Digital Art and Philosophy #5Portable ArtTech: Wearable Electronics, Identity, the Future.

Melanie SwanUniversity of the Commons and the Emerald Tablet Gallery

Syllabus: http://www.MelanieSwan.com/PCA

Image: Emese Szorenyi

Digital Art is anything involving computers and art

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Sub-categories of Digital Art

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Play, Performance, Virtual Reality

Natural Aesthetics: BioArt, Generative Art Identity, the Future

Information Visualization

Review: Philosophy of Digital Art

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1. Introduction: Interactivity gives more direct access to perception

2. Information Visualization: representing the unrepresented

3. Play, Performance & Virtual Reality: existence of virtual reality artworks

4. Natural Aesthetics:– Hard to tell what kind of ‘real’– Interdisciplinarity: artists -> biology, engineers

-> biology, programmers -> art– Placeness, spatiality, dwelling; homelessness

and nihilism in new contexts virtually– Dwelling – extending ourselves meaningfully,

rechecking group values

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Agenda and Topic Clusters

Synthetic Biology (de novo creation)Philosophy of Technology

Culture and CrowdArtPhilosophy of Creativity

Wearable ElectronicsExosenses

CyborgTranshumanism

Portable ArtTech: Wearable Electronics, Identity, the Future

Sensor Mania! Wearable Electronics

Smartring (ElectricFoxy), Electronic tattoos (mc10), $1 blood API (Sano Intelligence), Continuous Monitors (Medtronic)

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Smart Gadgetry Creates Continuous Personal Information Climate

Smartphone, Fitbit, Smartwatch (Pebble), Electronic T-shirt (Carre)

Source: Swan, M. Sensor Mania! The Internet of Things, Objective Metrics, and the Quantified Self 2.0. J Sens Actuator Netw 2012.

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BioSensor Aesthetics

• Wearable explosive detection devices disguised by temporary transfer tattoos

• Electrochemical sensors applied directly to skin or sewn into clothing

• Detect vapors (external)– Chemical constituents of explosives – Environmental toxins

• Detect vital signs (internal)http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/pulse/winter2013/page3.shtml#tattoos

“Hi-Tech Tattoos: When Artists and Engineers Work Together”

Electronic and Chemical

Electronic

Augmenting the Brain

Source: Swan, M. Sensor Mania! The Internet of Things, Objective Metrics, and the Quantified Self 2.0. J Sens Actuator Netw 2012.

24/7 Consumer EEG, Eye-tracking, Emotion-Mapping, Augmented Reality Glasses

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Consumer EEG Rigs

1.0

2.0

Augmented Reality Glasses

Building Exosenses

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Magnetic Sense: Finger and Arm Magnets

Eric Boyd – Heart Sparkhttp://sensebridge.net/projects/heart-spark/The North Paw- A Haptic Compass Anklethttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4shfNufqSg

Extending our senses in new ways to perceive data as sensation

Nancy Dougherty – Serendipitous Joy Smile-triggered EMG muscle sensor with

an LED headband display

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World of Smart MatterThe Internet of Things

• Internet of Things: making objects readable, recognizable, locatable, addressable, and controllable wirelessly via the Internet1

• Usual gadgetry (e.g.; smartphones, tablets) and everyday objects: cars, food, clothing, appliances, materials, parts, buildings, roads

• 5% of human-constructed objects have embedded microprocessors (2012)2

1U.S. National Intelligence Council. The “Internet of Things,” 2008. http://www.fas.org/irp/nic/disruptive.pdf2Vinge, V. Who’s Afraid of First Movers? The Singularity Summit 2012. http://singularitysummit.com/schedule/

1991

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Continuous Information Climate

• Immersed in infinite data flow: We give off bits of information that are sent to the data flow, the data flow responds by sending information to us

Fourth-person Perspective

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Data as Artistic Medium

Data as Culture (Stanza 2012)

Data as a raw material for artists

http://www.stanza.co.uk/emergentcity/?p=1322

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Fashion

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Fashion as Practical CommentaryConsumer Strikes Back

• Drone-proof anti-surveillance Burqas from Stealth Wear– Response to surveillance

drones in domestic airspace– Wearers invisible to infrared

surveillance cameras• Neural Data Privacy Rights

– Personal Faraday cage• Behavioral conventions

– ‘Off-Glass’ conversationsBurqa: http://www.salon.com/2013/03/07/drone_proof_burqas_the_latest_fashion_trend_partner/

What is Transhumanism?

