News & Events

Public Talk by Sebastian Giessmann

Location: FAB0.08

Time: Wednesday 25th of June, 10:00-11:00

Both as imaginary and material network technologies, blockchain and ‘artificial intelligence’ tend to clash and mingle at the same time. Current neoconnectionist AI and blockchains follow very different cultural logics, just as neural networks differ from peer-to-peer networks sociotechnically. Maximum data intensity, large language models, tokenized media objects, modification of algorithms by data, operational statistics, plus the variation of existing patterns in the case of AI – data immutability, encryption, token economies and exact processing of algorithmic instructions in the case of blockchain. Together, blockchain and neoconnectionist AI are about to form what I call a seventh historical layer within my work on The Connectivity of ThingsLink opens in a new window of network cultures. Even within our current situation we cannot draw close the net in which we stand (Walter Benjamin). Blockchain and AI are infrastructured by a deep time of sociotechnical networks, computing|computation, and their media materialities.

Yet currently blockchain and AI not only compete for parallel distributed processing power in data centres. They both share energy-intensive, extractive strategies that drive the booms and busts of too-late capitalism (Anna Kornbluh). While their network imaginaries are still being contested, naturalization and habitualisation happen at an ever-increasing pace. Sometimes, blockchain is now promoted as a slowing-down counter-infrastructure to AI's accelerationist, generative media and its models. The talk is going to take a close look at controversial cases like Worldcoin, which is supposed to afford for a biometrical “proof-of-human” that attaches a digital identity to online content. While the cultural logics of blockchain and AI might seem to differ almost entirely on the infrastructural level, they are currently serving as a match made in hell when it comes to their political and economic appropriation. So how can we revitalize network cultures to inhabit a liveable seventh layer of network history?

Co-hosted with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (CIM)

How might we better understand, explore and investigate the diverse range of images we encounter in the humanities?

A two day in-person workshop convened by the Centre for Digital Inquiry. Led by Daniel van Strien, Digital Curator, British Library.

Please read more and register here.