[NotiAMCA] Golems 2005 en Praga

[Victorio Sonzogni]

Victorio,
para los suscriptores de Notiamca querría comentarte que, durante mi estadía 
en Praga las semanas pasadas, el Prof. Vladimir Marik y yo, coordinadores 
del "E-Golems Workshop", acordamos prorrogar la fecha límite para la 
presentación de trabajos hasta el 31 de marzo de 2005. Además, querría 
informarles que los trabajos aceptados serán publicados por la Universidad 
Técnica Checa, y posteriormente se prevé la publicación en una serie de 
Springer-Verlag de trabajos seleccionados. Adjunto nuevamente en archivo 
adicional el llamado para mayor claridad.
Muy cordialmente,
Pablo Jacovkis

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Czech - Argentine Biennale "e - Golems"
First Workshop
"Interdisciplinary aspects of Human-Machine Co-existence and Co-operation"

Accompanying event to the World IFAC Congress
Prague, July 2-5, 2005


 "It was with great interest that I became acquainted with the conceptual 
framework of the "Golem 2002" project, inspired by the ancient, polysemous, 
multi-layered, constantly re-interpreted Golem tradition - the tradition 
most frequently connected with Prague, its cultural and religious plurality 
and its somewhat hazy spirituality. For a long time, abundant 
interpretations and associations linked to the character of Golem have 
inspired authors and artists to ever new and updated reflections. Golem is 
something (or somebody) still incomplete, being perpetually reborn and 
recreated, in the tradition associated - not accidentally - with the Prague 
of the time of Emperor Rudolph II and rabbi Loew; with the Prague of 
alchemy, mystery; the Prague of scholars, charlatans and spiritual 
teachers....

 Still today, the Golem tradition has much to say. Relativism in assessing 
values once considered indisputable, easy substitution of the good and the 
evil, God's servant and his adversary, the world as the object of human 
wilfulness, command and power, the world as the object of care and concern 
about its future, the world at a fateful crossroads - all these generally 
perceived coordinates of our complex times can be articulated against the 
backdrop of the Golem tradition with great pertinence. The proof comes also 
in the works of prominent writers such as Gustav Meyrink, Karel Capek, 
Angelo M. Ripellino or Jorge Luis Borges, whose poem El Golem has now been 
translated into Czech...."

         Signed: Vaclav Havel
        (October 2002, for 'Golem 2002 - 5763')


---000---

The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and Charles University in 
Prague, together with the Czech Technical University in Prague and the 
Jewish Museum in Prague, jointly with the University of Buenos Aires and its 
Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, the Argentine Secretariat for 
Science, Technology and Productive Innovation, the National Council for 
Scientific and Technological Research and the International Foundation Jorge 
Luis Borges, as well as scientists and intellectuals from both countries, in 
meetings held in 2002 and 2003 in Prague and Buenos Aires, developed the 
conceptual framework for a Biennale addressed to the scientific and 
technological developments in the field of computer science and 
technologies, their impact on the individual and society and the cultural 
environment, artistic as well as social and economic resulting thereof.

The Biennale is also supported, within their respective fields of 
competence, by the Ministries of Culture and of Education of the Czech 
Republic and by the Secretary for Culture and the Ministry of Education of 
the Argentine.

The inspiration for such Biennale was drawn from the poem on the Golem and 
Rabbi Loew in Prague by Jorge Luis Borges and the present day metaphorical 
value of the Golem as robot, artificial intelligence, cybernetics, virtual 
reality, nano-technologies and the Internet, proved instrumental to such 
framework. In the case of robotics, it links with the homunculus conceived 
by the Czech writer Karel Capek in his play "R.U.R." (1921), in which he 
coined the noun "robot". The name "e-Golems" of the Biennale stands for 
"electronic Golems".

During the preparations, it was thought appropriate to implement the 
Biennale's conceptual framework progressively, profiting from the hosting in 
Prague of the 16th World IFAC - International Federation for Automatic 
Control - Congress (July 4th to the 8th), by convening the first 
international "e-Golems" Biennale workshop from July 3rd to 5th with the 
official opening  and conclusion being July the 2nd and the 5th.

The content of this First Argentine - Czech Biennale workshop is aimed at 
ideas and considerations which reflect a certain transformation or parallel 
between the ancient vision of the Golem as an anthropomorphic artificial 
being and today's visions of information science and artificial 
intelligence.

The intent of this event is to widely discuss this issue on the level of 
philosophical considerations, models of behavior and learning, psychological 
aspects of the man-machine cooperation, visions of information networks as 
"living" organisms with the learning capabilities, self-reflection and 
self-organization, distributed methods of perception, decision making and 
actions, perspectives and progress carried out in the field of 
non-traditional computing systems (based e.g. on quantitative approaches or 
analogies to the nature), principles of adaptation with exploration of 
genetic, DNA and similar algorithms, principles of  the artificial life, 
etc.

We expect the workshop to reflect the state-of-the-art in research in the 
field of intelligent robotics with stress to topics of collective robotics, 
robotic games and social behavior of software agents or physical machines. 
Considerations concerning machines, their "emotions", interaction with 
humans and capabilities to overtake the power over the human beings shall be 
focus of attention, too. The topics aimed at a direct physical linkage of 
the human tissue and electronic chips are welcome as well as a wide 
discussion concerning these solutions and their consequences.

Simply, we expect this first "e-Golems" international workshop to include 
many interesting topics tightly or loosely coupled with the Golem vision, 
Capek's R.U.R. motives and today's cultural, social and economic environment 
emanating from the impact of cybernetics science and technologies on society 
and in art since its kinetic origins.

Deadline for submission of the papers is February 28th, 2005. Their lengths 
should be between 5 to 10 pages and the language English. Those selected 
shall be published as the proceedings of the Workshop and Biennale. 
Submissions should be sent electronically to one of the contact persons.

For the Workshop, it is expected that it shall last two days, with four 
consecutive sessions in each them, lasting each 90 minutes. The panelist's 
presentation should last 15 minutes in order to give time for discussions 
and questions from the public. Their shall be a co-ordinator for each 
session. The language shall also be English.

Contacts:

Prof. Vladimir Marik,
Czech Technical University
Prague
Czech Republic
Phone:  +420-224357421
Fax:  +420-224357224
Mail: marik en labe.felk.cvut.cz

 Prof. Pablo M. Jacovkis
Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences
University of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Phone: +54 11 4576 3333 / 3332
Fax:  +54 11 4576 3351
Mail: jacovkis en de.fcen.uba.ar