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• Transhumanism (H+) (Wikipedia)– Social movement that affirms the

possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition

– by developing and making widely available technologies

– to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities

• Transhuman (transitionary human), a greatly enhanced human on the way to the Posthuman, a radically different being, enhanced to the moment of speciation

http://humanityplus.org/

Transhumanist Values

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• Transhumanism is a dynamic philosophy– Intended to evolve as new information becomes available– A questioning attitude and a willingness to revise beliefs

and assumptions• Transhumanism’s objective is to be inclusive

– Emphasis on individual freedom and individual choice in the area of enhancement technologies

– Right to choose • Live longer and healthier lives• Enhance memory and other intellectual faculties• Refine emotional experiences and subjective sense of well-being• Achieve a greater degree of control over life

Source: Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University

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Roots of Transhumanism: Cybernetics • Cybernetics: The science of communications

and automatic control systems in both machines and living things

• Notion of feedback loops (Cybernetics, Norbert Wiener 1948)

• “I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess” (A Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway 1985)

• Human beings are observed and observing systems (We Have Never Been Modern, Bruno Latour 1997)

• 10% already cyborgs (Andy Clark, Natural-born Cyborgs 2003, Supersizing the Mind 2008)

Reading: Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism (Stefan Sorgner, 2009)

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Nietzsche as grounds for transhumanism1. Concept: Übermensch (overman; overhuman)

– Nietzsche: Overman overcomes the herd mentality and is capable of creating a new perspective

– Bostrom: Transhuman (transitionary human) with extended capabilities, and speciated Posthuman

2. Support of science and enhancement– Nietzsche: the future age will be governed by a

scientific spirit; human beings grow stronger (through education) and have developed a scientific spirit (e.g.; obtained objective information)

– Bostrom: Wide availability of intellectual, physical, and psychological enhancement technologies

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3. Dynamic nature and evolution in human nature and values; human nature as a work-in-progress

– Nietzsche: Concept of overcoming: constantly refining ourselves and broadening our intellectual horizons to become the overman

– Bostrom: Notion of cultivating a questioning and analytical attitude to enhancement adoption/non-adoption

– Counter to Plato’s immutable forms

Reading: Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism (Stefan Sorgner, 2009)

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• Tradition of philosophic contemplation of the posthuman condition (Lyotard, etc.)– Malleable boundaries between humans, animals, and

machines– Humans are a mix of machine and organism

• Nietzsche already had a modem– Transhumanism is fatally flawed– Still has the ‘religion of humanity’– Must dissolve current notions of value, hope, and

meaning• Posthuman Representational Accuracy

– Representing what does not yet exist to create it– Incorrect: normative visions of humanism, fears and

fantasies of technoscience

Nietzsche gets a Modem: Transhumanism and the Technological Sublime (Elaine Graham, 2002)

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Existential Risk:Threats to Humanity’s Survival

Bostrom N. Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards. 2002.

• Existential Risk: risk that threatens the entire future of humanity (difficult to assess; high stakes)

• Existential Risk Institutes– Oxford Future of Humanity Institute, http://www.existential-risk.org/– Cambridge Project for Existential Risk, http://cser.org/

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Risk Extinction Estimates (2008)

Bostrom N and Sandberg A. Global Catastrophic Risks Survey. 2008. http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/3854/global-catastrophic-risks-report.pdf

Existential Risk At least 1 mn dead

At least 1 bn dead

Human extinction

Molecular nanotechnology weapons 25% 10% 5%

Superintelligent AI 10% 5% 5%

All wars (including civil wars) 98% 30% 4%

Single biggest engineered pandemic 30% 10% 2%

All nuclear wars 30% 10% 1%

Single biggest nanotechnology accident 5% 1% 0.5%

Single biggest natural pandemic 60% 5% 0.05%

All acts of nuclear terrorism 15% 1% 0.03%

Overall risk of extinction prior to 2100 n/a n/a 19%

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Existential Risk Mitigation

• Friendly superintelligence– Singularity Institute: design ‘friendly’ utility functions– Hall (Beyond AI 2007): AI likely to be more humane

