Download or read book Technical Automation in Classical Antiquity written by Maria Gerolemou and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-12-15 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technical automation – the ability of man-made (or god-made) objects to move and act autonomously – is not just the province of engineering or science fiction. In this book, Maria Gerolemou, by taking as her starting point the close semantic and linguistic relevance of technical automation to natural automatism, demonstrates how ancient literature, performance and engineering were often concerned with the way nature and artifice interacted. Moving across epic, didactic, tragedy, comedy, philosophy and ancient science, this is a brilliant assembly of evidence for the power of 'automatic theatre' in ancient literature. Gerolemou starts with the earliest Greek literature of Homer and Hesiod, where Hephaestus' self-moving artefacts in the Iliad reflect natural forces of motion and the manufactured Pandora becomes an autonomous woman. Her second chapter looks at Greek drama, where technical automation is used to augment and undermine nature not only through staging and costume but also in plot devices where statues come to life and humans behave as automatic devices. In the third chapter, Gerolemou considers how the philosophers of the 4th century BCE and the engineers of the Hellenistic period with their mechanical devices contributed to a growing dialogue around technical automation and how it could help its audience glance and marvel at the hidden mechanisms of self-motion. Finally, the book explores the ways technical automation is employed as an ekphrastic technique in late antiquity and early Byzantium.

Download or read book Technological Animation in Classical Antiquity written by Maria Gerolemou and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-09-24 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The persistent desire to animate inanimate objects has been a recurring theme in European culture dating back to ancient Greek and Roman times. Technological Animation in Classical Antiquity aims to establish, for the first time, the significance of this aspiration and its practical realization within Greek and Roman societies. While certain aspects of this narrative have been explored previously, this study shifts the focus to place technological animation at the forefront. The sixteen chapters examine the tangible existence of such devices across various media and considers their roles in diverse contexts, delving into the reciprocal relationship between technological and material realities, and its influence on the concept of animation and vice versa. By adopting this perspective, technological animation not only provides a new understanding of the processes behind animation but also lends a fresh perspective to the animated artifact. In contrast to other types of animation, where the technologically animated artifact is often dismissed as a perceptual error induced, for instance, by rhetoric or magic, this study separates technological animation from notions of rhetorical or magical skills, theurgy, or divine intervention. Specifically, it concentrates on a subset of artificial animation solely produced through technical procedures, exploring how various motive forces actively contributed to giving objects agency and impacting their viewers, illuminating how the material conditions of the artifacts themselves played a role in the process of technological animation--whether through the distinctive materiality of bronze or the design of a statuette's hinge.

Download or read book Artificial Intelligence in Greek and Roman Epic written by Andriana Domouzi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-05-16 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first scholarly exploration of concepts and representations of Artificial Intelligence in ancient Greek and Roman epic, including their reception in later literature and culture. Contributors look at how Hesiod, Homer, Apollonius of Rhodes, Moschus, Ovid and Valerius Flaccus crafted the first literary concepts concerned with automata and the quest for artificial life, as well as technological intervention improving human life. Parts one and two consider, respectively, archaic Greek, and Hellenistic and Roman, epics. Contributors explore the representations of Pandora in Hesiod, and Homeric automata such as Hephaestus' wheeled tripods, the Phaeacian king Alcinous' golden and silver guard dogs, and even the Trojan Horse. Later examples cover Artificial Intelligence and automation (including Talos) in the Argonautica of Apollonius and Valerius Flaccus, and Pygmalion's ivory woman in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Part three underlines how these concepts benefit from analysis of the ekphrasis device, within which they often feature. These chapters investigate the cyborg potential of the epic hero and the literary implications of ancient technology. Moving into contemporary examples, the final chapters consider the reception of ancient literary Artificial Intelligence in contemporary film and literature, such as the Czech science-fiction epic Starvoyage, or Small Cosmic Odyssey by Jan Kr?esadlo (1995) and the British science-fiction novel The Holy Machine by Chris Beckett (2004).

