The World Through Robot Eyes
Elisabeth Ehlin, Stockholms universitet

Following Foucault's statement that writing transforms the things seen or heard "into tissue and blood" and examples like Joanna Zylinska's video art piece "If It Reeds, It Bleeds" and the networked image flow of the blog platform Tumblr, this seminar aims to discuss an alternative materiality of technology, tracing the pulsating connections between images, text and code" (Zylinska). Through the use of bots, algorithms, smart phones, apps and interactive design, but also online photo-sharing services such as Instagram or a simple meme to generate, integrate and communicate images, suggestively creating an alternative aesthetic space connecting body, image and machine, we need to question what a digital life is or might entail. The aim is to shift the focus from a fascination with singular objects (the iPhone, the computer) to that of mediation and process, suggesting that we are not separate from the things we interact with, but rather entangled with non-human entities, and they with us.