• Nanofactory restrictions (grey goo)• Surveillance/sousveillance balance• Alternative habitats (‘backup’)

– Space habitats– Ocean habitats (seasteading)– Mine shaft habitats– Antarctic habitats

http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2006/09/a-comprehensive-list-of-existential-risks/

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• Text

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Need for Posthuman Philosophies

• Need for prescriptive support about future possibilities (visionary), not descriptive philosophy (documenting)

• Potential difference in nearly all topics of philosophy – The nature of Reality– Subject/object, subjective/objective experience– The self, individual/society– Instancing, copies, self, other, alterity – Language, signifier, label, trace – Death, time, spatiality, contingency– Meaning-making, aesthetics, ethics

Ancient Modern Posthuman

Eras of Philosophy

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1. Regenerative Medicine: Tissue Engineering, Stem Cell Therapies, 3D BioPrinting (Focus: replacement)

2. Synthetic Biology (Focus: enhancement & de novo genesis)

3. Genetic Engineering: RNAi, Zinc Finger Nucleases, histone remodeling

4. Nanomedicine, Targeted Nanoparticles5. Era of Big Health Data: Omics6. Personalized Medicine and Crowdsourced health7. Biomolecular Interface: organic/inorganic hybrids

Contemporary Innovation in Biology

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• Is it okay to interfere with natural processes?– Have always been manipulating (e.g.; plant and

animal breeding), this is just a better way – Nodes: crop-breeding, GMO1, SynBio– What constitutes a qualitative change? Is a

qualitative change relevant? How should we think about ‘order of magnitude’ change?

• Is there a different set of concerns with de novo generation?

Philosophical Issues related to Innovation in Biology

1Genetically-modified organism

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Synthetic Biology

• Definition: Synthetic biology (synbio) is – Design and construction of new biological entities such as enzymes,

genetic circuits, and cells, – Redesign of existing biological systems

• Biology as an engineering medium– Engineering principles applied to harness the fundamental

components of biology• Main approaches

– Metabolic engineering (bacteria produce diesel)– Extending E. coli capacity (yeast produces medicine)– Biomimicry (replicate biological function in synthetic systems)– de novo Synthesis (create new functionality)

“This century’s transistor”

Source: Swan, M. Synbio Revolution: Biology is the Engineering Medium, 6/26/11 http://futurememes.blogspot.com/2011/06/synbio-revolution-biology-is.html

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• Nature of reality and existence – Definition of ‘What is life?’ – How much DNA change is required for a sub-species or ‘different’

organism? Constellations of related organisms– What are living machines, synbio products in themselves?

• Ontological classifications– Organizing, naming, classifying modified and de novo plants and

organisms – Develop an ontology of the products of synthetic biology using

philosophy of language (e.g. theory of conceptual metaphors)– Redefining existing ontologies structured around outdated

paradigms: living/non-living, organic/non-organic

Philosophical Issues related to Synthetic Biology (Metaphysics)

Source: Philosophy and Synthetic Biology: Philosophical Problems and Concerns in Working With Living Organisms http://gcat.davidson.edu

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• Ethics– Safety, accountability, responsibilities, unintended

consequences, right to do this work (playing God?), dual-use debate

– Standard risk models appropriate? • Epistemology

– How do I know that my methods are safe, etc.? – Limits on knowledge-seeking and dissemination?

• Axiology (values, valorisation)– Synthetic biology product ownership, patenting

Philosophical Issues related to Synthetic Biology (Other)

Source: Philosophy and Synthetic Biology: Philosophical Problems and Concerns in Working With Living Organisms http://gcat.davidson.edu

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• Epistêmê: Scientific knowledge, theory. Universal, invariable, context-independent

• Technê: Craft art, practice, technique. Pragmatic, variable, context-dependent, oriented toward production, doing

• Phronesis: Ethics. Deliberation about values with reference to praxis (the appropriate application of a skill)

• Poiesis Taking Action. To make, transform, do, produce, bring-forth (Heidegger: aletheia/truth/unconcealment, revealing)

Aristotle: Approaches to Knowledge

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle 1st c BC) http://www.crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/threeapproaches.htmhttp://psychsoma.co.za/learning_in_vivo/2009/09/techne-episteme-poiesis-praxis.html

I know how to do it

theoretically

I know how to do it

practically

I know when to do it

I do it

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• Contemplated knowledge-based action-taking1

– What are we actually doing?– What are living machines good for?– What are they in themselves?

