The Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) and the Brandenburg Center for Media Studies (ZeM) invite to an international conference on the topic of Infrastructures of Autonomy.

Autonomy has been a multifaceted term for centuries that was and remains a key concept in discussions about individuals and societies alike. More recently, autonomy has gained a renewed relevance and additional meanings in the context of technical innovation, where it is ubiquitously employed in variations of “autonomous systems”. It is often associated with independently moving or self-controlling machines such as drones, vehicles or robots, or more generally with a wide range of automation processes. In this broad understanding, ‘autonomous’ becomes an attribute for (artificial) intelligence or (machine) learning and is used synonymously with self-determination or adaptability. At the same time, the term invokes (at least) one other meaning: a relational understanding of autonomy that denotes individual and collective processes that are embedded in infrastructures and conditioned by them. It is only in relation to and in the context of media, rules, norms, laws, practices, architectures, materialities or machines that the idea of autonomy acquires any meaning at all.

Against this backdrop the Infrastructures of Autonomy conference’s main objective is to address said conditions, structures and relations that constitute both human and machine autonomy. This also entails the various interpretations of the concept of autonomy.

Download the full conference programme (PDF). Please note that you need to register separately for both the opening event on Wednesday, 23 Nov and the conference days on Thursday, Nov 24 and Friday, Nov 25.

Agenda

Wednesday, 23 November 2022

HIIG, Französische Straße 9, 10117 Berlin (Room: Casino)

18:00 Conference Opening: Keynote address by Beate Rössler (University of Amerstam)

19:30 Reception

If you would like to attend the conference opening event, please register here.

Thursday, 24 November 2022

HIIG, Französische Straße 9, 10117 Berlin (Room: Capella)

08:15-08:45 Registration

08:45-09:00 Welcome note & Introduction
Thomas Christian Bächle (Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Berlin)

09:00-11:00 Concepts, questions and structures of autonomy
Jeanette Hofmann (Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Berlin): Autonomy as a (side) effect
Rahma Khazam (Institut ACTE + ENSADLab, Paris): Reenvisioning autonomy: An exploration of theories of autonomisation in technology, contemporary philosophy and contemporary art
John MacWillie (retired, California State University): The dichotomies of autonomy

11:00-11:30 Coffee Break

11:30-13:00 Autonomy, infrastructures and computing
Jan Distelmeyer (Brandenburg Center for Media Studies ZeM, Potsdam): Programmatic autonomy. New conditions of automation
Mihaela Popescu (California State University, San Bernardino), Lemi Baruh (Koç University, Istanbul): Towards an autonomy of becoming: Rethinking autonomy for the algorithmic age
Florian Sprenger (Ruhr University Bochum): Autonomy and interaction – Infrastructures of
in-/dependence

13:00-14:00 Lunch

14:00-16:00 Materialities and practices of autonomy
Michael Friedman (Tel Aviv University): Dreams and nightmares of autonomous materials
Ana Pop Stefanija (Free University Brussels): Rage against the infrastructure — How to build infrastructures of autonomy
Tanja Knaus (University of Oslo): The automation of affective data — Infrastructure and database practices of speech recognition software systems

16:00-16:30 Coffee Break

16:30-18:00 Automatisation and autonomy
Bronwyn Miller (University of New South Wales, Sydney ): What Google should recommend: An indigenous and queer approach to Google’s AI/ML
Bernd Bösel (Brandenburg Center for Media Studies ZeM, Potsdam): Infrastructures of
de-automatisation
Camille Roth, Jérémie Poiroux (Marc Bloch Centre, Berlin): Evolutionary construction of recommender systems

18:00-19:00 Wrap-up & Reception

Friday, 25 November 2022

HIIG, Französische Straße 9, 10117 Berlin (Room: Capella)

08:30-09:00 Registration

09:00-11:00 Autonomy and machine agency
Marcus Burkhardt, Susanne Förster (University of Siegen): Frameworks as infrastructures of conversational AI
Sam Hind (University of Siegen), Max Kanderske (University of Siegen), Fernando van der Vlist (Utrecht University): Taking up the challenge: How machine vision ‘challenges’ structure AI work
Kate Tollenaar, Erika Ly (Australian National University, Canberra): Redefining value infrastructures for sustainable autonomy: A cybernetic approach

11:00-11:30 Coffee Break

11:30-13:00 Cognition, perception and autonomy
Giacomo Figà Talamanca (Radboud University, Nijmegen): Dimensions of autonomy, dimensions of cognition. A conceptual tool for analysing how scaffolds affect decision-making
Tereza Stejskalová (Academy of Performing Arts in Prague): The in/visible labour of the eye
Marta Pérez-Verdugo, Xabier E. Barandiaran (University of the Basque Country, San Sebastián): Cognitive and sensorimotor foundations of personal autonomy for the current and upcoming technologically mediated world

14:00-16:00 Autonomy, care and labour
Birte de Gruisbourne (Paderborn University): Autonomy as a mode of relating – On inclination, care, and its autonomising structure
Mathias Denecke (Ruhr University Bochum): Calculated autonomy. Data labour in ambient assisted living
Abdallah Zouhairi (University Hassan II, Casablanca, Morocco): Enhancing care autonomy among elderly in Morocco

16:00-16:30 Coffee Break

16:30-18:00 Sovereignty, law and autonomy
Joel Anderson (Utrecht University): Questions of social justice regarding scaffolding for volitional autonomy
Gijs van Maanen, Nadya Purtova (Utrecht University): Data commons: Commonswashing, digital sovereignty, and data ownership

18:00-19:00 Closing Discussion

19:00 Conference Closing

Download the full conference programme (PDF). For continuously updated information, please visit the HIIG event page. If you would like to attend the conference, please register here. If you would like to attend the conference opening event, please register here.

If you have any questions, you can contact the conference organisers via .

Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG)
Thomas Christian Bächle
Theresa Züger

Brandenburg Center for Media Studies (ZeM)
Bernd Bösel
Jan Distelmeyer