Outreach and collaborative research

The different research projects within the Uppsala Informatics and Media Hub for Digital Existence are currently collaborating with Swedish society.

The Human Observatory for Digital Existence

The Human Observatory for digital Existence is a platform for collaborative research within the framework of The Uppsala Informatics and Media Hub for Digital Existence with the aim to oversee the human condition in a time of dramatic technological development.

With the main partner the Sigtuna Foundation as a base, the hub’s researchers meet various civil society representatives and NGOs, organisations, institutions, individuals and authorities. These cross-border meetings aim to identify and explore burning questions for our time of complex crises, where media technologies play many different roles with both utopian and dystopian undertones. What happens to human concerns when technological rationalities are allowed to rule? How should we think about our vulnerability and mortality in an age where bodily presence is becoming less and less relevant? What are the inalienable values that we want to preserve, defend and perhaps strengthen? And how can we responsibly create an existentially sustainable future with machines?

The Human Observatory is designed to enable:

  1. a continued conversation about these issues with our reference group of stakeholders and other partners in society and academia (such as CHAIR);
  2. workshops on digital media ethics
  3. symposia in collaboration with society and the art and museum world on existential themes, possibilities and challenges of digital media saturation and the automation of the human lifeworld.

Stakeholders of the Hub and Observatory include representatives from the public, business and non-profit sector, public authorities, the Church of Sweden and public intellectuals.

Upcoming Events Human Observatory for Digital Existence

The digital noise: Conversation and silence as existential method

In 2023-2024, the Human Observatory for Digital Existence will organise public activities on the theme The digital noise: conversation and silence as existential method.

On 17 January 2024, the Human Observatory and the Sigtuna Foundation are co-arranging an event open for the public. Digital meeting places offer new opportunities for the existential conversation. In a plethora of podcasts, the big questions about life, faith and meaning are now explored, and via digital platforms we can both receive therapy and participate in retreat activities. But do we really reach each other through screens and earphones? What is to be gained and what is lost when the intimate conversation increasingly takes place at a distance? And what does it really mean to meet in the digital age?

Resonance in the Digital Noise – possibilities for authentic meetings - more information and registration at Sigtunastiftelsen web.

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Last modified: 2023-08-23
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