(NON)FASCIST LIVING, LAW AND A.I.

actions for posthuman anti-fascist becomings

Department of Law, University of Gothenburg

15-17 December 2022

The ‘(NON)FASCIST LIVING, LAW AND AI’ workshop brought together scholars, artists and activists whose work engages critically with the past, present or future of fascism, broadly understood, as well as technology (in particular AI), broadly understood.

Combining the first ‘AI, law and non-fascist living’ workshop (Matilda Arvisson, University of Gothenburg) and the third ‘Fascism and the International’ workshop (Rose Parfitt, Kent Law School), this workshop departs from the current posthuman condition.

Its aim is to combine two things: sharing and deepening our understandings of fascism as part of our local and global political, economic and legal systems, and develop research- and practice-based creative, radical and experimental knowledges and strategies for non-fascist societies inclusive of humans, more-than-humans, and non-humans

The workshop’s two key questions are these:

(1)   How do we make sense of, and respond to, a global political, economic and legal system whose central epistemological frameworks offer violence, inequality and unbridled accumulationism as the solution to violence, inequality and unbridled accumulationism? Are there non-fascist modes of living with, despite, or outside of this law?

(2) And what role for AI and other emerging technologies in this?

In contrast to the two previous ‘Fascism and the International’ workshops (Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, 2017; WestSpace, Melbourne, 2018 - in collaboration with Liquid Architecture and the Italian Cultural Institute), in Gothenburg we aim to co-develop more radical form of interdisciplinarity in non-fascist living, and looking more deeply into the ways in which fascism is embedded in (the use of) AI and other emerging technologies in society. This will involve not only juxtaposing against one another our different disciplinary insights and the methods we adopt – say, as legal or AI scholars, composers, historians, painters, sociologists – to the phenomenon of fascist/fascistic thinking or practice and technologies but engaging in a practice of mutual cross-training in the techniques which define our various disciplines, from (de)coding to using blockchain technology, and from pan-frying to participant observation…

PROGRAMME

of events

Wednesday 14 December

Arrival and check in at the hotel.

18:30 Gathering for pre-conference dinner at Kafé Magasin, at Tredje Långgatan 9 (open until 00:00). This is an informal opening of the workshop. We gather for some food, drinks, discussions, hang out, anti AI surveillance knitting, and more: if you have started knitting prior to the workshop, please bring your knit!

Thursday 15 December

Venue: Handelshögskolan, Vasagatan 1, 6th floor (Malmstensvåningen)

08:00 Pre-session drop-in: sketching, knitting, writing

09:00 – 10:00 Welcome, coffee, tour de table

10:00 – 11:00 Reading Group #1: On Fascism & AI (readings available on the ‘Info’ page)

11:00 – 12:00 Drawing as Alternative Intelligence #1, with Charles Williams (New English Art Club/New Art Projects)

12:00 – 13:15 Lunch (at Handelshögskolan)

13:15 – 14:15 Keynote #1: Daniela Gandorfer (Westminster Law School) “Fascism 4.0? On Decentralized Powers, Mass Movements, Binary Code”

14:15 – 16:15 Panel #1, chaired by Leila Brännström (Lund University):

  • Andrea Leiter (University of Amsterdam) “Autonomy – Left wing anti-fascism and crypto individualism”.

  • Petter Ericson (Umeå University) “Towards Anti-Capitalist AI” (co-authored with Roel Dobbe)

16:15 – 17:15 Film screening + artists’ Q&A with Taha Belal, Jenifer Evans and Alicja Rogalska:

17:30 – 18:30 Keynote #2: Dan McQuillan (Goldsmiths University): “Resisting AI”

19:00 Walk to dinner

19:30 Dinner (venue TBC) + “Anti AI Surveillance Knitting” workshop with Matilda Arvidsson (pattern, yarn, needles will be provided – but please bring your own if you have some and want to - see ‘Info’ page for further details)

Friday 16 December

Venue: Handelshögskolan, Vasagatan 1, 6th floor (Malmstensvåningen)

08:00 Pre-session drop-in: sketching, knitting, writing

08:45 Arrive, have a coffee and settle in

09:00 – 10:45 Panel #2, chaired by Karin Åberg (Gothenburg University):

  • Gregor Noll (Gothenburg University): “Algorithmic Technologies and the Question of Cybernetic Fascism”

  • Elena Loizidou (Birkbeck Law School): “Klara and the Sun, Gyre, and Mutual Aid”

10:45 – 11:15 Conversation: “The Archive”, with Cathryn Klasto (HDK-Valand Academy of Art & Design) and Matilda Arvidsson

11:15 – 11:30 Walk to Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft

11:30 – 13:30 Lunch at the museum cafeteria (incl coffee). Individual optional tours of the

exhibitions and collections at the museum

13:30 – 13:45 Walk back to workshop venue

14:00 – 15:00 Coffee + Reading group #2: On Non-Fascist Living (readings available on the ‘Info’ page)

15:00 – 16:00 Drawing as Alternative Intelligence #2, with Charles Williams (NEAC/New Art Projects)

16:00 – 17:00 Keynote #3: Fleur Johns (University of New South Wales): “On Virtual Reality in Early 20th Century Italian Law and Politics”

18:30 Joint tram ride to the dinner venue (tram 3 or 9 to station “Chapmans torg”):

19:30 Dinner at a restaurant Majornas Bryggeri (bring your knitting, sketching and resistance!)

Saturday 17 December

9:00 – 13:00 Outing (bring your knitting + swimwear)

Departure

 

t e x t s

FOR THE TWO READING GROUPS…

1: On Fascism and A.I.

2: On ‘Reality’ and Resistance

k n i t t i n g

THE WORKSHOP WILL ALSO PROVIDE YOU WITH THE OPPORTUNITY TO PRACTICE YOUR Anti AI Surveillance Knitting SKILLS…

You can find out more about the Anti-Surveillance Jumper (designed by Ottilia Westerlund) and download/print out the pattern if you’d like to knit one (or part of one) of your own here. Needles and yarn will be provided. However, experienced or curious knitters are welcome to bring their own yarn and needles to the workshop if they wish.

For a day-by-day account, you can also follow Matilda Arvidsson’s Anti AI Knitting Diary on Instagram.