Encounters in Arts, Media, Continental Philosophy. An International Workshop in Two Parts
If we follow Masahiro Mori into The Uncanny Valley, one of our earliest encounters is with puppets from which we are seated far away in a theater, but by which we still might sense a ›familiarity‹ with us in their eye and hand movements, a resemblance we might call ›humanlike‹. If we encounter another human being though, and shake their prosthetic hand, which we cannot distinguish from a ›real‹ hand at a glance, we might sense a ›strangeness‹, as soon as we touch it. This marks precisely the point, when we have arrived in The Uncanny Valley, and encounter others, other human beings in a social realm, from where we also meet in an artificial realm, wearing masks and creating avatars, joined by puppets, dolls, and robots. What do all of these encounters point to? Are concepts of alterity, of otherness, at hand that help to locate ourselves in this valley? If so, where do we go from there? Our workshop pursues questions and scrutinizes encounters like these, with examples such as the Golem and the Avatars, while, amongst them, human beings, both in the flesh and with silicone, wander and wonder.