- Festival Director
42 hours of digital culture
Live and work, celebrate and drink, love and laugh 42 hours non-stop with robots: The Meta Marathon 2019 from 15 to 17 March 2019 will be dedicated to the topic of robotics and will transform the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf into a laboratory for a whole weekend.
In workshops, talks, performances and art projects, we will immerse ourselves in the near future: when machines are taken from factories into everyday life, completely new processes are automated. But who then serves whom? How do we interact with these non-human agents? What must society be prepared for when automated processes are carried out by robotized entities and decisions are made without human intervention?
Meta is an invitation to the participants to take part in an open process and to jointly develop new ideas on digital modernity and robotics. Meta wants to leave the classical framework of a conference far behind and invites all participants to stay overnight in the NRW-Forum.
All pictures © Katja Illner
Tracks & Topics
UNCANNY LOVE
We’re approaching the Uncanny Valley. According to the Japanese roboticist Mashahiro Mori, the more similar robots become to humans, the more we avoid them. At the same time, however, a whole love industry is already building up, from robotized partners, love robots and cuddly robots to best friends as chatbots against lonely evenings. Driven by an increasingly male-dominated market, love robots try to change the “female labour” and thus both the physical and emotional experience. How do robots change our actions and feelings? Will machines become more human or human emotions more machine-like?
WELLNESS UPDATE
In Wellness Update we look at how technology can help us feel ourselves. Often stressed by acceleration and the advancing technology, we try to find relaxation in technology. Can machines calm us down? And how do we create physical extensions for a life in harmony with technology and ultimately a society with robots? Prepare for the ultimate relaxation before entering the void.
All pictures © Katja Illner
BEING HUMAN, BEING ROBOT
META Marathon sees itself as a living lab. In 42h we want to actively design and experience the human-machine-interaction. Prototyping the everyday coexistence in the near-future that will influence all areas of life. Developed in an industrial context, robots are primarily intended to optimize manufacturing processes, replace jobs in the care sector and want to be the solution to our problems at home. Collaborative robots (Cobots) are already showing what the immediate proximity between human and machine can look like. However, the tension within human-machine interaction is a major issue for everyday life, when the robot is moved from the industrial to a private context. How do we want to live with these new agents in tomorrow’s hybrid society? And what does that say, about our understanding of being human, or being machine?
MORE THAN HUMAN
In a “More than Human” world, the focus shifts from the human as the center of existence to an environment that soon develops and creates without humans. Intelligent machines and artificial intelligence will make our environments smart and self-sufficient. When we find ourselves in a space full of IoT objects that function seamlessly together, does the object become the subject and the human being become the object? Machines and humans will develop cultures and forms of expression in which intelligent robotics will guide us. Above all, this raises ethical, artistic and cultural questions.
TECHNOBODIES
What the technobody is capable of and refuses to do. Participation and design in medical technology - curated by Karin Harrasser. A conference will explore what happens when vulnerable and fragile bodies come together with (digital) technology. In recent times, narratives and images of prosthetic bodies have become increasingly futuristic, the prostheses themselves increasingly smarter and more fashionable, seeming to have long since discarded stigma and shame. At the same time, new (and old) normalization tendencies are at work: the technically well-equipped person is expected to be willing to perform and motivated, in the omnipresent program of self-improvement he/she should be the best pioneer. On the other hand, there are myriads of individual techno-biographies and stubborn techno-bodies on the one hand and on the other hand the increased insight into the necessity of involving those affected in the design of medical technology.
Meta Marathon 2019 is supported by Beisheim-Stiftung, Identity Foundation, Innogy, Sipgate, KomKuK Düsseldorf, Warsteiner, Flaschenpost.de, NX Food & MARTA - European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). In cooperation with Impakt Festival, KISD, Medienwerk.NRW and “Hi, Robot! Das Mensch Maschine Festival”, a festival about the future of the human body, initiated by tanzhaus nrw and in cooperation with Black Box/Filmmuseum, sponsored by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes.
Team: Alain Bieber, Elisa Schulze, Irit Bahle, Mathis Henne, Jennyfer Fourberg, and many more.
