Curated by Associazione Euresis and Fondazione Ceur

 

In facing any new technology, after the immediate reactions of wonder or marvel for the practical possibilities that have opened, we are soon brought to ask what might be the end reality: what are the technology’s advantages, and above all, for who will it actually be a good? If then the object, the equipment, or the system has, as often happens with “new technology,” elements of ambivalence, side effects, potential undesired applications, or even obvious risk factors or threats to humans or the environment, then questions instinctively rise on its goodness, on the limits of its use, and on the opportunity (or not) to implement and spread it.
These are not, however, the only questions raised by the current technological invasion, and they may not be the most significant. In reflecting on the role that technology has assumed – and the prospects that its accelerated development hints at – one can dig deeper to identify more profound challenges.
It is this consideration that has moved the Euresis Association, in collaboration with the Ceur Foundation, to prepare an area dedicated to technology for the Meeting 2016. “WHAT? What’s Human About Technology”: is neither a traditional exhibition nor a classical congress; rather, it is an environment organized in a way to connect people to technologies, giving them time to gather provocations, suggestions, contradictions, and questions. It is a space to invite protagonists from several advanced sectors of technical sciences to place themselves in front of accomplishments, which are either particularly stimulating or problematic, and together try to enter “into the problem,” with the intention to focus on asking the right questions, first and foremost, rather than trying to create answers or draw general conclusions.