International Conference „Infrastructures of Autonomy“

The Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) and the Brandenburg Center for Media Studies (ZeM) invite to an international conference on the topic of Infrastructures of Autonomy.

Autonomy has been a multifaceted term for centuries that was and remains a key concept in discussions about individuals and societies alike. More recently, autonomy has gained a renewed relevance and additional meanings in the context of technical innovation, where it is ubiquitously employed in variations of „autonomous systems“. It is often associated with independently moving or self-controlling machines such as drones, vehicles or robots, or more generally with a wide range of automation processes. In this broad understanding, ‚autonomous‘ becomes an attribute for (artificial) intelligence or (machine) learning and is used synonymously with self-determination or adaptability. At the same time, the term invokes (at least) one other meaning: a relational understanding of autonomy that denotes individual and collective processes that are embedded in infrastructures and conditioned by them. It is only in relation to and in the context of media, rules, norms, laws, practices, architectures, materialities or machines that the idea of autonomy acquires any meaning at all.

Against this backdrop the Infrastructures of Autonomy conference’s main objective is to address said conditions, structures and relations that constitute both human and machine autonomy. This also entails the various interpretations of the concept of autonomy.

Conference Opening with keynote address by Beate Rössler (University of Amerstam) on Wednesday, 23 November 2022, 6pm.

The conference will take place at Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Französische Straße 9, 10117 Berlin. Please note that you need to register separately for both the opening event on Wednesday, 23 Nov and the conference days on Thursday, Nov 24 and Friday, Nov 25.

Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG)

- Thomas Christian Bächle
- Theresa Züger

Brandenburg Center for Media Studies (ZeM)

- Bernd Bösel
- Jan Distelmeyer