Nervous Digital Systems Event

An Anthropological View on Digital Nervous Systems

Lecture Performance by Michael Taussig and conversation about techno psychic landscapes. With Katja Mayer, El Iblis Shah and Felix Stalder

In a mediatized environment of learning machines and the transfer of competence from person to machine, Nervous Digital Systems explores the psychological and cognitive effects of contemporary digital networks. Because the secrets of the new information societies lie not only in the shadow areas of ubiquitous technologies, but also in psychological incentive structures, behavioral economics and the human nervous system itself.

In his presentation, Michael Taussig contrasts a new cosmology of “non-mastery” with pervasive digital optimization concepts. The lecture performance refers to Walter Benjamin’s engagement with the juggler Enrico Rastelli and the Chess Turk of Wolfgang von Kempelen to explore control systems:

“Rastelli, The Juggler, or What Are The Turks Doing In Walter Benjamin’s Theses On History And The Bodily Unconscious”

Michael Taussig, Columbia University NY, is an Australian anthropologist and author of “The Nervous System” and “Mimesis and Alterity: Another story of the senses”.

Katja Mayer, University of Vienna, is a sociologist at the Department of Science and Technology Studies and works at the interface of science, technology and society.

El Iblis Shah, chair of the „Conference on Informational Violence“ at Aden Academy of Science researches the politics of machine networks encoding symbolic representations.

Felix Stalder, Zurich University of the Arts and World-Information Institute, is the author/editor of numerous publications on the intersection of cultural, political and technological dynamics.

Hosted by Konrad Becker and Felix Stalder

World-Information Institute / t0

office[at]world-information.org

Supported by BKA Kunst