Talk

Ny dato! Laura Tripaldi / Parallel Minds. Encounters with the Intelligence of Materials

Zoom webinar. Register for this lecture here.

Our “material culture” approaches materials simply as passive substrates of human agency. This pervasive cultural paradigm results in what can be defined as “hard technologies”, in which materials are assembled from the top down in centralized structures.

Contemporary materials science and nanotechnology, however, show us how even non-living and inorganic materials can exhibit forms of intelligence, self-organization, and autonomy. These materials are the foundation of “soft technologies”: “machines” with sensitive and deformable bodies capable of adaptation, memory, and evolution.

From a speculative perspective, encountering these materials invites us to question the familiar binaries through which we have come to understand the world. What is the boundary between living and non-living matter? Is there a clear distinction between a subject and an object? What is the interface between body and mind?
Bio

Laura Tripaldi is a writer and independent researcher working at the intersection of techno-science and contemporary humanities. She holds a PhD in Materials Science and Nanotechnology. She has taught courses, seminars, and workshops at several prestigious cultural and academic institutions worldwide. Her book Parallel Minds. Discovering the Intelligence of Materials was published in English by Urbanomic in 2022.

Website: https://softfutures.substack.com/

This lecture is a part of the Academy of Fine Art´s public program, full program can be found here: https://artacademycalendar.khio.no/