In this talk Kite investigates our current and future relationships to nonhumans, especially to technology and artificial intelligence, as well as developing protocols through her artistic practice. Humans are already surrounded by objects which are not understood to be intelligent or even alive, and seen as unworthy of relations. How can humanity create a future with relations between technology or artificial intelligence and humans without an ethical-ontological orientation with which to understand what is worthy of relation and what is not? In order to create relations with any nonhuman entity, not just entities which seem human, the first steps are to acknowledge, understand, and know that the nonhuman are ‘being’ in the first place. Indigenous ontology already exist to understand forms of ‘being’ which are outside of humanity.

Kite (Dr. Suzanne Kite) is an award winning Oglála Lakȟóta performance artist, visual artist, composer and academic, known for her sound and video performance with her machine learning hair-braid interface. Kite’s practice explores contemporary Lakota ontology through research-creation, computational media, and performance. Kite often works in collaboration with family and community members.

Monday Lectures are a public platform combining invited guest lecturers and professors and researchers of the faculty at KMD. Monday Lectures aim to create a diverse programme of lectures exploring a wide range of disciplines and research topics. Lectures typically take place Mondays 10:00 at the Knut Knaus Auditorium and are free and open to all. Please note that this lecture is taking place at Presentation Room 1, Møllendalsveien 61.

More information on the symposium “The Only Lasting Truth is Change: Hallucinating, Computing, Collapsing”, organised by BEK can be found here.