Invited talk for Environmental Protection Scotland.
Viewing entries in
Speaking
This week, I was in Plymouth giving a public lecture on social media and sport. The lecture spanned wearable technology such as Google Glass to virtual reality simulations.
It is a rare thing for me to be invited to speak at a Science Fiction convention, but this year I was asked to present my research within the George Hay memorial lecture slot within this Easter science fiction convention. It was a real delight to be present at this meeting and I had such a great time. I hope I get asked again some time soon! My talk was titled 'How to make your own superhero: Science, Morality and the Politics of Human Enhancement,' and it was especially nice because the event took place in Glasgow.
![Sport Accord Convention: Youth Club [VIDEO]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/563face7e4b06c325c739ba9/1447019583292-PF7N0370UKIF8K8W31C8/image-asset.jpeg)
The Sport Accord Convention is talked about as the United Nations of Sport, where all Federations come together. This was my second year of being a speaker at the Convention and I chaired a session called the 'Youth Club'. It was the first time ever that the Convention had put together something like this and the average age of panel members was approximately 23 years old. It was a great session and the feedback was awesome.
I was in Madrid last week for the Congress of Brilliant Minds. Some really amazing other speakers were there, including Steve McCurry, Teresa Morales, David Peterson, and Steve Wozniak Here are the slides from my talk
My talk given in September 2013.
This short video is an intro to the Swiss Re event on human enhancement, which took place on July 3, 2013.
Presentation given for the 'Imagining the (Post-) Human Future: Meaning, Critique, and Consequences.
Along with the manuscript...
This paper argues on behalf of a posthuman future that is intimately tied to the use of human enhancement technology. It presents three principal justifications for enhancement, which focus on functionality, creative expression, and the ritual of re-making the self through biological modification. Collectively, these aspirations articulate the values surrounding posthuman life and the pursuit of biocultural capital.
When Christopher told me I would have the opening slot for the conference, I thought there was some merit in trying to deliver a polemic that would set the tone for our subsequent discussions. In part, this is why I decided to consider arguing on behalf of a posthuman existence, as it seems to me to be the most crucial dimension of what we need to consider, in order for this debate to have any merit. After all, if we are not prepared to embrace a posthuman life, then we may as well go home. That’s not to say we all need to embrace own inner posthuman for the project of posthumanism to have merit. Rather, if we conclude that posthumanism is a topic of no political or social urgency, then its currency as a contemporary debate is lost. Indeed, within some applied context, this is catastrophic, as it is a way for the professions to dismiss or ignore the long term implications of their work.
I want to present the case for thinking of ourselves as already posthuman and consider that the pursuit of human enhancements are a definingfeature of that life. One of the rather awkward questions one faces upon making such a statement is ‘when exactly did we become posthuman’, either that or, scholars conclude we have always been posthuman, or – even worse – we have never been human.
Other moral philosophers critique the idea of humanness at all as a defining characteristic of our species, utilizing the concept of ‘personhood’ as a non-speciesist, richer interpretation of the sentient condition, even affording similar moral status to animals, when they exhibit such intellectual capacities. Alternatively, some scholars appeal to such ideas as ‘dignity’ or capacities to experience certain second order psychological states, such as shame or embarrassment, as indicative of our uniqueness.
Moral philosophers have each employed these ideas to argue about a number of beginning and end of life issues, such as infanticide or assisted suicide. Indeed, bioethics has broadly been a place where this debate has found considerable traction, as many authors find themselves debating the merits of life and the conditions that give it value.
You might conclude already that, then, the debate about posthumanism need not be about human enhancements at all. Indeed, the literature outlines a much more complex set of relationship and behaviors that interpret the posthuman condition as intimately tied to discussions about our place within the ecosystem, rather than our identity as technological agents. Posthumanism may also be about the way in which human communities recognize the moral status of certain kinds of lives or lifestyles. For example, I think Chris Hables Gray’s appeal to ‘Cyborg Citizenship’ is crucially about the way that societies fail to give legitimacy to certain forms of sexual identity. We live in a world where still society is reticent to acknowledge the value of certain lifestyles and so posthumanism may be seen as a rejection of certain prejudices and be a project principally about the promotion of freedom of lifestyle. Indeed, I had a conversation last week about whether the contraceptive pill was a human enhancement or not. I think it is and we can debate why later, if you like.