Download or read book Body and Machine in Classical Antiquity written by Maria Gerolemou and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-06-30 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative and wide-ranging volume is the first systematic exploration of the multifaceted relationship between human bodies and machines in classical antiquity. It examines the conception of the body and bodily processes in mechanical terms in ancient medical writings, and looks into how artificial bodies and automata were equally configured in human terms; it also investigates how this knowledge applied to the treatment of the disabled and the diseased in the ancient world. The volume examines the pre-history of what develops, at a later stage, and more specifically during the early modern period, into the full science of iatromechanics in the context of which the human body was treated as a machine and medical treatments were devised accordingly. The volume facilitates future dialogue between scholars working on different areas, from classics, history and archaeology to history of science, philosophy and technology.

Download or read book Body Technologies in the Greco Roman World written by Maria Gerolemou and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2023-11-16 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of papers that introduces the notion of the technosoma (techno body) into discussions on the representations of the body in classical antiquity. By applying the category of the technosoma to the ‘natural’ body, this volume explicitly narrows down the discussion of the technical and the natural to the physiological body. In doing so, the present collection focuses on body technologies in the specific form of beautification and body enhancement techniques, as well as medical and surgical treatments. The volume elucidates two main points. Firstly, ancient techno bodies show that the categories of gender and sexuality are at the core of the intersection of the natural and the technical, and intersect with notions of race, age, speciesism, class and education, and dis/ability. Secondly, the collection argues that new body technologies have in fact a very ancient history that can help to address the challenges of contemporary technological innovation. To this end, the volume showcases the intersection of ‘natural’ bodies with technology, gender, sexuality and reproduction. On the one hand, techno bodies tend to align with normative ideas about gender, and sexuality. On the other hand, body modification and/or enhancement techniques work hand in hand with economic and political power and knowledge, thus they often produce techno bodies that are shaped according to individual needs, i.e. according to a certain lifestyle. Consequently, techno bodies threaten to alter traditional ideas of masculinity, femininity, male and female sexuality and beauty.

Download or read book Tools and the Organism written by Colin Webster and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Medicine is itself a type of technology, involving therapeutic tools and substances, and so one way to write the history of medicine is as the application of different technologies to the human body. In Tools and the Organism, Colin Webster argues that, over the course of antiquity, notions shifted about what type of object a body is, what substances constitute its essential nature, and how its parts interact. By following these changes and taking the question of technology into the heart of Greek and Roman medicine, Webster reveals how the body was first conceptualized as an "organism"-a functional object whose inner parts were tools [organa] that each completed certain vital tasks. Webster's approach provides both an overarching survey of the ways that technologies impacted notions of corporeality and corporeal behaviors and, at the same time, stays attentive to the specific material details of ancient tools and how they informed assumptions about somatic structures, substances, and inner processes. For example, by turning to developments in water-delivery technologies and pneumatic tools, we see how these changing material realities altered theories of the vascular system and respiration across Classical antiquity. Tools and the Organism makes the compelling case for why telling the history of ancient Greco-Roman medical theories, from the Hippocratics to Galen, should pay close attention to the question of technology. Selling points: Tour de force survey of ancient medicine First book to demonstrate how the body got its "organs" and what this has to do with ancient technologies For anyone interested in ancient culture, science, medicine, and technology"--

Download or read book Algorithms and Automation written by Denisa Reshef Kera and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-18 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To enact the book’s central theme of automation and human agency, the author designed a Bot trained on her book to support dialogue with the content and facilitate discussions. If you like to compare what the author says and Bot ‘interprets’ or generates, go here https://www.anonette.net/denisaBot/ Algorithms and Automation: Governance over Rituals, Machines, and Prototypes, from Sundial to Blockchain is a critical examination of the history and impact of automation on society. It provides thought-provoking perspectives on the history of automation and its relationship with power, emphasizing the importance of considering the social context in which automation is developed and used. The book argues that automation has always been a political and social force that shapes our lives and futures, rather than a neutral tool. The author provides a genealogy of automation, tracing its development from ancient rituals to modern-day prototypes, and highlights the challenges posed by new technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence. The volume argues that we need more democratic and accountable governance over technological innovation to ensure that it respects human rights, political pluralism, legitimacy, and other values we hold dear in our institutions and political processes. An engaging read on a fascinating topic, this book will be indispensable for scholars, students, and researchers of science and technology studies, digital humanities, politics and governance, public policy, social policy, system design and automation, and history and philosophy of science and technology. It will also be of interest to readers interested in the interactions of the sciences and the social sciences and humanities.