• Practice standards– Signing, documenting work

• Goal– Deliver function, safety, and beauty

de novo Generators Developing Code of Responsibilities

1Source: Boldt J, Living Machines, Metaphors, and Functional Explanations: Towards an Epistemological Foundation of Synthetic Biology, 2012 http://2012.igem.org/Team:Freiburg/HumanPractices/Philo

Artificial ligase enzyme

Mycoplasma laboratorium

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Current Opinion in Chemical Biology

December 2012 Volume 16Issues 5–6

Pages 461-622

Mechanisms • Aesthetics • Molecular imaging

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Synthetic AestheticsHow would you design nature?

• Connecting synthetic biology, social science, and art and design1

– Teams: Bioengineers and Synbio Designers• Molecular Design Aesthetics

– When we make new molecules should they be beautiful? Are naturally occurring molecules beautiful? What is an ugly protein?

– Is ‘form follows function’ relevant? Can function be beautiful?

– What aesthetic criteria to apply? Aesthetics of chirality1http://gow.epsrc.ac.uk/NGBOViewGrant.aspx?GrantRef=EP/H01912X/1 and

http://www.genomicsnetwork.ac.uk/media/Synthetic%20Aesthetics.pdf

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What is Technology?• Technology: the making, modification, usage, and

knowledge of tools, machines, and techniques in order to solve a problem or achieve a goal (Wikipedia)

• Technological Eras– Is there anything fundamentally different about the

current era of technology? – How do we know? – What would constitute a fundamental change in

technology?

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History of the Philosophy of Technology

• Greeks on technology– Democritus: technology learns from or

imitates nature “house-building and weaving were first invented by imitating swallows and spiders building their nests and nets” (D154)

– Aristotle: “generally art in some cases completes what nature cannot bring to a finish, and in others imitates nature” (Physics II.8, 199a15)

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Narrowband Approaches to Thinking about Technology

• Similar to Ethical Models progression– Act-based -> Actor-based -> Situation-based

• Binary Model: tech-positivist or tech-negativist– Technology is dehumanizing or emancipating

• Adopt/Non-Adopt Model– Luddite (categorical non-adopt)– Fatalist (categorical must adopt)– Impossibility of conceiving it (can’t intelligently adopt)

• Vinge: Greater than human level artificial intelligence (technological singularity)

• Graham, Bostrom (posthuman)• Wolfram (computer programs)• Yudkowsky (possibility space of all intelligence)

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Heidegger: The Right Relation to Technology

• Two Ways to See Technology: Means (enslaving) and Enablement (freeing)– “Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we

passionately affirm or deny it. Technology is a means to an end [enslaving].

– But technology is no mere means [there is a right relationship]. There is an aspect of bringing-forth which brings out of concealment into unconcealment. Technology is a way of revealing truth.

– It is as revealing, not as manufacturing, that technology is a bringing-forth [freeing].”

• Summary– Technology [and art] are a way of revealing (truth)– If we use our questioning way and see technology as an enabler and

not as a means to an end, then we will maintain a free relationship with technology

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Digital Art and Culture

• The enabling relationship with technology and art is both individual and societal

• Worldwide cultural impact of digital art

• Binkley reading connects digital art to culture more broadly– Production of culture– Broadening of participation– Future of creativity

Reading: Vitality of Digital Creation (Timothy Binkley, 1997)

• “Digital images are at first glance improbable players in the drama of culture since numbers (abstract concept) and pictures (visible objects) are diametric opposites”

• “The consequences of digitizing our discourses encompass not only expanded creative phenomena, but also extended interconnections between art and the rest of culture as we interact more frequently and more fully with each other across geographic, political, and cultural boundaries”

• “Visual data are paramount in shaping the interface as well as supplying the content for this network”

• Conclusion: Network fabric continually being created for global connectivity and creativity including interfaces for participatory digital art 40

CrowdArt

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Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 3, 'Water Night' (2012)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3rRaL-Czxw

CrowdArt

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Virtual Choir - 'Lux Aurumque' (Eric Whitacre 2010)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7o7BrlbaDs

CrowdArt

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• Art created by groups of people participating simultaneously

• Crowd collaboration - 'exquisite corpse' model of the surrealists

• Crowdsourced art (user-contributed sites Flickr, Photobucket)

