life *

June 13-14, 2024

International conference organised by the University of Southern Denmark 
and held at the *University of Copenhagen, Denmark*.

Deadline for Abstracts: February 1, 2024

This conference aims to bring together a wide range of scholars, 
researchers and artists who explore life-simulating technologies from an 
aesthetic perspective. Today we are immersed in life-simulating digital 
technologies, such as virtual assistants (Siri, Alexa), generative 
self-learning computer systems (chatbots), and adaptive robots that use 
artificial intelligence to learn from their surroundings (robot vacuum 
cleaners). In new and intriguing ways, these digital technologies raise 
the question of who and what is alive, and how we as humans cohabit with 
them. Indeed, physicists, engineers, and biologists are currently 
speaking about a notion of “life 3.0,” which affords life status to 
self-learning artificial intelligence. This humanities-based conference 
will investigate these “life-forms” from an aesthetic perspective by 
focusing on how we may understand the sensory capabilities of such 
technologies and the way these are negotiated in literature, art and film.

We propose to conceptualize these diverse life-simulating technologies 
as sensing bio-machines, since we argue that their life-like qualities 
should be understood through the ways they perform a techno-mimesis (an 
imitation) of the sensory capabilities of biological life. Our focus on 
aesthetics allows us to home in on the intersection of humans and 
machines and to interrogate the dependencies and symbioses we find in 
the process of sensing, and how these processes negotiate new 
perspectives on what constitutes life.

It is imperative that these intersections are not solely analyzed by 
engineers and natural scientists but also by humanities scholars, who 
can place current technological developments in historical trajectories 
and theoretical debates that highlight the ethical, cultural, and 
societal implications of such bio-machines for humanity. Given the 
current planetary crisis (climate change, warfare, inequality), the 
search for new, integrative, and diverse concepts of life that rethink 
the status of machines is more than a philosophical task, it is an 
ethical responsibility. We believe that our focus on aesthetics can 
provide unique and creative insights to enhance and sustain life in 
alliance between the human and more-than-human technical entities.

We invite scholars, artists, and practitioners to engage with how 
aesthetics/artworks/sensoria as imaginaries can reflect the life of 
bio-machines within the wider contemporary arenas of cultural, ethical, 
environmental, and socio-political realms.

The *keynote speaker* will be Joanna Zylinska (Professor of Media 
Philosophy and Critical Digital Practice at King’s College London)

Exploring these cultural-artistic negotiations of bio-machines, we are 
interested in the following directions:

*Cultural Imaginaries and Histories of Bio-machines *

This direction invites contributions investigating the cultural 
imaginaries of bio-machines throughout history. For centuries, humans 
have created machines that simulate biological life, from 
eighteenth-century automata (Vaucanson’s mechanical digesting duck), 
wheel-based motion machines (locomotive and automobile), to 
cinematography (moving images). We are interested in tracing back the 
contemporary correlation between machinic sensing and life back to early 
analogue concepts of life-simulating machines, as we believe that the 
historicization of technological innovations provides a necessary 
perspective for understanding their relevance today.

*Domestic Life-Worlds: Bio-Machines and Home Assistance *

This direction investigates cultural imaginaries of bio-machines 
focusing on intimate life-worlds. An emerging genre of fiction and art 
portrays humanoid robots as friends, partners, and lovers rather than 
monsters and scary creatures. By means of their advanced technical 
sensoria, these bio-machinic companions express empathy, compassion, 
intimacy, and ethical values about human-machine relationships. This 
direction investigates how artistic works negotiate such new companions 
and evaluate how technologies claim agency for being seen as alive in 
cultural imaginaries.

*Work Life-Worlds: Bio-Machines and Labor *

This direction explores how bio-machines and their sensoria change the 
life-worlds of the workplace. Smart technologies include “bossware” 
(software that tracks productivity), automated warehouse robots used at 
Amazon, as well as care robots in hospitals. The papers should 
investigate how these smart technologies become our living and sensing 
co-workers and employers, as well as how bio-machines change work 
conditions and power dynamics at the workplace. The main focus is on the 
artistic interpretations (visual art) of these “working” bio-machines, 
and how art can critically reflect the use of machinic surveillance at 
the workplace.

*Ecological Life-Worlds: Bio-Machines and Hybrid Eco-Systems *

This direction examines ecological life-worlds in conjunction with 
life-simulating technologies. In a time of ecological decay and climate 
devastation, engineers and biologists work on the development of 
“artificial life technology” to stabilize eco-systems. These are 
bio-machines that could sustain eco-systems, such as artificial 
honeybees and fish to stabilize biodiversity. Artists have taken up this 
topic of bioengineering. This WP analyzes bio-machinic art (visual 
art/literature) and discusses the implications of these eco-hybrid 
systems in reference to how we understand life, reproduction and evolution.

Venue:

The conference will be held physically from June 13, 2024 (10:00-17:00) 
and June 14, 2024 (10:00 - 14:00) at the University of Copenhagen. The 
conference is organized in close collaboration with the University of 
Southern Denmark and is based on the research cluster “Bio-machines and 
the Question of Life” supported The Velux Foundations. The cluster is 
led by Kathrin Maurer (Professor of Humanities and Technology and leader 
of the Center for Culture and Technology at the University of Southern 
Denmark www.sdu.dk/en/cult-tech) and Kristin Veel (Associate Professor 
at Copenhagen University and leader of the research hub INTERSECT 
https://intersect.ku.dk ).

Please send an abstract of up to 300 words and a short bio to this email 
address: (kamau /at/ sdu.dk)

Deadline for Abstracts: February 1, 2024

Notification and Invitations: March 15, 2024.

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