Conference

About

Conference

About

Amir Vudka, PhD

University of Amsterdam

Speaker Bio

Amir Vudka is assistant professor in Film, AI and Posthumanism at the department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam. His recent research concern media pharmacologies, cyberdelic media, psychedelic film, haunted media, and AI techgnosis. Recent publications include: "Technology and addiction: What drugs can teach us about digital media" co-authored with Ido Hartogsohn(Transcultural Psychiatry, 60(4), 651–661, 2022) and "Cooking the Cosmic Soup: Vincent Moon's Altered States of Live Cinema" (Deleuze and Guattari Studies, 17(4), 2023). Beyond academia, Dr. Vudka is the artistic director of the Sounds of Silence Festival and the Altered States Festival in The Hague.  

ICPR 2024 Abstract

AI Pharmakon: Artificial Intelligence as Techgnostic conduit of Ecodelic Consciousness

This paper postulates AI as a pharmakon—simultaneously a poison and a remedy within the spheres of narcotic and cyberdelic media imaginaries, probing AI's dual role as a tool of corporate domination and a possible facilitator for spiritual and ecological (re)connection. Taking cues from cybernetics pioneers and AI visionaries such as Norbert Wiener, Hans Moravec, Vernor Vinge, and Ray Kurzweil, the paper examines the techgnostic thread in AI's historical development. These figures emerge as modern alchemists, as echoed by computer scientist Gerry Sussman's sentiment, “we computer scientists are really the Kabbalists of today.” Guided by K. Allado-McDowell's works, particularly Pharmako-AI and Atlas of Anomalous AI, the paper explores AI's capacity as an ecodelic agent to move beyond the narcotic spell of digital media under corporate control, with the potential to expand human consciousness and become a medium of interspecies communication. Allado-McDowell's co-authorship with AI creates analogies between machine intelligence and ayahuasca, advocating for a posthuman perspective of consciousness. As Irenosen Okojie suggests, "this underscores a potent philosophy that humans and the environment are interconnected. Recognizing the consciousness within nature, we can shift paradigms." This inquiry uncovers AI's potential for techgnostic re-enchantment, prompting a speculative approach that transcends the anthropocentric confines of the Anthropocene.

© 2007-2024 ICPR by OPEN Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
© 2007-2024 ICPR by OPEN Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
© 2007-2024 ICPR by OPEN Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands