Session 1 :: Mythology
Order of the day
- Lectio :: Mythology
- Hephaistos
- Pygmallion
- Pythagoras
- Disputatio :: Myths of a digital world
- Exercitio :: A letter to Your digital self
- Video :: The 2nd rennaissance I.
Mythology :: Hephaistos
- a male counterpart to Pallas Athena
- gives skill to artists
- god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire, and volcanoes
- son of Zeus and Hera
- husband of Aphrodite
- often depcited as "lame and crippled"
- known as Vulkan among Romans
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⇄ The Divine Workshop
The Divine WorkshopGreek mythology gives us an extraordinary laboratory of artificial beings.Athena represents intelligent making.Hephaestus represents the workshop in which artifacts begin to act.
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⇄ Hephaestus: When Artifacts Act
Hephaestus: When Artifacts Act
With Hephaestus, myth moves from intelligent making toward artificial agency.His workshop contains self-moving devices and artificial attendants.The question changes:Can we make...
Made by Hephaistos
- Hermes' helmet and sandals, Achiless' armor, chariot of Helios
- chain-link net for Aphrodite & Ares
- Pandora's pithos (also known as "Pandora's box")
- first documented automata
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⇄ Hephaestus: When Artifacts Act
Hephaestus: When Artifacts Act
With Hephaestus, myth moves from intelligent making toward artificial agency.His workshop contains self-moving devices and artificial attendants.The question changes:Can we make...
Automata attributed to Ἥφαιστος
- Wheel tripods to bring stuff to Olympos and back (Iliad, ca. 8th century B.C.)
- golden and silver dogs and lions which could bite invaders of the palace of Alkinoos (Odyssea, ca. 8th century B.C.)
- Talos, a giant made of bronze to protect Europa in Crete (Argonautica, 4th-3rd century B.C.)
- Aetos Kaukasios, a robotic eagle eating Prometheus' liver (Poeticon Astronomicon, 1st century B.C.)
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⇄ Golem
Golem
Argo: speaking Dodonian timber embedded in Athena's ship.Talos: bronze guardian of Crete.Pygmalion: desired artificial human brought to life.Golem: artificial human animated thr...
The Story of Pygmalion and the Statue
Pygmalion loathing their lascivious life, Abhorr'd all womankind, but most a wife: So single chose to live, and shunn'd to wed, Well pleas'd to want a consort of his bed. Yet fearing idleness, the nurse of ill, In sculpture exercis'd his happy skill; And carv'd in iv'ry such a maid, so fair, As Nature could not with his art compare ...
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⇄ Machines in Our Image
Machines in Our ImageArtificial beings are not merely tools.They become surfaces onto which humans project desire, identity and self-understanding.
carv'd in iv'ry a maid so fair
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⇄ Machine as Double
Machine as Double
The artificial human is also a duplicate.A second body.A copy that may become difficult to distinguish from an original.The double turns technology into an identity problem:How ...
A prayer
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⇄ Machines in Our Image
Machines in Our Image
Artificial beings are not merely tools.They become surfaces onto which humans project desire, identity and self-understanding.
A divine intervention
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⇄ In Our Image
In Our Image
We first imagined machines as versions of ourselves.Then we built machines that extended parts of ourselves.Eventually we built machines capable of modifying themselves through ...
A kiss
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⇄ Machine as Lover
Machine as Lover
Pygmalion creates an ideal human form and falls in love with his creation.Venus / Aphrodite grants the statue life.The question is not merely:Can we reproduce a human?but:Can we...
A happy end
The Goddess, present at the match she made, So bless'd the bed, such fruitfulness convey'd, That ere ten months had sharpen'd either horn, To crown their bliss, a lovely boy was born; Paphos his name, who grown to manhood, wall'd The city Paphos, from the founder call'd.
Pygmalion :: a summary
- described in 10th book of Ovid's metamorphoses, but potentially derived from older myth from island of Cyprus
- an archetypical story about a thing which becomes conscious thanks to a divine intervention
- Can You think of another stories or modern myths with similar plot ? (note them down, we'll speak about them in a minute!)
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⇄ In Our Image
In Our Image
We first imagined machines as versions of ourselves.Then we built machines that extended parts of ourselves.Eventually we built machines capable of modifying themselves through ...
Philosophy :: Pythagoras (c. 570 – c. 495 BC)
- a half-mythological, half-historic personage
- first man to call himself a philosopher ("lover of wisdom")
- important contributions to mathematics (e.g. Pythagorean theorem, Theory of Proportions etc.) and music (e.g. Pythagorean tuning, musica universalis etc.)
Tetractys of Pythagoras
- triangle distributing numbers 1 to 10 in four rows
- many levels of symbolism (Unity / Power / Harmony / Kosmos; Fire / Air / Water / Earth; Point / Line / Triangle / Tetrahedron )
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⇄ Pythagoras's Claim
Pythagoras's Claim“All is number.” (πάντα αριθμός) — attributed to Pythagoras, 6th century BCE.For Pythagoras and his fol...
Pythagoras Theorem
The sum of the areas of the two squares on the legs (a and b) equals the area of the square on the hypotenuse (c).Quote of the day
Question of the day
Modern myths
Genesis revisited
and then said creators: faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram
and then said humans: faciamus machinam ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram
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⇄ Between Archetypes & Myths
Between Archetypes & MythsMachine as a projection of the human selfFaciamus machinam ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram.Let us make the machine in our image and likeness.
