February 14, 10.15 - 12.00, HUM.G.219 [map]
On February 14, 10.15 - 12.00, DIGSUM, at the Department of Sociology, welcomes Lina Eklund who will give a seminar entitled Post-critique in practice: using interactive fiction to explore the future of human-AI relations. Lina will speak about speculative design as post-critique to explore alternative human-AI futures. Drawing on two speculative design prototypes – [Project P] and the GenderCrusher – she draws on the concept of radical softness, and empirical data from meetings with young people, to explore how we can engage in post-critical futuring and speculate design to give shape to a critique of the present, to re-imagine the future.
Based on results from the project Intimate AI, Lina argues that radical softness can give focus to imaginaries on AI by challenging traditional power structures, promoting collective self-acceptance, and encouraging emotional expression as a means of personal and collective empowerment. Being radically soft we can explore human-AI relations that engage with the world empathetically and emotionally, ultimately challenging the rational technologism of current, inevitable, AI visions.
Lina Eklund is an associate professor in Human-Computer Interaction at the Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University, Sweden. Eklund’s work concerns what happens as technology enters the intimate spheres of life. Current projects focus on experiences of technology-mediated reproductive health experiences, and on what we call Intimate AI—what happens as AI translates our most intimate experiences. In particular, Eklund is interested in aspects of gender and sexuality in relation to these topics and how we can both understand the present but also project into the future.