Please join us in conversation with Catherine Malabou, Kenric McDowell, Jaden Adams, Christine Meinders and Matthew Donovan to discuss new forms of life that enable the acceleration of climate change, how the political landscape is mediated by the climate crisis, and foundational anthropocentric assumptions in technology paradigms and recent attempts to expand design thinking to include non-humans along with their implications for culture at large.

This discussion is a part of Ecology of the Edge, on view November 29th-December 8th.

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About the speakers:

Catherine Malabou is a French philosopher and professor of philosophy at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Kingston University, at the European Graduate School, and in the department of Comparative Literature at the University of California Irvine, a position formerly held by Jacques Derrida. Widely regarded as one of the most exciting figures in what has been called “The New French Philosophy,” Malabou’s research and writing covers a range of figures and issues, including the work of Hegel, Freud, Heidegger, and Derrida; the relationship between philosophy, neuroscience, and psychoanalysis; and concepts of essence and difference within feminism.

Kenric McDowell has worked at the intersection of culture and technology for over twenty years. Kenric co-leads the Artist + Machine Intelligence program at Google Arts & Culture, where he facilitates collaboration between artificial intelligence researchers, artists, and cultural institutions. Kenric is a regular conference speaker and consultant to think tanks and arts organizations, helping groups connect artistic practice and technology production with larger traditions of human understanding.

Jaden Adams (aka Jason Adams) is Co-Director of The New Centre for Research & Practice and a former Visiting Assistant Professor at Williams College and has been teaching classes and seminars in the arts, media, and social sciences for over a decade. Following the publication of his book Occupy Time: Technoculture, Immediacy, & Resistance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and his co-edited Deleuze & Race (Edinburgh University Press, 2013), he is presently revising the final manuscript for his second authored book Virtual Virilio: Speed, Politics, Potentiality (Under Review, 2018). Adams has been an invited speaker on political theory, technoculture, media theory, and political culture, at a range of universities, research institutions, and art galleries around the world.

Christine Meinders is an emerging technologies designer who uses collaborative design approaches to create AI design tools and develop community-driven, social AI projects, from a cultural perspective. She is the founder of the community AI research and design group, Feminist.AI, which utilizes participatory approaches to co-create AI projects.

Matthew Donovan(aka Teaadora) is the co-founder of The Future Left and a Fellow at Organizing For Action in Los Angeles. Within the leadership roles of these organizations, Matthew has lead international reading-and-working activist groups, organized educational events on LA-metro area politics with activists and politicians, as well as co-organized Noise Against Sexual Assault, a cultural event working to educate artists about sexual assault in the music industry. Currently, they are pursuing a Certificate in Transdisciplinary Studies from The New Centre For Research & Practice, articulating alternative activist and queer futures.