Join us at Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore on Tuesday, November 4 at 7:00 PM when Dr. Vanessa Chang comes to the store to present her new book The Body Digital: A Brief History of Humans and Machines from Cuckoo Clocks to ChatGPT. Vanessa will be joined in coversation by Kara Platoni.
Click Here to preorder a copy of The Body Digital
What is the relationship between our bodies and our senses and technology? In today's world of blinding technological change, of artificial intelligence and deepfakes and Chat GPT, it is easy to forget that we have always had complicated relations with technology—whether that technology is computers, player pianos, and even eyeglasses.
In this wide-ranging and fascinating study, Vanessa Chang takes us on a historical tour of the interactions between our bodies and machines, showing that the advent of new technologies has always been met with varied reactions, from misplaced fear to tragic over-optimism. The result is cultural critique of the highest order and a profound demonstration of the eternal truth that in order to understand the future, we must look to the past.
DR. VANESSA CHANG is the Director of Programs at Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology. She has been a lecturer in Visual & Critical Studies at California College of the Arts, lead curator with CODAME Art & Tech, and a SOMArts Curatorial Resident 2019-2020. She has a PhD in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University, where she researched electronic gesture across the arts and was a Geballe Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center, where she also led the Graphic Narrative Project. Her essays and reviews have been published in Slate, Noema, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Wired.
Award-winning journalist KARA PLATONI has a master's degree from UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and lives in the SF Bay Area. She likes to edit and write stories about science, or anything else that’s complicated and nuanced and sort of geeky or futuristic. Kara is the author of We Have the Technology: How Biohackers, Foodies, Physicians, and Scientists Are Transforming Human Perception, One Sense at a Time
THIS EVENT is free but registration is requested. Registration ends at 6:00 pm on November 4.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
DUE TO SPACE limitations, we may not be able to accommodate every person at an event, so early registration is encouraged.
WALK-INS will be accommodated only if space allows.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:45 and 7:00 PM for the event.
PLEASE leave your non-support companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, please plan accordingly.
