Alan N. Shapiro
media theory,
science fiction theory,
future design research
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Rules and Patterns System for Design Process Support Software, by Alan N. Shapiro
It is necessary, in building towards a Design Process Support Software Application, to design and program a Rules and Pattern System as an extreme form of bottom-up object-oriented intelligence (pragmatic AI) that has a direct relationship between perception and action without a guiding top-down intelligence.
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Improving the Information Society Through Awareness of Languages, by Alan N. Shapiro
On January 24, 2012, I was a keynote speaker at the BOBCATSSS conference on Information Management of the organization of European university libraries in Amsterdam. On the occasion of its 20th anniversary, BOBCATSSS 2012 was organised by students from three universities of applied sciences.
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Design for a Working Quantum Computer in Software, by Alan N. Shapiro
In Reflections on a Theory of Organisms: Holism in Biology, Walter M. Elsasser argues that the task of elaborating a truly scientific biology still lies ahead of us. Physics and chemistry, in their current states of knowledge, are truly scientific, according to Elsasser.
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Transforming Computer Science into a Humanities Subject, by Alan N. Shapiro
In his book What Science Offers the Humanities: Integrating Body and Culture, Slingerland argues persuasively that the “French theory” which has dominated university humanities studies in recent decades has serious flaws – like disembodiment and cultural relativism – that need to be corrected by infusions from the cognitive and natural sciences.
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Re-Thinking Science, by Alan N. Shapiro
Influenced by Heidegger’s “The Question Concerning Technology”, Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment, and Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke’s epic science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey, I believe that we have come to the end of the long era of technology being conceived and developed as a tool for the ‘domination of nature’.
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An Interdisciplinary Approach to Building Robots, by Alan N. Shapiro
These are my “lecture notes” for my lecture at the Art University in Linz, Austria on June 21, 2011. In the first part, I presented the idea of beginning a multidisciplinary and “humanities informatics” approach to the development of robots-slash-androids, going beyond the mechanical engineering approach to ASIMO that Honda has taken so far.
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International Flusser Lecture, by Alan N. Shapiro
On July 10, 2012, I gave the International Flusser Lecture at the University of the Arts in Berlin. Related to this lecture, a small book by me in German will be published in the International Flusser Lecture series by the Walther Koenig Verlag.
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Towards a Unified Existential Science of Humans and Androids, by Alan N. Shapiro
Presented with the reality, which is at the same time still half-fictional, of bringing robots or androids into our social world, I believe that we are being offered the gift of an opportunity for humanity to grow and develop, to untangle the knots binding us to our current stagnation, to improve our lives.
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Seminar on the Future of Reading and Learning at the Offenbach Arts and Design University
At our meeting on January 24 we will cover the folowing topics: 1. Talk about McLuhan, “The Medium is the Massage” 2. Talk about the media theory of Vilem Flusser 3. Student presentations of their ideas for their design projects 4. Website design – relation of editorial content and format.
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Art and Design in the Age of New Media and New Technologies, by Alan N. Shapiro
On January 16th, 2013, I gave a lecture at the Bath Spa University, Bath School of Art and Design, in Bath, UK. What are the main trends in the history of New Media Art? How have artworks evolved through the application of digital technologies, computer graphics, virtual reality environments, robotics and biotechnology?
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“Software of the Future” on Tour, by Alan N. Shapiro
I leave on Saturday for an 8-day tour in Berlin and Potsdam. These events are about “the software of the future,” a software that will be made by artists and designers, not by techies and engineers. It is about a new kind of programming by artists.
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“Mad Men” and the Sociology of Advertising Consumer Culture, by Venecia Suriel de Häusler
Mad Men is a complex TV show in which topics like gender, race relations, alcoholism and chain smoking, as well as homosexuality in 1960s American society are depicted. However, the main topic of the series revolves around the strategies of advertising. Through the years, the advertising industry has promoted mass consumption.
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“Lost”: eine Typisierung der weiblichen Hauptcharaktere, von Melissa Maier
Im September 2004 wurde die 1. Staffel der US TV-Serie LOST erstmals im amerikanischen Fernsehen ausgestrahlt. Diese Staffel ist sehr wichtig für das weitere Verständnis der Serie, da LOST zunehmend mit wiederkehrenden Symbolen und Elementen arbeitet und den Zuschauer mit vielen offenen Fragen konfrontiert, die erst im weiteren Verlauf der Serie beantwortet werden.
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Macht- und Hierarchieverhältnisse am Beispiel von „The Wire“, von Jaška Klocke
Im folgenden Essay möchte ich den Versuch unternehmen, auf unterschiedliche Machtstrukturen in der ersten Staffel der US amerikanischen Fernsehserie The Wire, die von 2002 bis 2008 im Privatsender HBO („Home Box Office“) ausgestrahlt wurde, einzugehen und diese miteinander zu vergleichen.
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“The Wire” and Luhmann’s Systems Theory, by Yara Scholtis
This essay will examine the television series The Wire from a sociological point of view. There have not only been entire university seminars taught on sociological themes in The Wire, but there have also been plenty of books, essays, etc., published which focus on various topics of the TV show that are of sociological nature.
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