edinburgh futures institute
Argonaut Books will be supporting Edinburgh Futures Institute events this March and April! We’ll be providing support for getting hold of key texts at the following events:
Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want – Friday 10 March, 6-7.30pm
In this panel, speakers will briefly showcase their work on the intersection of technology and sexuality, discussing a range of interrelated topics: race and the fetishisation of certain bodies, LGBTQ+, young people and access to online information about sex and sexuality, apps and the solidification of sexual categories, the experiences of asexual and aromantic people online, the ‘manosphere’ and misogynist hate groups, the navigation of identities, behaviours and desires, dating apps and the fine line between sexual preference and sexual discrimination, and the exacerbation of sex panics and the surveillance of sexual behaviours and actions.
Further details can be found here.
Books:
– Eris Young: ACE Voices
– Kevin Guyan: Queer Data
A Spy in Your Pocket: Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud – Wednesday 15 March, 6-7pm
A conversation with the authors of Pegasus: How a Spy in Our Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy. Meticulously reported and masterfully written, Pegasus shines a light on the lives that have been turned upside down by this unprecedented threat and exposes the chilling new ways authoritarian regimes are eroding key pillars of democracy: privacy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech.
Further details can be found here.
Book:
Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud: Pegasus – The Story of the World’s Most Dangerous Spyware
LIMBIC: Ego, Elegy, Ecstasy –Friday 24 March, 6-7.30pm
This audio-visual performance by composer Philly Holmes responds to Limbic, a poetry collection by Peter Scalpello. Through words, sound and imagery, the performance traces a personal narrative exploring intimacy and queer discovery, enacting the confusions and graces of a queer life through hybridity of storytelling forms. Experiences of desire reflect the interconnectedness of mediums, sharing a dialogue between what can be written, heard and felt. The audio performance blends experimental AI music with tape recordings, combining digital and analogue into something unique – the sound of the love machine.
Further details can be found here.
Book:
Peter Scalpello: LIMBIC
Rule of the Robots: A Conversation with Martin Ford –Monday 3 April, 6-7pm
AI is impossible to avoid online. If you have a smartphone, you have AI in your pocket. And it has already changed everything from how doctors diagnose disease to how you interact with friends or read the news. But in Rule of the Robots, Martin Ford argues that the true revolution is yet to come.
Further details can be found here.
Book:
Martin Ford: Rule of the Robots
Hybrid Humans: Harry Parker and Bertolt Meyer – Tuesday 11 April, 6-7pm
How can the latest developments in technology, robotics and implants lead to powerful and liberating possibilities for what bodies can be? In this event, speakers share their eye-opening accounts of disability, identity, and how robotics and AI are altering what it means to be human.
Further details can be found here.
Book:
Harry Parker: Hybrid Humans
Hate in the Digital Era: Lilia Giugni and Matthew Williams –Thursday 13 April, 6-7pm
How has technology exacerbated systems of oppression in the 21st century, and what can we do to resist? This event features a conversation with authors Matthew Williams and Lilia Giugni whose works examine different yet intersecting issues of human behaviour in the digital era.
Further details can be found here.
Books:
– Matthew Williams: The Science of Hate
– Lilia Giugni: The Thre@t
Edinburgh Futures Institute booklist
-
Hybrid Humans
£9.99 -
Pegasus
£20.00 -
Ace Voices
£16.99 -
The Threat
£16.99 -
Rule of the Robots
£10.99 -
The Science of Hate
£9.99 -
Limbic
£10.99 -
Queer Data
£19.99