I anticipate that many of the papers we hear over the next two days will explain just how much more complex is our relationship with posthumanism than we first imagined. When I think of this relationship, I draw on what Jacques Ellul refers to as la technique – that complex arrangement of technics, techniques and technologies through our humanness is made and remade. In this sense, being posthuman is to operatewithinthis complexity and to navigate through it, for better or worse.
Nevertheless, there seems something crucial to me about the human enhancement debate, as a defining characteristic of posthumanism and I don’t think I’m alone in making this case. Even authors who reject posthumanism as a worthy direction for humanity, recognize that this mau be the long term goal of Western science – Steve Fuller may talk to us more about that later (but that doesn’t mean I consider Steve as someone rejects his inner posthuman. Steve’s on Twitter for goodness sake.).
Recognising the human species as a ‘work in progress’ is inextricable from this project. However, it’s crucial that we understand the many ways in which human enhancement takes place and the broad social and cultural fascinations we may have with it. In this respect, I think we can identify at least three crucial trends that explain the pursuit of HE.
First, we can talk about the functional benefit that arises from human enhancement. Good examples of this are laser eye surgery, cognitive enhancers and gene transfer.
Second, we can discuss enhancements as a form of creative expression, as a way of exploring new aesthetic experiences. For example, we might look to make up as an early form of this, then to cosmetic surgery as a more radical and permanent change.
Third, we can talk about enhancements as rituals, as ways of marking out ourselves from others or as part of a community. Scarification, tattoo, and body piercing may be like this. More recent examples may ‘bagel heads’ in Japan.
There are examples that fit across these three types in different ways. For example, the use of LSD or other lifestyle drugs like ecstasy may be ways of trying to access new kinds of physical or mental experiences that could be seen as engaging all three of these parameters. If you take ecstasy when going to a nightclub, you might be seeking to enhance your capacity to dance all night.
Of course, many of these examples seem quite close to the present day. There is nothing controversial about laser eye surgery or body piercing.
Collectively, I want to talk about these values as indicative of how people pursue the accumulation of biocultural capital throughout their lives. Drawing on Bourdieu, it is apparent that we seek to enrich our lives today by modifying ourselves. We may have done this in the past by education or leisure. Each similarly reconfigures our mental and physical capacities, hopefully improving our lives by providing greater health or making us feel more capable.
Of course, there is no guarantee that they will, but we shouldn’t be too worried this. Those who argue against human enhancement, like Michael Hauskellar, seem to require us to have certainty over whether our choices will lead to an improvement in our circumstances. I can’t guarantee that. I can’t guarantee that your being able to run faster by genetically increasing your proportion of fast twitch muscle fibre count will mean that your life will be better off over all. Similarly, I can’t guarantee that having television, motor cars, or the telephone makes the world a better place or being human any richer. But we shouldn’t place too much stock in the critique from certainty. Most of what we do in life is a risk. We exercise judgment as to whether something will improve our lives in some way, or not and we for it. Sometimes it works out, other times it doesn’t. If you have a tattoo, there’s no guarantee that you won’t regret it when you are 60 years old.
So, why do I think the pursuit of HE is crucial to the case for posthumanity? Going back to the start of my talk, I wanted us to begin this inquiry by asking into the merit of a posthuman life. If we seek to live as posthumans, what ought that entail? How will we justify employing that term, rather than simply conclude that humans have always been on this trajectory – that what defines our species is this endless pursuit of pushing back the limits of biology and nature?
We have always done that, but if you look at the industries that guard against these posthumanist aspirations, they stillendeavor to stay at the top of the slippery slope, claiming that there are such things as biostatistical norms that explain why medicine should be used only for repair or therapy. They don’t.
Furthermore , we live in a world where such things as dwarf corn exist and where 66% of all cotton is genetically modified. Next year, the first commercial space flights will take place, while the ‘bottom billion’ people are still trying to get above the poverty line.
There is no selfless justification for pursuing longer, healthier lives, while millions of people barely have the resources to promote a healthy-ish lifestyle, or any reasonable expectation of living a long life. There is credible no system of justice that can reasonably argue that a broad social system that fails to protect fundamental needs is justified in trying to raise the upper level of human functioning. Indeed, the biggest collective human enhancement would arise from engaging more people in the democratic process, or in society generally. Providing greater chances to perform as citizens in a world where less than 20% of an electoral register turn up to vote would be a major enhancement for society ,the value of which is beyond measure.
