The Art of the Extended Mind
Friday 31 January 2020
Playfair Library
University of Edinburgh
Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh EH8 9YL
Invited speakers include:
- Miranda Anderson (University of Stirling)
- Andy Clark (University of Sussex and Macquarie University)
- Marcus Coates (Artist based in London)
- Giovanna Colombetti (University of Exeter)
- Myriam Lefkowitz (Artist based in Paris)
- Jesse Prinz (City University of New York)
- Michael Wheeler (University of Stirling)
The hypothesis of the extended mind is based on the claim that thinking routinely takes place in distributed systems that include not only the brain, but also the non-neural body and elements from the wider physical, technological and social environment. Opening in November 2019, and closing in early February 2020, an exhibition called The Extended Mind, at the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh, is exploring this claim via a diverse range of artworks, including, for example, films of a vicarious trip to the Amazon and of robots that learn through embodied interactions, immersive performances that explore the embodied and situated nature of our relation to places and people, and artistic interrogations of the role of technology in collective intelligence. Further details of the exhibition may be found here: https://www.trg.ed.ac.uk/exhibition/extended-mind
To mark the end of the exhibition, a one-day event will take place, on Friday 31 January. This will take the form of a daytime interdisciplinary symposium (1.00pm-5.40pm), followed by an evening public lecture by Andy Clark entitled ‘Cyborg Minds in Designer Worlds’ (6.30pm-8.00pm). The event will bring together a number of thinkers who have contributed to the philosophical debate over the extended mind, and embodied and distributed cognition more generally, to revisit the ideas in light of the artworks. Other speakers will include artists from the exhibition who will reflect on the extended mind in relation to their own practices. Like the exhibition, the event aims to bring art and philosophy into dialogue with each other and the public. The workshop venue is connected physically to the Talbot Rice Gallery, and between the daytime symposium and the evening lecture, attendees will have the opportunity to visit the exhibition. Gallery staff will be on hand to introduce the artworks. For more information and detailed schedules, see: https://www.trg.ed.ac.uk/events
The entire event is free and open to all, but registration is necessary for organisational purposes. To register, please use the following two links. If you wish to attend the whole event – i.e., the daytime symposium and the public lecture – please register for BOTH available sessions.
Any questions, please contact one of the organisers, Miranda Anderson (miranda.anderson@stir.ac.uk) or Michael Wheeler (m.w.wheeler@stir.ac.uk)
The Playfair Library and the Talbot Rice Gallery are accessible by step-free routes with no doors that require manual opening (see https://www.accessable.co.uk/the-university-of-edinburgh/central-area/access-guides/old-college-south#3f0814ae-5f71-3243-a86f-e94482132b155
and https://www.ed.ac.uk/files/imports/fileManager/Talbot%20Rice%20Gallery%20A%20Guide%20to%20Access.pdf)
The Extended Mind exhibition is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council under the broader project heading, The Art of Distributed Cognition (2019-20). The core academic team is Miranda Anderson, Douglas Cairns (Classics, Edinburgh), Mark Sprevak (Philosophy, Edinburgh) and Michael Wheeler, working alongside our colleagues at the Talbot Rice Gallery, especially James Clegg and Tessa Giblin. An associated off-site performance piece by Myriam Lefkowitz, entitled Walk, Hands, Eyes (Edinburgh), is supported by Creative Scotland. The Art of Distributed Cognition builds on a prior AHRC-funded project, A History of Distributed Cognition (https://www.hdc.ed.ac.uk/). The event on 31 January has received financial support from the University of Stirling and from the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh. Andy Clark’s public lecture is sponsored by the Royal Institute of Philosophy. We are grateful for all this support.