Visual summary of the SLSA conference in Atlanta 2016

Sensorium and LMI have recently been on the SLSA conference in Atlanta to talk about labs and networks. We did not manage to take any photos of our own presentations, but we brought home several images of other researchers’ powerpoint presentations and images of the views from the Westin Peachtree Hotel, the second highest all-hotel in the western hemisphere. Below are some highlights from the conference with the theme creativity, hosted in the city where both Martin Luther King and Margaret Mitchell were born, just a few days before the American Presidental election 2016.

Drawing by Anna Lindström.

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Atlanta skyline.

 

There was several interdisciplinary streams on the conference. Like this: "Science, Occultism and the Arts".
There were several interdisciplinary streams on the conference. Here from a paper in the stream “Science, Occultism and the Arts”.

 

Paper on the post-apocalyptic cartoon Adventure Time, in the stream "Imagining futures".
Paper on the post-apocalyptic cartoon Adventure Time, in the stream “Imagining futures”.

 

Katherine Hayles chaired a panel, where she presented thoughts from her new book.
Katherine Hayles chaired a panel, where she presented thoughts from her new book, Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious. In the book Hayles expands the definition of cognition, to something “applicable not only to nonconscious processes in humans but to all forms of life, including unicellular organisms and plants” (quote from the publisher). “Startlingly, she also shows that cognition operates in the sophisticated information-processing abilities of technical systems: when humans and cognitive technical systems interact, they form cognitive assemblages as found in urban traffic control, drones, and the trading algorithms of finance capital, for instance and these assemblages are transforming life on earth.”

 

Lunch/SLSA meeting.
Lunch/SLSA meeting.

 

Atlanta downtown.
Downtown Atlanta.

 

Westin Peachtree Hotel is designed by John Portman & Associates and opened in 1976.
Westin Peachtree Hotel is designed by John Portman & Associates and opened in 1976.

 

Vivoart-performance with Adam Zaretsky.
Vivoart-performance with artist, scholar and provocateur Adam Zaretsky Saturday evening.

 

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Sensorium presented a paper called “Entangled Aesthetics and Materialities – The Lab as a Network of Interdisciplinary Collaborations”.

 

Among other things, Jakob talked about the (failed) collaboration between him and Carl Johan Rosén, of reconstructing the “D21-Nam”.
Besides talking about the founding of Sensorium and our future hopes of the network, Jakob Lien talked about his collaboration with Carl-Johan Rosén, on reconstructing the computer based poem “D21-Nam”.

 

A relieved Jakob destroys all evidence of the presented paper.
A relieved Jakob destroys all evidence of the presented paper.
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Jesper Olsson talked about the challenges of getting funding for a media lab in Linköping, in his paper “The Politics of Making a Media Archaeology Lab”.

 

 

Sensorium was approached by the guys behind a symposium called R-CADE. There’s even possibilities for funding. Check it out!
Sensorium was approached by the guys behind a symposium called R-CADE. There’s even possibilities for funding. Check it out! (By clicking on the image.)

 

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The Lab-stream was organized by Marcel O’Gorman (to the right), the head of the neo-luddite media lab in Kitchener at the University of Waterloo, Canada (link via image). Thanks for the invitation!

 

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