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That Which Arises from the (Human or Mechanical) Eye

Thu, August 30, 4:00 to 5:30pm, ICC, E5.10

Session Submission Type: Open Panel

Abstract

In this panel, we will take the pulse of the eye. That is, we will explore the status of visual phenomenology and the empirical gaze in current or recent scholarship within social studies of science. Studies on visual perception and its role in knowledge production have a long history across fields, e.g. early empiricism, gestalt- and experimental psychology, embodied cognition, and AI. At present, with advances in computer-aided pattern recognition, new spatial technologies are frequently designed to align with human perceptual faculties in ways that need be better understood. In other words, as computer vision and other perceptual simulation models, underpinned by machine learning algorithms, increasingly read and write the world without the “need” for direct human involvement, the creative capacities of the human eye are contested. This suggests that the mapping and interpretation of terrains invisible to the human eye results in real-world material and political expressions that are, arguably, not free from bias in regards to, for example, race, gender, and inequality. It is this landscape of explicit uncertainty that this panel seeks to explore from sociological, technical, and historical perspectives. Approaching human visual experience as a heterogeneous enterprise, hallmarked by perspectival, temporal, and indeterminate qualities, the panel puts out a call for responses to the following provocation: in our increasingly technological societies, what new ontological or epistemological insights can be gained, and at what costs, from that which arises from the (human or mechanical) eye?

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