CTheory Digital Inflections presents: “Synthetic Emotions” by Barbara Rauch (2:00 pm ) + “Werewolves, Magnetic Fields and Fingerprints of a Technological Imaginary” by Ted Hiebert (3:00 pm) :: March 16, 2011; 2:00 – 4:00 pm (PST) :: Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture, Technology and Enterprise Facility (TEF) 170, 2300 McKenzie Street, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada :: Streamed Live.

As director of the e_Motion Laboratory at OCADU, Professor Rauch is a leading researcher exploring the boundaries of natural and digital environments. Her presentation on “Synthetic Emotions” investigates the future of artificial emotions and virtual affect in a posthuman culture increasingly shaped by the power of technology. Here, 3D scans are used to capture the once and future evolution of life in the posthuman future.

A visual artist, curator and theorist, Professor Hiebert will expand on Barthes’ notion of technology as an extension of theatre in the context of relational art. Using three art projects as ways of visualizing technology, his perspective breaks with the discourse of authenticity, proposing instead a way of seeing technology that relates the question of technology to social and ideological (and sometimes delirious)
relationships.