But neither should we assume that these systems of human enhancement would be jeopardized or frustrated by their biotechnological counterparts, or vice versa. We should be vigilient over how such systems are used mosrly because of their efficiency, which may lead to us medicalizing certain problems or prioritizing a quick fix, rather than the best fix.
Yet, societies are moving targets. We edge closer to 9 billion people. James Lovelock – of Gaia theory – thought the planet should be able to sustain just 1 billion. So, we can’t look at the increase in people suffering as an explanation for the world having been made worse.
Neither can we assume that enhancements would benefit only the privileged few, as is commonly assumed. Some research that indicates that the larger benefits to enhancing IQ, for instance, are for those at the lower end of the income scale. Quite simply, being smarter improves your life.
But there are no guarantees that human enhancement will bring us happier lives as individuals. Being an ‘unhappy Socrates’ may be the consequence of our pursuit of betterment.
We ought not get too carried away with the idea that human enhancement is a project that seeks to pursue perfection or control. It is more likely to bring us more opportunities to screw up our lives, than greater certainty about it being better! But, I would rather have that opportunity, than to leave things to chance.
We do have to wise up. Last week, I had a conversation with a nutritional scientist and a dedicated body builder. The body builder asked the scientist which supplements he should be using to bulk up. He went through a list of the ones he had tried and, after each one, the scientists said ‘waste of time’ or ‘does nothing at all’.
So, it’s important we are not ignorant about what actually does what it says on the tin. We need to understand the limits of science and technology and the way that enhancement technologies operate within an unregulated commercial system that and may promise things it cannot deliver, yet. Genetic tests for performance genes claim to identify whether you are more likely to be good at one kind of sport over another, but presently they have no predictive value. Laser eye surgery promises High Definition vision, but only if you are lucky. Modafinil may boost your cognitive alertness, but only in certain situations and not necessarily in situations of high demand. In this sense, it may enhance your humanness, but may not be an enhancement of the human species as a whole.
I’m conscious of having just spent 20 minutes explaining the value of HE, but the last 5 telling you that nothing actually works and it may not be worth the bother! That’s not really how it is, but my main point is that we should not conclude that you can just download a mobile app for enhancement. (Although already people with prosthetic limbs are controlling them with mobile apps.)
Rather, any form of body modification operates within a complex system of experiences thatdetermine the value we attribute to it and derive from it. Moreover, we can’t expect enhancements to be universally sought, unless they are broadly pure biological dimensions, such as the pursuit of making our gums and teeth healthier by using fluoride in our tap water. When HE is like this, then it can be justified on the basis of promoting public health – and many examples may eventually be like this. After all, the WHO talks less about health and illness as a distinguishing factor in health care rationing decisions and much more about ‘well being’. Furthermore, doctors and scientists talk now of ageing as a disease. These shifts in belief systems are intimately tied to the human enhancement project. Recognising that life cannot be just about the alleviation of suffering is a crucial part of this.
So, the language of our posthuman future is already embedded into the professions, which previously just made us well, rather than ‘better than well’ as Peter Kramer’s patient put it when describing her state of health when using Prozac. The project of modern medicine has always led us towards human enhancement because of our desire to stave off death and promote freedom throughout life. Freedom from ill health or the debilitating limits of our bodies is, therefore, the principal justification for human enhancement and the most important argument on behalf of posthumanity. The expansion of this commitment to the eradication of all sufferingis a logical step, but we ought not presume to achieve this, or that life would be better if we could remove all of it. I’m not convinced that a life without suffering would be well lived. However, I do think we can shift the kind of suffering we experience away from that associated with biological illness and disease. Unlike Martha Nussbaum, I don’t believe in the goodness of our fragility.
In due course, the twenty first century may be likened to the swinging sixties, not for its sexual liberation, but for its anthropomorphic liberation. However, it’s important to remember, that the conventional explanation for the sexual revolution misleads us. For while many have tied it to the birth of the contraceptive pill, others point out it was the discovery of penicillin bringing about greater freedom from disease that was more crucial.
