Lead Discussants
Erik Bordeleau (PhD Université de Montréal) is researcher at the SenseLab Montreal, fugitive financial designer at the Economic Space Agency (ECSA), and affiliated researcher at the Center for Arts, Business & Culture of the Stockholm School of Economics. His work articulates at the intersection of political philosophy, media and financial theory, contemporary art and cinema studies, with a marked interest for the speculative turn and the renewal of the question of the possible in contemporary thinking. Bordeleau is also affiliated to the research group HAR (Histoire des arts et des representations - Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La défense) and co-founder of the collectives Entrepreneurs du commun and Econautic Consultancy. After his PhD at the Université de Montréal, Erik has been a post-doctoral fellow at Bruxelles Free University in philosophy (2012-2014) is creating an MA program in Cryptoeconomics at the Global Center for Advanced Studies (GCAS) in Dublin. With Saloranta & De Vylder, he is developing The Sphere, a p2p community platform for self-organization in the performing arts, which is also part of ABC’s research projects. He is based in Berlin.
Niklas Damiris is currently an independent scholar and business consultant, and an affiliate of the Synthesis Center at ASU. After a PhD in theoretical physics, Dr. Damiris worked on problems at Stanford and Xerox PARC ranging from quantum mechanics to philosophy and computation. For many years he was research scientist in think-tanks in Silicon Valley, as well as a visiting scholar at Stanford University. From 2005 to 2016 he was adjunct visiting professor in the department of Economics at the University of Lugano, Switzerland. He is currently completing a book, The Genesis of Money-capital: A Study in Applied Virtuality.
Chris Fynsk, is Professor of Philosophy, and Dean of the Division of Philosophy, Art & Critical Thought at The European Graduate School / EGS. He has held academic positions in North America, France, and the UK (Scotland), and has fifteen years of experience at The European Graduate School / EGS. He is best known for his writings on Martin Heidegger and Maurice Blanchot, but has also made significant contributions in the area of philosophy of language and to questions relating to the politics of philosophy (and its institutions). In his critical writings, which breach the barriers separating philosophy, literary theory, and art criticism, Christopher Fynsk is deeply engaged with the question of the possibility of language and how the human relation to Being is sketched out through literary and philosophical texts and art works. Prof. Fynsk taught at the University of Strasbourg (1985-1987). At State University of New York at Binghamton (1981-2004) he was professor of Comparative Literature and Philosophy, co-directed the Philosophy, Literature and the Theory of Criticism Program, and chaired the Department of Comparative Literature. In 2004, he moved to the University of Aberdeen and formed the Centre for Modern Thought.
Sha Xin Wei (PhD Stanford) is Professor and Director of the School of Arts, Media + Engineering, and directs the Synthesis Center for transversal art, philosophy and technology at Arizona State University. He is a Fellow of the ASU-Santa Fe Institute Center for Biosocial Complex Systems, and is a professor in the Division of Philosophy, Art & Critical Thought at the EGS. Dr. Sha's core research concerns poiesis and process in philosophy, media arts, and technology. After degrees in mathematics at Harvard and Stanford Universities, Dr. Sha established the Topological Media Lab in 2001 as an atelier for the study of gesture and materiality. As Canada Research Chair in media arts and sciences and Associate Professor of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montréal, he led the TML 2005-2013 creating responsive environments for ethico-aesthetic improvisation. His book, Poiesis and Enchantment in Topological Media, was published by MIT Press.
Kenneth Cukier is senior editor and the host of the weekly podcast on technology, Babbage. He is the coauthor of the New York Times Bestselling book “Big Data” with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, which was translated into over 20 languages. Previously Kenn was the technology editor of the Wall Street Journal Asia in Hong Kong and worked at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. In 2002-04 he was a research fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Kenn is a board director of Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs), a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and an Associate Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School.
Gary Dirks is senior director of the Global Futures Laboratory and LightWorks®, an Arizona State University initiative that capitalizes on ASU's strengths in solar energy and other light-inspired research. He is also the Julie Wrigley Chair of Sustainable Practices and a professor of practice in the School of Sustainability and distinguished sustainability scientist, and affiliate faculty Center for Biodiversity Outcomes. Before joining ASU, Dirks was the president of BP Asia-Pacific and the president of BP China. In China, he grew BP from an operation with fewer than 30 employees and no revenue to more than 1,300 employees and revenues of about $4 billion in 2008. Dr. Dirks has served on the boards of the India Council for Sustainable Development, the U.S. China Center for Sustainable Development, and the China Business Council for Sustainable Development, and currently is a member of the Science Advisory Board of Conservation International. Dirks received a PhD in chemistry from ASU in 1980. He was the first doctoral student to work in the Center for the Study of Early Events in Photosynthesis (now the Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis).
