Archaeologies of AI: From Bots to Spectres

Dates: 16, 23, 30 September; 7, 14, 28 October 2024 + visits
Time: 15:15-18:15
Location: Utrecht University (city centre) & MCW Lab (Muntstraat 2A)
Instructor: Evelyn Wan
Credits: 5 ECTS
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Who are we really interacting with when we chat with a bot? What lurks behind the interface of AI? What drives the anthropomorphic understanding of machines as intelligent beings? The course approaches AI from a media archaeological perspective, and studies media histories that might help us understand the medium of AI, such as chat-based AI like ChatGPT, Bard, Replika, Insomnobot-3000, and beyond.

The course departs from the idea that what algorithms feed forward to us in our present and future is always built on the past, where literal and metaphorical ghosts and traces return to haunt our digital medium. The term ‘medium’, as Jeffrey Sconce reminds us in Haunted Media (2000), refers to both medium as mediation as well as medium as spirit contact. In the first 4 seminar sessions, we read together contemporary literature on AI as well media-archaeological accounts to identify these literal and metaphorical ghosts. For instance, we take a closer look at minor histories in the invention of technologies such as the telegraph and the telephone and explore their intertwinement with ghost and spirit communication in the late 19th and early 20th century. The course will also feature artists and researchers working in the field, such as the Holistic Technology Salon (V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam) and recommended visits to relevant exhibitions/ performances (to be announced). The course will end on a 4-hour student-led session, where we collectively share our research findings through presentations and discussions. The assessment of the course will be based on final papers (3000 words; creative formats welcome).

Schedule

• Sept 16, 1515-1815: The Media Archaeological Method: On Medium and Mediumship
• Sept 23, 1515-1815: On Bots, Turing Tests, and Spiritualist Séances
• Sept 30, 1515-1815: On the Networked Home and its Horror Narratives
• Oct 7, 1515-1815: On Hauntology, Spectral Justice, and Race
• Oct 14, 1515-1815: Artistic interventions and reflections
• No class on Oct 21: Digestion and independent research
• Oct 28, 1300-1700: Presentations (MCW Lab)

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