The talk will relate the question of AI sentience in sci-fi films to what Erik Davis coined as “TechGnosis”, a mystical fervor and religious imagination that continues to feed the utopian dreams and apocalyptic nightmares that populate today’s technological unconscious, as reflected in films such as Metropolis, The Matrix, Ex Machina, Her, Ghost in the Shell, and many others. The talk will specifically address topics such as the “religion” of transhumanism, AI gods, posthuman cyborgs, and technological singularity. A Q&A will take place after the lecture.
Amir Vudka, PhD, is assistant professor in Film, AI and Posthumanism at the Department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam. He is the director of the Sounds of Silence Festival and the Altered States Festival in The Hague.