For the present day, it may not be the radical transhumanist technologies that usher in a posthuman present, not the botox parties, the cosmetic surgery, or the life extension. In other words, it may not be the pursuit of immortality that allows us to live forever
Instead, it might be the least technological innovations, like DNA biobanks for stem cell harvesting, or selecting out disabilities through PGD. It might be granting certain civil rights that gives birth to a posthuman generation, a generation less worried about the ‘yuck factor’ of biotechnological change; more willing to donate their organs to those in need; more likely to give blood.
This is my kind of posthuman future and throughout all of it, there is no loss of humanity one can presume. If anything, we will become more morally conscious agents.
Thank you very much.
Talk for the IOC Future of News and Sport Reporting meeting, London 2012 de-brief, at USA Today, New York City, April 2013.
On Saturday 9th March, I'll give a talk as part of TEDx Warwick. This will be the second time I've spoken at Warwick, the first being at the Virtual Futures event in 2011. My laptop broke on the way there and I ended up giving a somewhat retro talk using one of the latest pieces of software out there. It looked like this.
I've not yet decided how I want to focus the talk this year, but I want to bring together bioethics, bioart, biopolitics, biotechnology, citizen science, and social media to consider how we need to advance a compassionate, yet aggressively innovative, assault on our knowledge economy. Alternatively, I might just use it to explore a term I've been developing recently along the lines of 'viral cities'. This might work well since the theme is 'building bridges'. I want to build them with DNA infused data. Now there's a nice title.
Today's talk at the British Library seemed to go down well. Some very nice people came and bought books and said how much they enjoyed it. It was my first proper post-London 2012 Games talk, focused more on looking forward (and back) to other creative expressions at the Games than London specifically. However, other talks reminded me that now is the key time for UK Olympic experts to 'sell their knowledge' about the London Model. I'll give that some thought.
I wrote a manuscript for the talk on the train down to London. It's a bit rough, but a good overview of most of what I covered and is preceded by the slides for the day.
The Olympic Games and Creative Activism
By Professor Andy Miah
When considering how the Olympic Games responds to issues of social change, there are a series of established subject areas, many of which form the basis of recently implemented ‘legacy’ programmes. Thus, Games organizers will highlight the importance of sustainability, both as an agenda for a city and a series of targets for the organization of the Games.
Alternatively, making a difference or impact is seen as an increasingly necessary aspect of any publicly funded scheme or event. In some cases, the difference may be something with a long term, almost intangible legacy, such as is described by the London 2012 slogan ‘inspire a generation’, while others are more immediate and neatly defined, such as the number of people who participated in new experiences around the Cultural Olympiad. Yet, even in these areas, there are disputes over which evidence counts and problems over the capture of evidence at all.
These efforts to ensure positive and lasting social change are centrally overseen and managed by the organizing committee and city stakeholders. In this respect, an agenda for social change around the Games is often an inherent aspiration of Games developers, even if critics argue that they often fail to deliver. And they do often fail to deliver.
Thus, we know that that social change occurs around such Olympic hosting dimensions as housing policies, security, liberty, economy. Inclusion, participation, consumption, health. These indicators are often contested, but the subject matters are recognized by all as important to measure and understand.
Yet, I want to argue that a further indicator of social change and a crucial mechanism by which change takes place is through creative interventions. It is through the work of creative professionals and amateurs where often we witness the levers for social change or, more accurately, the indicators for what else may require monitoring around the Olympic Games hosting process.
However, this is not a talk just about the value of art within political society. Rather, creativity may be seen as a political economy that surrounds the Games. It encompasses moments when Chinese artist Ai Weiwei withdraws his association with the Beijing 2008 Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium, or Mia Farrow’s ‘Genocide Olympics’ campaign.
I want to take you on a journey through the last 10 years of creative activism around the Olympic Games, which I hope will convey the potential they have to draw attention to important social issues that can serve as a basis for a more socially responsible mega-event hosting process.
Let’s start with a small competition: You have here images of the Olympic mascots – and one or two Paralympic mascots – but which of them is the odd one out? You could be forgiven for thinking it is this one, the one eyed alien from London 2012, forged by a drop of steel from the company whose steel was used within the Olympic stadium. However, it is his companion from Sochi who doesn’t fit here. Zoich or Z014 as he is known is an alternative Olympic mascot, put forward by artist Egor Zhgun.