Download or read book Aristophanic Humour written by Peter Swallow and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-06-11 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume sets out to discuss a crucial question for ancient comedy – what makes Aristophanes funny? Too often Aristophanes' humour is taken for granted as merely a tool for the delivery of political and social commentary. But Greek Old Comedy was above all else designed to amuse people, to win the dramatic competition by making the audience laugh the hardest. Any discussion of Aristophanes therefore needs to take into account the ways in which his humour actually works. This question is addressed in two ways. The first half of the volume offers an in-depth discussion of humour theory – a field heretofore largely overlooked by classicists and Aristophanists – examining various theoretical models within the specific context of Aristophanes' eleven extant plays. In the second half, contributors explore Aristophanic humour more practically, examining how specific linguistic techniques and performative choices affect the reception of humour, and exploring the range of subjects Aristophanes tackles as vectors for his comedy. A focus on performance shapes the narrative, since humour lives or dies on the stage – it is never wholly comprehensible on the page alone.

Download or read book A Guide to Classics and Cognitive Studies written by Anna A. Novokhatko and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-12-02 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Readers of this book receive an overview of the main perspectives and research of recent decades in the fruitful collaboration between Classics and Cognitive studies. It is intended as a stocktaking of various branches of Classics, such as literary criticism and poetics, linguistics, ancient history and archaeology. Four major research areas or clusters have been chosen for the presentation of the chapters. Chapter one discusses recent studies of 'cognitive' materiality and material agency in relation to the human mind, chapter two the so-called 'spatial turn' and cognition and the perception of space in place in relation to antiquity, chapter three imagination and vision and cognitive approaches to seeing, while chapter four considers experience and experientiality and the 'sensory turn' as applied to ancient sources. Finally, the fifth chapter is a special case and a different medium: it consists of three interviews with three well-known pioneers of the study of emotions in antiquity, David Konstan, Angelos Chaniotis and Douglas Cairns, who in various direct and indirect ways have greatly influenced the interplay and dialogue between classical studies and cognitive approaches in recent decades. This book takes stock of a rapidly developing and highly controversial field that is currently in full bloom.

Download or read book Automating Cities written by Brydon T. Wang and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-04 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book highlights the latest advancements in the use of automated systems in the design, construction, operation and future of the built environment and its occupants. It considers how the use of automated decision-making frameworks, artificial intelligence and other technologies of automation are presently impacting the practice of architects, engineers, project managers and contractors, and articulates the near future changes to workflows, legal frameworks and the wider AEC industry. This book surveys and compiles the use of city apps, robots that operate buildings and fabricate structural elements, 3D printing, drones, sensors, algorithms, and advanced prefabricated modules. The book also contributes to the growing literature on smart cities, and explores the impacts on data privacy and data sovereignty that arise through the use of sensors, digital twins and intelligent transport systems. It provides a useful reference for further research and development in the area of automation in design and construction to architects, engineers, project managers, superintendents and construction lawyers, contractors, policy makers, and students.

Download or read book The Battle of the Classics written by Eric Adler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-04 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These are troubling days for the humanities. In response, a recent proliferation of works defending the humanities has emerged. But, taken together, what are these works really saying, and how persuasive do they prove? The Battle of the Classics demonstrates the crucial downsides of contemporary apologetics for the humanities and presents in its place a historically informed case for a different approach to rescuing the humanistic disciplines in higher education. It reopens the passionate debates about the classics that took place in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America as a springboard for crafting a novel foundation for the humanistic tradition. Eric Adler demonstrates that current defenses of the humanities rely on the humanistic disciplines as inculcators of certain poorly defined skills such as "critical thinking." It criticizes this conventional approach, contending that humanists cannot hope to save their disciplines without arguing in favor of particular humanities content. As the uninspired defenses of the classical humanities in the late nineteenth century prove, instrumental apologetics are bound to fail. All the same, the book shows that proponents of the Great Books favor a curriculum that is too intellectually narrow for the twenty-first century. The Battle of the Classics thus lays out a substance-based approach to undergraduate education that will revive the humanities, even as it steers clear of overreliance on the Western canon. The book envisions a global humanities based on the examination of masterworks from manifold cultures as the heart of an intellectually and morally sound education.