All pictures © Katja Illner
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Meta Marathon:
Robotics
metamarathon.net
- Festival Director
42 hours of digital culture
Live and work, celebrate and drink, love and laugh 42 hours non-stop with robots: The Meta Marathon 2019 from 15 to 17 March 2019 will be dedicated to the topic of robotics and will transform the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf into a laboratory for a whole weekend.
In workshops, talks, performances and art projects, we will immerse ourselves in the near future: when machines are taken from factories into everyday life, completely new processes are automated. But who then serves whom? How do we interact with these non-human agents? What must society be prepared for when automated processes are carried out by robotized entities and decisions are made without human intervention?
Meta is an invitation to the participants to take part in an open process and to jointly develop new ideas on digital modernity and robotics. In a 42-hour marathon, Meta focuses on partially radically explorative methods such as microdosing or mind hacking. Meta wants to leave the classical framework of a conference far behind and invites all participants to stay overnight in the NRW-Forum.
All pictures © Katja Illner
UNCANNY LOVE
We’re approaching the Uncanny Valley. According to the Japanese roboticist Mashahiro Mori, the more similar robots become to humans, the more we avoid them. At the same time, however, a whole love industry is already building up, from robotized partners, love robots and cuddly robots to best friends as chatbots against lonely evenings. Driven by an increasingly male-dominated market, love robots try to change the “female labour” and thus both the physical and emotional experience. How do robots change our actions and feelings? Will machines become more human or human emotions more machine-like?
WELLNESS UPDATE
In Wellness Update we look at how technology can help us feel ourselves. Often stressed by acceleration and the advancing technology, we try to find relaxation in technology. Can machines calm us down? And how do we create physical extensions for a life in harmony with technology and ultimately a society with robots? Prepare for the ultimate relaxation before entering the void.
All pictures © Katja Illner
BEING HUMAN, BEING ROBOT
META Marathon sees itself as a living lab. In 42h we want to actively design and experience the human-machine-interaction. Prototyping the everyday coexistence in the near-future that will influence all areas of life. Developed in an industrial context, robots are primarily intended to optimize manufacturing processes, replace jobs in the care sector and want to be the solution to our problems at home. Collaborative robots (Cobots) are already showing what the immediate proximity between human and machine can look like. However, the tension within human-machine interaction is a major issue for everyday life, when the robot is moved from the industrial to a private context. How do we want to live with these new agents in tomorrow’s hybrid society? And what does that say, about our understanding of being human, or being machine?
MORE THAN HUMAN
In a “More than Human” world, the focus shifts from the human as the center of existence to an environment that soon develops and creates without humans. Intelligent machines and artificial intelligence will make our environments smart and self-sufficient. When we find ourselves in a space full of IoT objects that function seamlessly together, does the object become the subject and the human being become the object? Machines and humans will develop cultures and forms of expression in which intelligent robotics will guide us. Above all, this raises ethical, artistic and cultural questions.
TECHNOBODIES
What the technobody is capable of and refuses to do. Participation and design in medical technology - curated by Karin Harrasser. A conference will explore what happens when vulnerable and fragile bodies come together with (digital) technology. In recent times, narratives and images of prosthetic bodies have become increasingly futuristic, the prostheses themselves increasingly smarter and more fashionable, seeming to have long since discarded stigma and shame. At the same time, new (and old) normalization tendencies are at work: the technically well-equipped person is expected to be willing to perform and motivated, in the omnipresent program of self-improvement he/she should be the best pioneer. On the other hand, there are myriads of individual techno-biographies and stubborn techno-bodies on the one hand and on the other hand the increased insight into the necessity of involving those affected in the design of medical technology.
Meta Marathon 2019 is supported by Beisheim-Stiftung, Identity Foundation, Innogy, Sipgate, KomKuK Düsseldorf, Warsteiner, Flaschenpost.de, NX Food & MARTA - European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). In cooperation with Impakt Festival, KISD, Medienwerk.NRW and “Hi, Robot! Das Mensch Maschine Festival”, a festival about the future of the human body, initiated by tanzhaus nrw and in cooperation with Black Box/Filmmuseum, sponsored by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes.
Team: Alain Bieber, Elisa Schulze, Irit Bahle, Mathis Henne, Jennyfer Fourberg, and many more.
All pictures © Katja Illner
All pictures © Katja Illner
back to top