[Commlist] NECSUS Spring 2020_#Intelligence - Call for Submissions

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*NECSUS Spring 2020_#Intelligence - Call for Submissions* 
<https://necsus-ejms.org/necsus-spring-2020_intelligence-call-for-submissions/>*__***

NECSUS - European Journal of Media Studies

Guest edited by Patricia Pisters (University of Amsterdam) and Ruggero 
Eugeni (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Milano)

The advent of new algorithms of machine learning and AI is producing a 
profound revolution in societies: indeed, the ‘algorithmic turn’ 
involves cultural, cognitive, emotional, and practical layers of 
everyday life; from this point of view, AI directly concern cinema and 
media at almost three levels.

On the first level, media have represented and represent within their 
own fictional worlds the different forms assumed by AI. Consider for 
instance works such as Steven Spielberg’s /A.I./ (2001), Spike Jonze’s 
/Her/ (2013), Alex Garland’s /Ex Machina /(2015), Denis Villeneuve’s 
/Blade Runner 2049/ (2017), and various episodes of the television 
series /Black Mirror /(Charlie Brooker, 2011-present). These 
representations are sometimes at the origin of real technological 
innovations: for example, the Convolutional Neural Networks, used in 
visual recognition algorithms by Yann LeCun, were inspired by the 
character HAL 9000 in /2001: A Space Odyssey/ (Stanley Kubrick, 1968).

On the second level, the functioning of media and post-media is 
increasingly linked to AI algorithms: machine vision intervenes in the 
processing of audio and visual data, from capture to editing; digital 
assistants and home automation interfaces use speech and visual 
recognition algorithms; AI automates the distribution of audiovisual 
products on SVOD and TVOD platforms such as Netflix or Amazon Prime, and 
modify the criteria for visibility and recognition of audiovisual 
products; they regularly assist human subjects in creating images and 
videos, and recently some Generative Adversarial Network algorithms 
started creating artistic images to be used in art installations and 
successfully inserted in the art market. If film scripts written by AI 
is for the moment mainly a forecast, trailers produced by specialised 
software and editing programs assisted by AI such as Magisto are already 
a reality.

On the third level, the algorithmic turn and the advent of the new AI 
poses a series of philosophical problems which in turn push to 
reformulate some critical problems in the field of film and media 
theory: what does it mean to ‘create’ a text, and what relationship 
exists between the creative processes and the ‘automatisms’ of a medium? 
What does ‘understanding’ mean, and in particular what relationship must 
be considered between ‘vision’, ‘understanding’, and ‘emotional 
intelligence’ – emotions being the latest holy grail of AI. Should we 
consider the possibility of ‘non-biological’ or even ‘non-human’ forms 
of visual or aural understanding and feeling? Also, what relationship 
exists between human intelligence and ‘the intelligence of a machine’, 
quoting Jean Epstein? How are AI models connected to those of cognitive 
neuroscience in accounting for the experience of the spectator? 
Particularly, how to reconcile an embodied conception of the moving 
image viewer with the generally disembodied algorithms of vision and AI? 
And ultimately, what does AI (and mediated forms of AI) tell us about 
being human in a post-human society?

Contributions may concern one or more of these three levels. In 
particular, they can focus on:

# Ontological, ethical, and ideological problems implicated by AI as 
cultural forms in the field of film and media.

# Representations of AI in the history of television, cinema, 
videogames, in their relations with the actual scenarios of 
technological research.

# Uses of AI in machine and computer vision; in the reconstructions of 
three-dimensional environments; in virtual, extended, augmented, 
immersive, and mixed reality.

# Uses of AI in data capture, analysis, and visualisation, in fields 
such as medicine, defence, transport, surveillance (for example with 
face recognition algorithms).

# Voice User Interfaces, digital assistants, recognition devices in 
media and home automation appliances.

# AI applied to consumer suggestions in post-advertising and SVOD platforms.

# AI art products and the market.

# Uses of AI in the creative practices of prosumers, from shooting to 
automatic editing, including image correction and cases of ‘deep fakes’.

# Models of learning in connection with visual, cognitive, and emotional 
recognition/understanding implicated by AI, and their relationship with 
contemporary models of the spectator’s experience provided by cognitive 
and neurocognitive approaches.

# Transformations of textual analysis practices following the use of 
algorithms for the automated analysis of audio and video.

We look forward to receiving abstracts of 300 words, 3-5 bibliographic 
references, and a short biography of 100 words by 1 July 2019 to 
(_g.decuir /at/ aup.nl) <mailto:(g.decuir /at/ aup.nl)>_. On the basis of selected 
abstracts, writers will be invited to submit full manuscripts 
(5,000-6,000 words, revised abstract, 4-5 keywords) by 1 February 2020, 
which will subsequently be peer reviewed.

https://necsus-ejms.org/necsus-spring-2020_intelligence-call-for-submissions/

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