Back in 2010, the Sochi 2014 OCOG created a public competition, driven by an online campaign, inviting suggestions for the mascot of their Games. Zhgun’s effort was one of the most popular choices, but it was meant as a work of satire. Our interpretations of this contribution may be read on numerous levels. Online, people asked questions about its association with a character from the Futurama series, while others asked why it had no hands. Did this say something political about the entire Olympic process, where something is also hidden behind the back of the organizers?
It was the latest artistic intervention within the Olympic programme, which stretched the limits of Olympic organizers’ commitment to democratic principles, while also drawing attention to the absurdity of the mascot contests and the mascots themselves. Why do Olympic Games have mascots? What is their function?
While their design intends to speak to the Olympic values of respect, excellence, and fair play, their value corresponds with what some would argue to be the more truthful Olympic values – money, money, money.
As for many artists and designers, Zhgun has left a lot to people’s imaginations when interpreting what it aims to say about Russia and the Olympics. Other creative professionals have responded to the Games in different ways and the last 12 years of Olympic creative initiatives portray a diverse cultural history of raising awareness about important social issues that may form a basis for social change.
Let’s go all the way back to Sydney 2000 – in fact, just a year or so before. The ABC television company (not rights holding) produced a ground breaking series called ‘The Games’, written and starring some of Australia’s leading satirical comedians. Its mockumentary format portrayed the office of a fictional Organizing Committee for the Sydney 2000 Games. The scripts showed the team encountering a series of amusing, sometimes bizarre occurrences, such as the Olympic 100m track being built to only 96m, or the pursuit of silent tobacco sponsors, whose financial commitment would require employees of the organization to take up smoking and make sure they were seen publicly doing so. Yet it was an episode in the second series that secured its place in history as achieving more than just comedy. Known as ‘the apology’, the episode created a story line that responded to a key political issue surrounding both the politics of the Sydney 2000 Games and Australian civic society when it staged an apology to aboriginal communities. After months of controversy over the location of the Olympic park in homebush bay, a site of symbolic importance for local aboriginal communities, requests for the Australian Prime Minister to apologize to aboriginals and end decades of social exclusion were prominent, but one was never forthcoming. Instead, The Games made this happen. Here’s the clip.
Two years later, as Mitt Romney prepares for the Salt Lake Games, having waded through the IOC corruption scandals and the impact of the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York, which would change the Olympic Games ever since, the Olympic Opening Ceremony became the next example of where this form of social change is made visible within the Olympics. Organizers wanted the tattered flag from Ground Zero to have a presence in the ceremony, but the IOC considered this to be a political symbol, which had no place in the Olympic programme. A compromise was found and the flag appeared in a section designated as a ‘cultural section’. Here again the flexibility of culture allows certain messages to be written into history, where protocol prohibits.
In 2004, the Athens legacy was being shaped by their tardiness in finishing the venues. Yet, aside from just not being ready for sports, the hurriedness of their completions was considered to be at the expense of safety. 23 people died in the construction of the venues and this quiet demonstration in Syntagma square highlighted this problem. The seriousness of this was juxtaposed against the pre-show within the stadium that spectators saws before the ceremony feed went global. Here it is. I was told by someone in the stadium that it began with a spotlight on one section of the stadium, where a construction worker was hammering in a final nail. ‘We’re ready’ were the words to conclude this section. At this point, most Greek citizens – and certainly those within the stadium – will have suspended the anxieties about their Games, which had dominated the global headlines in recent months, as they sat back and enjoyed the show. Athens was ready.
Two years later, the Torino 2006 Games became the first where a total city occupation of Olympic sponsors occurred. The host city contract obliging the city to prevent ambush marketing meant that billboards were either filled with Olympic sponsors or were left blank. In Athens many were blank, in Torino, all were filled with sponsors, as the city became an Olympic Disneyland, suspending other financial obligations and individual freedoms for one month. In response, there was a rise of street art, graffiti, which became the billboards for creative activists. This image with the slogan ‘Repression Lives here’ responded to the ‘Passion Lives Here’ official slogan for the Games, drawing attention to the problems of Piemonte society.
Beijing 2008 was perhaps the most politically complicated since Seoul 1988. The world’s media arrived into China only to find the Great Chinese Firewall had not been lifted on the internet, requiring the IOC to intervene. Yet, it had also established temporary legislation for foreign journalists working in China, which provided more freedoms to report. Yet, Beijing’s Games were doomed to be the subject of creative activism from the moment they won. The focus on international criticisms about their human rights record brought together a range of creative activists, alongside interventions from agencies which employed creative professionals to visualize their anxieties. This set of images leaked onto the web portrayed an alternative Olympic sport poster campaign, in the name of Amnesty. It is not clear how they were leaked or why they were not used eventually, but they became part of Beijing’s tapestry.