• Art mobs– Community-created art– Art produced en masse– Art quality voted up/down

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Pervasiveness of Crowd Models• Crowdsourcing: coordination of large numbers of

individuals (the crowd) through an open call on the Internet in the conduct of some sort of activity– Economics: crowdsourced labor marketplaces, crowdfunding,

grouppurchasing, rhythm-based service economy (Easter in Spain vizualization)

– Politics: flashmobs, online organizing, opinion-shifting, data-mining

– Social: blogs, social networks, meetup, online dating– Art & Entertainment: virtual reality, multiplayer games – Education: MOOCs (massively open online courses)– Health: health social networks, digital health experimentation

communities, quantified self– Digital public goods: Wikipedia, online health databanks, data

commons resources, crowdscience competitions

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The Crowd as a Collective Intelligence Computing Network

• Crowd computation network as a new flavor of artificial intelligence– Crowd as a computing model: Collective

intelligence community computing – The computing community is a living organism of

individual nodes and mass collaboration• Humans and groups are computation nodes

– Involuntary (shedding data, online sociality)– Voluntary (create, analyze, comment, upload)

• Each node adds data to the network and conducts computation on existing flows to make them more meaningful

Swan, M. DIYgenomics citizen science health research studies: personal wellness and preventive medicine through collective intelligence. AAAI Symposium on Self-Tracking and Collective Intelligence for Personal Wellness 2012

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Philosophical Issues in Crowd ModelsMassive Access to Creative Production

Printing Press Blogger, Twitter, FlickrTumblr, Instagram, Pinterest

Scribe

Midi Keyboard Garage Band, SoundcloudOrchestra

Computer-generated Imagery (CGI)

SporeCreature Creator

Animation

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What is Creativity?

• Creativity: The ability to make or bring something new into existence (Webster)

• Growing field of multi-disciplinary study– Biology: natural selection, genomics, neurology– Psychology: how the imagination works,

cognitive processes employed in creativity

5 Steps in the Creative Process

1. Preparation: Becoming immersed in the area

2. Incubation: Allowing the ideas to turn around unconsciously

3. Insight: the “Aha!” moment when things start to make sense

4. Evaluation: Deciding whether to pursue the insight

5. Elaboration: Translating the insight into its final form

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Csikszentmihalyi , Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, 1996

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Philosophy of Creativity

• Metaphysics, Ontology (existence)– Pervasive, important, praise

• Philosophy of mind– Consciousness and Intentionality

• Ethics – Is creativity valuable for its own sake apart from

what it produces? – Is creativity a virtue?

• Aesthetics– The work is evaluated – The reaction to the work is evaluated– (New) The process of the producer’s production

of the work is evaluated

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Book: The Creation of Art : New Essays in Philosophical Aesthetics (Berys Gaut 2003)

• Creativity is associated with art, but yet is pervasive in all settings

• Creativity as a form of problem-solving (a task that presents difficulty)– Art-making is the problem of expression – Creative actions may have some goal or

directionality• Resistance from artists and philosophers

– Creativity as pure spontaneity

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What are the next media for art?

• Any prominent societal ‘currency’ is taken up by artists (and technologists and engineers) as an experimental medium

• Technology, biology, data, ??

• What are upcoming societal currencies?– 3D printing feedstock– Pink goo: more flavors of synbio– Personal Analytics and the Quantified Self– Health

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Summary of Philosophical Issues in Wearable Electronics, Identity, the Future

• Portable ArtTech changing perspectives of reality and blurring subject/object distinctions– Wearable computing, IOT sensors, exosenses– Continuous information climate

• Transhumanist as enhanced transitionary human on the way to the speciated Posthuman

• Representation accuracy and authenticity– InfoViz: representing the unrepresented– Creating the unrepresented which does not exist

• SynBio de novo creation• Posthuman (Nietzsche already had a modem; eliminate

normative notions of humanity)

• Enablement relationship to technology and art• ‘Orders of magnitude’ change• Democratized access to the tools of creativity

Digital Art and Philosophy Melanie Swan

University of the Commons and the Emerald Tablet Galleryhttp://www.MelanieSwan.com/PCAhttp://www.slideshare.net/lablogga

Image: Emese Szorenyi

Thank you!Feedback:

m@MelanieSwan.com