Natalie Smolenski, PhD European Graduate School, is a theoretical anthropologist whose interdisciplinary work investigates the conditions for the development of subjects within economies characterized by layered modalities of exchange and emergent boundaries of interiority and exteriority. Her project aims ultimately to articulate the parameters which enable collective action to precipitate state changes over time. Natalie also leads business development for Learning Machine, a software firm that builds applications for verifying identity and claims using blockchains in a manner that privileges individual self-sovereignty. She writes and speaks about the impacts of distributed technologies on identity, economy, and government.
Niklas Damiris is currently an independent scholar and business consultant, and an affiliate of the Synthesis Center at ASU. After a PhD in theoretical physics, Dr. Damiris worked on problems at Stanford and Xerox PARC ranging from quantum mechanics to philosophy and computation. For many years he was research scientist in think-tanks in Silicon Valley, as well as a visiting scholar at Stanford University. From 2005 to 2016 he was adjunct visiting professor in the department of Economics at the University of Lugano, Switzerland. He is currently completing a book, The Genesis of Money-capital: A Study in Applied Virtuality.
Chris Fynsk, is Professor of Philosophy, and Dean of the Division of Philosophy, Art & Critical Thought at The European Graduate School / EGS. He has held academic positions in North America, France, and the UK (Scotland), and has fifteen years of experience at The European Graduate School / EGS. He is best known for his writings on Martin Heidegger and Maurice Blanchot, but has also made significant contributions in the area of philosophy of language and to questions relating to the politics of philosophy (and its institutions). In his critical writings, which breach the barriers separating philosophy, literary theory, and art criticism, Christopher Fynsk is deeply engaged with the question of the possibility of language and how the human relation to Being is sketched out through literary and philosophical texts and art works. Prof. Fynsk taught at the University of Strasbourg (1985-1987). At State University of New York at Binghamton (1981-2004) he was professor of Comparative Literature and Philosophy, co-directed the Philosophy, Literature and the Theory of Criticism Program, and chaired the Department of Comparative Literature. In 2004, he moved to the University of Aberdeen and formed the Centre for Modern Thought.
Sha Xin Wei (PhD Stanford) is Professor and Director of the School of Arts, Media + Engineering, and directs the Synthesis Center for transversal art, philosophy and technology at Arizona State University. He is a Fellow of the ASU-Santa Fe Institute Center for Biosocial Complex Systems, and is a professor in the Division of Philosophy, Art & Critical Thought at the EGS. Dr. Sha's core research concerns poiesis and process in philosophy, media arts, and technology. After degrees in mathematics at Harvard and Stanford Universities, Dr. Sha established the Topological Media Lab in 2001 as an atelier for the study of gesture and materiality. As Canada Research Chair in media arts and sciences and Associate Professor of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montréal, he led the TML 2005-2013 creating responsive environments for ethico-aesthetic improvisation. His book, Poiesis and Enchantment in Topological Media, was published by MIT Press.
Kenneth Cukier is senior editor and the host of the weekly podcast on technology, Babbage. He is the coauthor of the New York Times Bestselling book “Big Data” with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, which was translated into over 20 languages. Previously Kenn was the technology editor of the Wall Street Journal Asia in Hong Kong and worked at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. In 2002-04 he was a research fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Kenn is a board director of Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs), a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and an Associate Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School.
Gary Dirks is senior director of the Global Futures Laboratory and LightWorks®, an Arizona State University initiative that capitalizes on ASU's strengths in solar energy and other light-inspired research. He is also the Julie Wrigley Chair of Sustainable Practices and a professor of practice in the School of Sustainability and distinguished sustainability scientist, and affiliate faculty Center for Biodiversity Outcomes. Before joining ASU, Dirks was the president of BP Asia-Pacific and the president of BP China. In China, he grew BP from an operation with fewer than 30 employees and no revenue to more than 1,300 employees and revenues of about $4 billion in 2008. Dr. Dirks has served on the boards of the India Council for Sustainable Development, the U.S. China Center for Sustainable Development, and the China Business Council for Sustainable Development, and currently is a member of the Science Advisory Board of Conservation International. Dirks received a PhD in chemistry from ASU in 1980. He was the first doctoral student to work in the Center for the Study of Early Events in Photosynthesis (now the Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis).
Natalie Smolenski, PhD European Graduate School, is a theoretical anthropologist whose interdisciplinary work investigates the conditions for the development of subjects within economies characterized by layered modalities of exchange and emergent boundaries of interiority and exteriority. Her project aims ultimately to articulate the parameters which enable collective action to precipitate state changes over time. Natalie also leads business development for Learning Machine, a software firm that builds applications for verifying identity and claims using blockchains in a manner that privileges individual self-sovereignty. She writes and speaks about the impacts of distributed technologies on identity, economy, and government.