Download or read book International Encyclopedia of Human Geography written by and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2019-11-29 with total page 7278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Second Edition, Fourteen Volume Set embraces diversity by design and captures the ways in which humans share places and view differences based on gender, race, nationality, location and other factors—in other words, the things that make people and places different. Questions of, for example, politics, economics, race relations and migration are introduced and discussed through a geographical lens. This updated edition will assist readers in their research by providing factual information, historical perspectives, theoretical approaches, reviews of literature, and provocative topical discussions that will stimulate creative thinking. Presents the most up-to-date and comprehensive coverage on the topic of human geography Contains extensive scope and depth of coverage Emphasizes how geographers interact with, understand and contribute to problem-solving in the contemporary world Places an emphasis on how geography is relevant in a social and interdisciplinary context

Download or read book Gods and Robots written by Adrienne Mayor and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the story of how ancient cultures envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices and human enhancements, sharing insights into how the mythologies of the past related to and shaped ancient machine innovations.

Download or read book Mirrors and Mirroring from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period written by Maria Gerolemou and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-01-09 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines mirrors and mirroring through a series of multidisciplinary essays, especially focusing on the intersection between technological and cultural dynamics of mirrors. The international scholars brought together here explore critical questions around the mirror as artefact and the phenomenon of mirroring. Beside the common visual registration of an action or inaction, in a two dimensional and reversed form, various types of mirrors often possess special abilities which can produce a distorted picture of reality, serving in this way illusion and falsehood. Part I looks at a selection of theory from ancient writers, demonstrating the concern to explore these same questions in antiquity. Part II considers the role reflections can play in forming ideas of gender and identity. Beyond the everyday, we see in Part III how oracular mirrors and magical mirrors reveal the invisible divine – prosthetics that allow us to look where the eye cannot reach. Finally, Part IV considers mirrors' roles in displaying the visible and invisible in antiquity and since.

Download or read book The Technology Trap written by Carl Benedikt Frey and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-22 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Industrial Revolution to the age of artificial intelligence, Carl Benedikt Frey offers a sweeping account of the history of technological progress and how it has radically shifted the distribution of economic and political power among society's members. As the author shows, the Industrial Revolution created unprecedented wealth and prosperity over the long run, but the immediate consequences of mechanization were devastating for large swaths of the population.These trends broadly mirror those in our current age of automation. But, just as the Industrial Revolution eventually brought about extraordinary benefits for society, artificial intelligence systems have the potential to do the same. Benedikt Frey demonstrates that in the midst of another technological revolution, the lessons of the past can help us to more effectively face the present. --From publisher description.

Download or read book Springer Handbook of Automation written by Shimon Y. Nof and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-06-16 with total page 1533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook incorporates new developments in automation. It also presents a widespread and well-structured conglomeration of new emerging application areas, such as medical systems and health, transportation, security and maintenance, service, construction and retail as well as production or logistics. The handbook is not only an ideal resource for automation experts but also for people new to this expanding field.

Download or read book Architecture in the Age of Printing written by Mario Carpo and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-02-10 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the influence of communication technologies on Western architectural theory. The discipline of architecture depends on the transmission in space and time of accumulated experiences, concepts, rules, and models. From the invention of the alphabet to the development of ASCII code for electronic communication, the process of recording and transmitting this body of knowledge has reflected the dominant information technologies of each period. In this book Mario Carpo discusses the communications media used by Western architects, from classical antiquity to modern classicism, showing how each medium related to specific forms of architectural thinking. Carpo highlights the significance of the invention of movable type and mechanically reproduced images. He argues that Renaissance architectural theory, particularly the system of the five architectural orders, was consciously developed in response to the formats and potential of the new printed media. Carpo contrasts architecture in the age of printing with what preceded it: Vitruvian theory and the manuscript format, oral transmission in the Middle Ages, and the fifteenth-century transition from script to print. He also suggests that the basic principles of "typographic" architecture thrived in the Western world as long as print remained our main information technology. The shift from printed to digital representations, he points out, will again alter the course of architecture.