Technology and humanity, what connection today? The Polytechnic of Turin responds with a critical and synthetic reflection on technological, social and human sciences with Biennale Tecnologia, a cultural event that returns for the fourth edition in Turin from 18 to 21 April.
This year’s theme will be “Realistic Utopias”, a false oxymoron that becomes an invitation to imagine possible futures with freedom and courage, to transform ideas into projects. “Utopia and realism are opposites that attract each other: if one develops the imagination, the other tries to design it, looking for innovations and technologies that model it in a real form,” they say Juan Carlos De Martin and Luca De Biasescientific curators of Biennale Tecnologia.
The goal is cast an eye towards future prospectscourageous and concrete at the same time, through a polyphonic program that confirms the motto “Technology and/is humanity” and the interdisciplinary approach of the event. He will be there to inaugurate the edition Telmo Pievaniphilosopher and evolutionist, with the lectio magistralis “The Beaver Principle”, offering a reflection on the current polycrisis – a perfect storm of different and interconnected crises – where it is impossible to find exclusively technical solutions, because new technologies alone will not be enough, without a change also in development, consumption, transport and nutrition models.
Biennale Tecnologia continues for four days with 160 appointments and over 280 guests which will investigate the most current issues in the contemporary debate: from artificial intelligence, between risks and opportunities, to ecology and sustainable mobility, from digital to economic development, passing through work and social inclusion, new digital democracies and the evolution of technology also in other cultures, and also war and peace, mobility, health and new frontiers.
Among the numerous guests from the national and international scenethere will be Telmo Pievani, philosopher and evolutionist, Roma Agrawal, engineer known for having worked on the design of the Shard’s statics, Paolo Benanti, theologian, president of the Commission on artificial intelligence for information of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Tito Boeri , economist, the philosophers Pascal Chabot and Yasuo Deguchi, Cory Doctorow, who introduced the phenomenon ofenshittification – the shitification of the internet – Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, director of the Digital Democracies Institute at Simon Fraser University, the writers Paolo Di Paolo, Loredana Lipperini, Bruce Sterling and Chiara Valerio, Christian Greco, director of the Egyptian museum in Turin, Anne L’ Huillier, Nobel Prize for Physics 2023, Davide Livermore among the greatest opera directors in the world, Riccardo Luna, journalist, Carlos Moreno, scientist and professor at the Sorbonne University of Paris, Nanjala Nyabola, activist and researcher, Harry Parker, former soldier mutilated by the war, Carlo Ratti, architect, Ersilia Vaudo Scarpetta, astrophysicist and Chief Diversity Officer of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the jurist and academic, President Emeritus of the Constitutional Court, Gustavo Zagrebelsky.
Everyone will enrich the debate by offering their own point of view, illustrating the pros, cons, new frontiers and also looking at the past to better understand who we are and who we will bein this new technological era.