Event

EPHEMERA: SOCIAL MACHINES

Dir. Various, 1939 - 2008
USA. Approx. 75 min.

Social machine n. An environment comprising humans and technology interacting and producing outputs or action not possible without both parties present.

Robo-human relations get a bad rap in media if its not machines gaining sentience, rising up and brutally enslaving/destroying human oppressors, its some human going mad with technologically-enhanced power, with the occasional cyborg killing spree or computer-to-human virus spreading. SOCIAL MACHINES aims to correct this dystopian bias by highlighting decades of positive, if goofy and awkward, man-machine interaction.

Could it be said the still-burgeoning cyberworld is the praxis of humanitys robot hopes? In hoping to improve our fragile, mortal selves we extended our bodies via machine outsourcing memory to data banks, enhancing strength with bionic prosthetics, building robots in our own image*. Slowly we shifted from bringing technology into the world to work as we do, to building technology to become a world we enter into. Were now extending our minds to a larger digital neural network, using feedback algorithms to tailor our online experiences, and, once again, trying to create a believable virtual reality.

Join us as we take a journey deep into the Uncanny Valley of good intentions and electronic interactions, with humans and machines working side by side to create a better world for all.

*and by own image I mean automatically defaulting to bipedal vertebral structures and YEARS worth of freaky, mostly female-gendered simulacra.