[SIGCIS-Members] Fwd: CFP: Futures Past MIT Conference, November 21-23, 2013

[M. Hicks]

I thought the conference call below might be of interest.

Best,

Marie
______________________
Marie Hicks, Ph.D.
Asst. Professor, History of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago, IL USA
mariehicks.net | mhicks1 at iit.edu | @histoftech

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Hope Leman, H-SCI-MED-TECH" <smtedit at MAIL.H-NET.MSU.EDU>
> Date: February 10, 2013 11:48:03 CST
> To: H-SCI-MED-TECH at H-NET.MSU.EDU
> Subject: CFP: Futures Past MIT Conference, November 21-23, 2013
> Reply-To: h-sci-med-tech at h-net.msu.edu
> 
> Subject: CFP: Futures Past MIT Conference, November 21-23, 2013
> From:    "Touloumi, Olga" <touloumi at fas.harvard.edu>
> Date:    Sun, February 10, 2013 1:54 am
> 
> FUTURES PAST: Design and the Machine
> MIT, November 21-23, 2013
> Deadline: March 29, 2013
> 
> http://descomp.scripts.mit.edu/futurespast/
> 
> Call for papers
> 
> In 1960, the readers of the IRE Transactions on Human Factors in
> Electronics encountered J.C.R. Licklider speculating on the future. “The
> hope,” he contended, “is that, in not too many years, human brains and
> computer machines would be coupled together very tightly and the resulting
> partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought.” He called this
> new cooperative interaction between the human and the computer a
> “symbiosis.” At that moment, computers were conceptualized either as
> compliant instruments extending the capabilities of the human subject, or
> intelligent replacements, automating operations previously performed by
> the human mind and hand. Positioning himself between the distant prospect
> of artificial intelligence and the use of machines as mechanical
> extensions, Licklider declared “symbiosis” a productive way to engage with
> the changing technological environment.
> 
> This manifesto-like proposition coincided with the changing role of
> technology in design. Faced with the difference between the “symbionts” –
> the “man” and the “computer” – new research agendas raised questions of
> method, representation, interaction, and imagination. As computational
> media pervade design pedagogy and practice, the model of interaction
> between humans and computers in relation to the creative process persists
> as a research question, even though consistently obscured by the
> exigencies of practice. A new encounter with Licklider’s proposition fifty
> years later will help us rethink and contextualize the relationship
> between the human, the machine, and design.
> 
> This conference invites papers that inquire into the past that preceded,
> the present that coexisted with, and the future that followed Licklider’s
> proposition. We are interested in explorations of the assumptions and
> hypotheses that conditioned the coupling of humans with computational
> machines, and the debates around the roles of design and designer. Papers
> that investigate the institutional and intellectual history of
> human-machine systems and/or situate them within the social and economic
> context of the second half of the 20th century, are particularly welcome.
> 
> Topics include but are not limited to:
> 
>    •    Research laboratories and design thinking
>    •    Scientific methods in design and their critique
>    •    Knowledge transfer and the military-industrial complex
>    •    Interfaces, human-computer interaction and design
>    •    Networks, infrastructure, environmental thinking, and computation
>    •    Computer labs in architecture schools
>    •    Computation in design (architecture) school curricula
>    •    Participatory design tools and methods
>    •    Computation before and after the computer
>    •    Information and the architectural object
>    •    Computational representations and their intellectual history
>    •    Cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and models of the designer
>    •    Experience and computation
>    •    Mediation and media in human-machine systems
>    •    Impact on contemporary pedagogy, research, and practice
> 
> In 1960s Licklider anticipated that the immediate future concerned with
> the agenda of “symbiosis,” would be “intellectually the most creative and
> exciting in the history of mankind.” Is this future past?
> 
> Submission
> 
> Please submit your CV and an abstract of 500 words to futurespast at mit.edu
> by March 29, 2013. Accepted participants will be notified by April 26.
> 
> 
> -- 
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