Arab revolutions:
Refugees, Communication technology, Mobile connectivity.

Track 01 | Chairs Hassan Choubassi, Joe Elias.

The implication of media augmentation within the context of the Arab revolutions, how the image of media augmentation continues to amass the dreads and worries of the modernist when concerned with industrial technologies of production? It exemplifies yet another burden on the masses in the economy, consumption, and psychological manipulation, in dumbing down and in political oppression, until its explosion physically and violently in the Arab world in what is called the “Arab Spring”.

Terrorism machines:
Art production, Sociopolitical implications.

Track 02 | Chair Afif Arabi, Zena Meskaoui

The terrorist groups that sprout just after the burst of the revolt of the population in several Arab countries drifted the revolutionary act away from its goals into radical ideologies with specified agendas controlled and manipulated by different international parties that took advantage of the chaos.

Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0):
Art, Cyberphysics, Automated creativity.

Track 03 | Chair Bassam Hussein

New technologies of smart spaces started what is agreed to be called the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” IR 4.0 this has changed ways of lives, work and relationship among people. Because of cyber-physical systems, smart spaces and the Internet of Systems was introduced in industries and workplaces, connect machines and people, visualize chains of production and make autonomous choices.

The Battlefield of Vision:
Perceptions of War and Wars on Perception.

Track 04 | Chair Matt Wraith

The US military strategy of ‘Rapid Dominance’ summarises its aim as being ‘to affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary to fight or re… through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe… [to] paralyze or so overload an adversary’s perceptions and understanding of events that the enemy would be incapable of resistance…’

Internet of things:
Dystopian Artificial Intelligence, Black Boxes.

Track 05 | Chairs Alia Ghaddar, Fadi Yammout, Helena Nikonole.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly integrated with the daily life real world. It is playing an essential role in the advancement of living spaces from smart buildings to smart cities. Beyond the current hype, IoT is undoubtedly affecting all sectors at a rapid pace: companies, industries, and the economy. This track looks to address the critical role that IoT plays in the next generation information and communication systems. The aim is to highlight the opportunities that IoT creates for new products, services, and business models and how people harness its potential (creating smarter products, delivering intelligent insights and providing new business outcomes).

Living machines:
Wars within living organisms.

Track 06 | Chairs Laura Beloff, Nora Vaage, Clarissa Ribeiro.

The idea that living things can be viewed as machines has a long history, stretching back to antiquity. In the 20th century, technological and social developments such as the rise of cybernetics meant biological organisms and the natural environment could be viewed as feedback mechanisms and regulatory systems.

Artificial intelligence for art AIA:
Computational creativity, Neural networks, Simulating human activity.

Track 07 | Chair Robert B. Lisek.

We observe the success of artificial neural networks in simulating human performance on a number of tasks: such as image recognition, natural language processing, etc. However, There are limits to state-of-the-art AI that separate it from human-like intelligence.  Today’s AI algorithms are limited in how much previous knowledge they are able to keep through each new training phase and how much they can reuse. In practice, this means that it is necessary to build and adjust new algorithms to every new particular task. This is closer to a sophisticated data processing than to real intelligence. This is why research concerning generalization are becoming increasingly important.

Permanent Telesurveillance:
Privacy, Data Protection, Panopticon.

Track 08 | Chairs Mireille Makary, Imad ElZein.

The privacy issue has become so much more evident in the computer age. Computer privacy has become a huge concern as we are increasingly using high tech devices and sharing public computers or Internet access points for personal and business purposes. Computer privacy is involved with operating system security, data encryption, access control mechanisms, database protection, network security, and other aspects of protection in computer systems.

The Politics of Evidence:
Refugees, Frictions, Sound-representation.

Track 09 | Chairs Morten Søndergaard, Luz Maria Sanchez, Monica Bassbous.

The context of representation is essential when turning data about geopolitical conditions such as the current refugee situation, into a knowledge based on which we can relate to and negotiate that situation. We cannot access or work with pure data as it is, we need a representation of it, for instance, statistic tables, graphics, auditory displays or way of making the data appear to our senses. Data does not exist outside its mediation. Following this line of thought the medium by which data is represented is significant to both our scientific research of data and our scientific understanding of the world as well as to the common public ideas of what data is, or what ‘the world’ – for instance that of the refugee, departing and traveling – is.

Body-politics of the machines:
Troubles WITH/IN/OUT art, Body, Perception, Politics, and Technology.

Track 10 – Chairs Ingrid Cogne and Patrícia J. Reis.

Within the cross-disciplinary research field art – science – technology, it has been widely remarked how the proliferation of new technologies affects human and non-human bodies in multiple ways—including perceptually, intellectually, culturally, socially, environmentally, ecologically, ethically, and politically.

The Ecosystem Analogy:
Machinery of Nature, Borrowed landscapes, Anthropology of the near.

Track 11 | Chairs Thomas Patrick Pringle, Tarek Mourad, Theo Lepage-Richer.

In 1981, Eugene Odum and Bernard Patten argued that “ecosystems are cybernetic.”

Cybernetics—the informational control of energy—afforded the universal logic of systemic self-regulation that allegedly spanned nature and machines: “Analogy” between biophysical processes and informationally governed technological systems, “and the willingness to accept [analogy], are the keys to identifying the cybernetic machinery of the ecosystem” (888).