Thursday, January 11, 2024
6:00-8:30pm PST
University of Southern California
School of Cinematic Arts (SCI) 106
Welcome reception at 6:00pm; Lecture to follow at 7:00pm

RSVP here

We are pleased to announce an upcoming lecture co-sponsored by the USC Dornsife Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life, and the USC Center on Generative AI & Society and Antikythera, a think tank reorienting planetary computation as a philosophical, technological, and geopolitical force, housed within the Berggruen Institute. Benjamin Bratton, Director of Antikythera and Professor of Philosophy of Technology and Speculative Design at the University of California, San Diego, will discuss the topic of Recursive Simulations, a research theme exploring the emergence of simulation as an epistemological technology, from scientific simulation to VR/AR. 

Reality comprehends itself through its doubles.

From Anthropology to Zoology, from Engineering to Urban Planning, every discipline produces, models and validates knowledge through simulations.

Some computational simulations are designed as immersive virtual environments where experience is artificialized. Scientific simulations do the opposite of creating deceptive illusions. They are the means by which otherwise inconceivable underlying realities are accessible to thought:  a technology for knowing what is otherwise unthinkable.

Simulations are epistemological technologies, and yet they are deeply under-examined. They are a vital practice without a vital theory.

What would a general theory of simulations look like?

In this talk, "For A General Theory of Simulations," Benjamin Bratton, Director of Antikythera and Professor of Philosophy of Technology at University of California, San Diego, will show what such a theory of simulations would need to account for: shadows, stagings, scenarios, synthetic experiences, models, demos, immersions, ruses, toy worlds, miniatures, and projections.