Sydney Ideas

Professor Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science

In earlier modernity the infrastructures of communication required for an expanding economy and society remained tied to national boundaries and broadly compatible with the values on which democracy was based. In late modernity, globalisation challenged nation-state boundaries, but not yet the values underlying democratic governance.

But the era of late late modernity - characterised by the embedding of internet-based connectivity into action at all levels and scales - creates conditions incompatible with freedom, a value generally regarded as essential to the quality of human life, and democratic capabilities in particular.

The internet involves the connectability of all points in space-time, which become points in an unlimited information-space. This generates a two-way bargain: if every point in information-space is connectable to every other, then it becomes susceptible to monitoring from every other point.

Meanwhile, the resulting ease of information production generates an information excess which makes targeted communication ever more difficult. In response, business and government are constructing a social world based on the permanent monitoring of all actors and the processing of the resulting data.

But such generalised surveillance is incompatible with the personal autonomy required for democratic agency. The result is an impending crisis in democratic norms from which we do not yet know how to escape.

Professor Kathy High, Video and New Media in the Department of the Arts, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY

Recent research into the human body biomes and fecal microbial transplants (FMT) has led to better understanding of both the important function of bacteria in our bodies and the ecological systems that sustain us. These include microbiota – ecologies within the body.

Kathy High an interdisciplinary artist working in the areas of technology, science and art, explores these new developments through metaphors of interspecies love, immunology and bacteria as players. Waste Matters expands ideas around imbalances of internal biomes as a mirror to the imbalances in our larger ecological sphere, where the gut is a ‘hackable space’.

12 April 2016.

Sydney Ideas event: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/professor_kathy_high.shtml

Professor Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science

In earlier modernity the infrastructures of communication required for an expanding economy and society remained tied to national boundaries and broadly compatible with the values on which democracy was based. In late modernity, globalisation challenged nation-state boundaries, but not yet the values underlying democratic governance.

But the era of late late modernity - characterised by the embedding of internet-based connectivity into action at all levels and scales - creates conditions incompatible with freedom, a value generally regarded as essential to the quality of human life, and democratic capabilities in particular.

The internet involves the connectability of all points in space-time, which become points in an unlimited information-space. This generates a two-way bargain: if every point in information-space is connectable to every other, then it becomes susceptible to monitoring from every other point.

Meanwhile, the resulting ease of information production generates an information excess which makes targeted communication ever more difficult. In response, business and government are constructing a social world based on the permanent monitoring of all actors and the processing of the resulting data.

But such generalised surveillance is incompatible with the personal autonomy required for democratic agency. The result is an impending crisis in democratic norms from which we do not yet know how to escape.

Professor Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science

In earlier modernity the infrastructures of communication required for an expanding economy and society remained tied to national boundaries and broadly compatible with the values on which democracy was based. In late modernity, globalisation challenged nation-state boundaries, but not yet the values underlying democratic governance.

But the era of late late modernity - characterised by the embedding of internet-based connectivity into action at all levels and scales - creates conditions incompatible with freedom, a value generally regarded as essential to the quality of human life, and democratic capabilities in particular.

The internet involves the connectability of all points in space-time, which become points in an unlimited information-space. This generates a two-way bargain: if every point in information-space is connectable to every other, then it becomes susceptible to monitoring from every other point.

Meanwhile, the resulting ease of information production generates an information excess which makes targeted communication ever more difficult. In response, business and government are constructing a social world based on the permanent monitoring of all actors and the processing of the resulting data.

But such generalised surveillance is incompatible with the personal autonomy required for democratic agency. The result is an impending crisis in democratic norms from which we do not yet know how to escape.

Professor Kathy High, Video and New Media in the Department of the Arts, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY

Recent research into the human body biomes and fecal microbial transplants (FMT) has led to better understanding of both the important function of bacteria in our bodies and the ecological systems that sustain us. These include microbiota – ecologies within the body.

Kathy High an interdisciplinary artist working in the areas of technology, science and art, explores these new developments through metaphors of interspecies love, immunology and bacteria as players. Waste Matters expands ideas around imbalances of internal biomes as a mirror to the imbalances in our larger ecological sphere, where the gut is a ‘hackable space’.

12 April 2016.

Sydney Ideas event: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/professor_kathy_high.shtml

Professor Yu Keping from Peking University, Beijing elaborates on the meaning of political philosophy and political thought in the Chinese context, traditionally and currently. He highlights the distinction between legitimate authority and legal power, and the ways by which power is transformed into authority.

Professor Yu looks specifically at the sources and nature of power and authority, and gives his answer to the question of what kind of power and authority we need in terms of modern democratic governance.

Professor Yu Keping from Peking University, Beijing elaborates on the meaning of political philosophy and political thought in the Chinese context, traditionally and currently. He highlights the distinction between legitimate authority and legal power, and the ways by which power is transformed into authority.

Professor Yu looks specifically at the sources and nature of power and authority, and gives his answer to the question of what kind of power and authority we need in terms of modern democratic governance.

Professor Yu Keping from Peking University, Beijing elaborates on the meaning of political philosophy and political thought in the Chinese context, traditionally and currently. He highlights the distinction between legitimate authority and legal power, and the ways by which power is transformed into authority.

Professor Yu looks specifically at the sources and nature of power and authority, and gives his answer to the question of what kind of power and authority we need in terms of modern democratic governance.

China is a rising power in the world. Its grand strategy, regional role and foreign policy have significant impacts on global and regional affairs, and have important implications for countries such as the United States and Australia.

Australia faces the challenges of balancing its relationships with both the United States and China in a sometimes volatile regional security environment, exemplified by the South China Sea disputes.

How do the Chinese perceive their role and key relationships with global and regional powers? The University of Sydney brings together prominent Chinese scholars and Australian scholars to engage in open, extensive and in-depth conversations.

China is a rising power in the world. Its grand strategy, regional role and foreign policy have significant impacts on global and regional affairs, and have important implications for countries such as the United States and Australia.

Australia faces the challenges of balancing its relationships with both the United States and China in a sometimes volatile regional security environment, exemplified by the South China Sea disputes.

How do the Chinese perceive their role and key relationships with global and regional powers? The University of Sydney brings together prominent Chinese scholars and Australian scholars to engage in open, extensive and in-depth conversations.