Patricia Pisters

Mini-Symposium on Techgnosis and Ecodelics with Patricia Pisters

The imminent irreversible climate crises and the speed of the development of artificial intelligence emphasize once more the need for a rethinking of the human-centric mastery of nature and technology in favor of a decolonized, variegated more-than-human intelligence. In this symposium, in facing the planet’s ‘expiration date’ in the Age of Global Meltdown (Taussig), we bring together two concepts that speak to the re-imagining of planetary intelligence: ecodelics (Doyle) and techgnosis (Davis). While ecodelics refers to the specific role of psychedelics in evolution (to induce ‘sudden bouts of interconnection’), techgnosis acknowledges the technological unconscious, where myth, magic and mysticism are part of technological development. Looking at feature films such as Vesper (Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper, 2022), Annihilation (Alex Garland, 2018) and several experimental films, Patricia Pisters will investigate how filmmakers imagine planetary intelligence anew in such ecodelic and technostic ways.

PROGRAMME
14:00 – 17:00 | Colégio Almada Negreiros, Room SE1
Lecture by Patricia Pisters (University of Amsterdam) + discussion (with film excerpts & readings)+ responses by Erik Bordeleau and Bárbara Bergamaschi
19:00 – 21:00 | Location to be confirmed
Film screening Ecodelics and Technosis: From Anime to Avantgarde

READING
– Bridle, James, ‘Conclusion: Down on the Metal Farm’, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for Planetary Intelligence (2022), 308-312.
– Davis, Eric, ‘A Most Enchanting Machine’, Techgnosis: Myth, Magic and Mysticism in the Age of Information (1998/2015), 196-225.
– Doyle, Richard, ‘Flash Forward: Our Psychedelic Future or, “Think Peacock”’,  from the introduction to Darwin’s Pharmacy: Sex, Plants, and the Evolution of the Noosphere (2011), 19-26.
– Ostendrof-Rodriguez, Yasmine, ‘How can our Imaginations Shape New Worlds?’, Let’s Become Fungal: Mycelium Teachings and the Arts (2023), 146-166.
– Taussig, Michael, ‘Re-enchangment of Nature’, Mastery of Non-Mastery in the Age of Meltdown (2020), 54-60.

Tuesday 12 December 2023, 14.00 – 21.00
Ifilnova, Colégio Almada Negreiros, Room SE1
School of Social Sciences and Humanities – NOVA FCSH
Campus of Campolide 1099-032 Lisbon

This event is organized by Erik Bordeleau, assisted by Bárbara Bergamaschi, and will take place within the scope of the activities of the Art and Technology working group, coordinated by João Mário Grilo and Patrícia Castello Branco.
Event supported by the Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência e para a Tecnologia) of the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science under the project UIDB/00183/2020.