Really pleased to announce that we’ve sorted out three new dates for Apple events over the next couple of months.
The idea behind Apple is to get people thinking more reflectively about technology – whether that be digital culture or tool-use. Humans are tool-makers, and the technologies we use form us, just as we form them. As technology becomes more embedded in the functioning of our relationships, it’s hugely important that we think carefully about the effect it may be having on who we are.
The first Apple in this series will see Pete Rollins doing his only London date for some time speaking around the title ‘Despite Appearances, Some Things Are Real‘ and questioning whether our online personae are actually more ‘real’ than we are.
Details: 12th May, 7:30pm, free, at The Betsey Trotwood pub, 56 Farringdon Road Clerkenwell, London. Map here. Do spread the word.
The other two dates (same time and venue)
9th June – Manjit Kumar from Wired Magazine will be speaking on quantum mechanics, multiverses and the nature of reality.
7th July – Anthony Paul Smith from Nottingham University will be speaking on ‘Is the City a Machine for the Making of Gods?’
Spread the word, and look forward to seeing you there. Just exploring the possibility of Greenbelt coming on board and recording these too, so I’ll post if we have audio etc.
Comments
2 responses to “New Apple Dates Announced | Thinking Deeply About Technology”
Hi Kester, Thanks for putting this Apple event together (and thanks to all others who need to be applauded) for an intriguing evening of cider, Pete, and discursive chatter… Looking forward to June.
On Wed night we ended the conversation just as I wanted to comment on something you had said earlier in the evening re: technology alluding to humans as gadgets; being locked in… Your appeal to remember our freedom as humans (we are not gadgets, we should not be locked in) brought to mind those who in ‘real’ life are already ‘locked in’… Paradoxically then, technology and virtual worlds become an opportunity for the paralyzed (the refugee, etc)- to experience (with virtual, abled bodies), opportunities of interaction that are not stereotyped and stigmatized by the visual markers that prejudice them in their typical, everyday experience. Not sure whether or not this virtual sense of self would have possible negative long-term effects on one’s psyche, but I do find it interesting that in some cases, perhaps rather than ‘locking in’ ways of relating, technology assists in opening up and expanding ways of being with self and other.
Would love to hear audio of APS speaking tomorrow night if it can be done! Here’s hoping.