Knowledge Systems: The Poetic and the Algorithmic

Catalog description

Knowledge Systems: The Poetic and the Algorithmic introduces students to a series of critical texts and art practices and invites them to adopt a similarly critical approach to their own work. With texts ranging from 1st century BCE to today, the course through weekly prompts, in class discussion and a deep reading, examines non-dualistic thought and the role of emotion, the sensual and performativity in the making of the world and art. Instances of such non-dualistic thought in art, science, philosophy, and craft are looked at as a way to question established knowledge systems and propose new futures. Non-dualistic thought is approached here as a way to escape established binaries and create a space that goes beyond good/bad, right/wrong and instead invites multiplicity and a wide range of perspectives and voices. Starting with Mallarmé’s seminal poem, “A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance,” and concluding with Muñoz’s essay “Feeling Utopia” from his book Cruising Utopia, where he opens with Oscar Wilde’s quote: “a map of the world that does not include utopia is not worth glancing at,” the course challenges students to “feel hope and to feel utopia” as a form of resistance to established dystopian narratives. In particular the course approaches artificial intelligence as a non-plural contemporary knowledge system and asks students to reflect on the world view that technical systems establish. Following such reflections, the course urges students to explore ways to counter monolithic systems by engaging with uncertainty, the poetic and embodied interactions.