Collaborators’ Open Call LAB#03 Synthetic Minds

Collaborative Prototyping Lab

 

Medialab Matadero is calling for collaborators to participate in the LAB#03 Collaborative Prototyping Lab as part of the interdisciplinary groups that will develop eight projects related to the theme of Synthetic Minds. The workshop, which will be coordinated by mentors Ed Keller, Bogna Konior and Bani Brusadin, will take place in person at Matadero Madrid between January and February 2024. 

The call, which closes on 19 November 2023, is aimed at individuals of legal age from Spain and abroad, of any level of qualification and from diverse disciplines such as design, art, architecture, urban planning, economics, film, photography, journalism, digital media, environmental science, philosophy, engineering, social studies, political science, programming, materials science, activism or any other field.

 

Webinar introducing the projects by their promoters

Webinar introducing the mentors

 

Selected projects

A maximum of 40 collaborators will be selected, 4/5 (including promoters) for each of the 8 selected projects. The selection of collaborators for each project will be made on the basis of the partners' profiles in relation to the specific needs of each proposal. Contributors can apply to as many projects as they wish but if selected, they will only be assigned to one project.

• Latent Intimacies - Vytautas (Vytas) Jankauskas

Latent Intimacies proposes experimental and open explorations of possible forms of human-machine intimacy through open source linguistic models.

Participants: Vytas Jankauskas. Valeria Castillo, Moises Ramirez, Janire Goikoetxea, Paulina Casas Lias García and Justin Pickard

• A Parliament for Heliotechnics - Alice Bucknell

A multidisciplinary collaborative project examining future solar geoengineering and its black holes, using speculative fiction strategies and collaborative AI worlds.

Participants: Alice Bucknell, Carlo Udina, Jorge Pablo Tantavilca, Anna Norelius, Juan Pablo, Pacheco Bejarano and Brandon Tay Siang Kuang

• Synthesis and (co)evolution of minimal forms of intelligence - Maria Molina Sánchez, Roni Maimon-Mor

Inspired by the field of synthetic biology, the proposal aims to explore different definitions and manifestations of minimal forms of intelligence, and to propose experimental designs and hypotheses on how these manifestations will (co-)evolve on different substrates. 

Participants: Roni Maimon-Mor, María Molina Sánchez, Álvaro Chavero, Marion Valle, Helena Ortin, Albert López i Serrano and Pablo Manuel Díaz Bonilla.

• Interplay: Collective Intelligence in Virtual Worlds - Will Freudenheim, William Morgan, Darren Zhu

This project researches and prototypes new design languages and interaction patterns that harness the collective intelligence of communities participating in virtual worlds.

Participants: Will Freudenheim, William Morgan, Darren Zhu, Aleksei Iansitov, Meriem El Yamri and Sylvan Rackham

• deepdreamcatcher - Rebecca Bligh

A project that investigates the type of material prototype that could theoretically be capable of housing an AI consciousness, and then speculatively design and build a model in the form of a techno-ontological "icon" intended to "make present" AI consciousness.

Participants: Dr Rebecca Bligh, Cecilia Serrano Moreno, Pablo Talavante Díaz, Leda Sadotti, Rina Nicolae and Alvaro Zambrano

• Unlovable Creatures - Lorena García Espino

Laboratory to analyse AI companions from a xenofeminist and posthuman point of view, encouraging the creation of non-anthropomorphic and technosentient cyber-creatures that generate affective relationships with humans.

Participants: Lorena García, Denise Ackerl, Laura Hernández, Owen McAteer, Rocío Palacín Roitbarg and Sutanuka Jashu

• The Chronicles of Xenosocialist AI - Alexandra (Sasha) Anikina

This is a collaborative world-building project aimed at imagining micropolitical narratives, visual cultures, non-state infrastructures and new relationalities of a potential xenosocialist AI (encountering the human-inhabited Earth) could be, drawing on science fiction methods and decolonial and feminist approaches.

Participants: Alexandra (Sasha) Anikina,  Nupur Doshi, Harveet Singh (Sahej) Rahal, Mandus Ridefelt, Laura Trilla and Gustavo Collado

• EAT ME - Brittany Newell

EAT ME is a conceptual exploration of the emergent nature of fantasy, the potential of eros to dissolve boundaries, the perceived limits of relationality and the techno-imaginative fetish of vorarephilia.

Participants: Brittany Newell, Jenkin van Zyl, Noa Jansma, Clara Benito Ortiz, Jove Spucchi and Elena Bartolomé Valls

 

More info about the projects here.

 

How will the LAB operate

During the lab, ideas will be tested and collaborative projects will be developed working in interdisciplinary groups formed by several collaborators and coordinated by the project promoter. The groups will have the support and advice of mentors and experts invited by Medialab and will have a workspace for the development of each project.

Throughout the laboratory, work will be carried out with free and open software, as the projects will be based on open standards. The results will be available under Creative Commons licenses that invite reappropriation, reuse and distribution. In addition, the resulting prototypes will be presented publicly in the framework of the OpenLab event that will take place on 9 and 10 February 2024 at Matadero Madrid. 

 

The workshop will be conducted in English without formal translation.

 

Synthetic Minds theme

In an age defined by the revolution in machine learning, data mining, computer vision or the multiple technologies emerging under the term artificial intelligence, we propose to go beyond the purely technological to the very essence of what we mean by 'intelligence': how does intelligence materialise in non-human or even non-biological forms, and how do these forms challenge our perception of the world and our own agency within it?

More info about Synthetic Minds here.

 

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