The Vancouver 2010 Games were discussed by many as the first social media Olympics and, as a city, their creative media community is world leading. It is perhaps no surprise then that digital innovation formed a large part of the creative interventions around the Games. In fact, a feature length film was created about this, documenting how new media became a vehicle for social change within the city.
As we approach London, the expectations for creative activism were high from the start. Numerous campaigns were launched attacking the Games organization. Within the cultural sector, attacks against BP as a Premier Presenting Partner were led by artists, staging guerilla style theatrical inteventions atBP sponsored events. As well, a campaign called ‘Fucking the future’, responding to BP’s ‘Fuelling the Future’ Olympic campaign involved defacing BP Olympic billboards with oil. The Deep Water Horizon disaster earlier in the year increased the pressure on orgnaizesr to consider the Olympic relationship, leading to a spoof website depicting - in a similar way to Sydney’s apology – the dissolution of their relationship. London’s previous year of summer rioting, along with the Occupy movement’s global presence, also became a context for creative interventions around the city. The London tent city occupation began to resemble Vancouver’s Olympic Tent City, set up for homeless people who had been negatively affected – or simiply not helped – by the city’s housing policies leading up to the Games.
Besides the alternative mascot campaign, Sochi has also found itself to creative activism around the Circassian Genocide campaign, which argues the Games are being held in an area that ought to be preserved because of the killing that took place. During the London 2012 Games, campaigners from Sochi joined a march, in London, while also Vancouver’s ‘Poverty Torch Relay’ came to the city, reminding people of the ongoing problems associated with and exacerbated by distracions such as the Olympics.
So, where does this leave us. Our event looks to Rio from London. Well, already, there is creative collaboration, which may be seen as a vehicle for positive social change. London 2012 is taking an exhibition to Rio. During the Games, the ‘Rio Occupation London’ project was a showcase for Rio’s cultural and creativity identity, beyond carnival and other more singular motifs.
If there is one message I think may be derived from all of these examples, it is that a history of the Olympic and social change written through them may provide a sound basis for understanding what is possible around a sporting mega-event, but ensuring that they are possible requires enabling a creative fringe and XX> If you visit arts festivals around the world, you quickly become aware of art’s role in revealing matters of pressing social importance. However, creativity is not just a messenger, but provides a new models for thinking about and organizing the world around us.
As Rio’s organizing committee begin to plan their efforts to make a difference to Rio via the Games, they should be mindful of how social change occurs, how it interfaces with creativity and culture, how radical designs require radical models of organization, and how attempts to create engaging cultural programmes should be balanced with attempts to let culture do its work without being managed. Some of the most accomplished works of the London 2012 programme – and of Olympic history – arise within organizations other than the OCOG. This is why I think the creative community cannot walk away from the Games, leave it to the sports fans, and disassociate themselves from it. The Olympics are so disruptive that everyone is implicated within their organization.
When an athlete stands on a podium, raising a black glove in support of civil rights, the capacity of the Olympics to generate powerful moments that ‘inspire a generation’ is made apparent. Any athlete that does this will be removed from the Olympic programme, but will be revered by historians.
Rio has it harder than most. As the first South American Games, it may foreground this transnational context within its creative activism. Their Games may also be said to have significance beyond Brazil’s borders.
Just 2 months after London, my seventh Olympic Games – Winter and Summer – and the one that I have been closest to, many people are asking questions about whether the Games brought about positive social change. Perhaps in cities like London, the scope to change is different from places like Rio. Yet, what holds me to this research agenda is how, despite the vast amount of criticism surrounding the Games leading up to it – an established pattern – people I know have been transformed by those 4 weeks of sport. This happens from one Games to the next. It is known. Documented. Evidenced. When people see the Olympic flame, they are overwhelmed. Holding the Olympic flame becomes a defining moment in someone’s life. Consider the young woman whose sightless father was destined to carry the flame, only to pass away on the year leading up to it. As a tribute, she ran with his torch in the 2012 relay, blindfolding herself in dedication to her father. These stories are powerful, moving, and are able to co-exist with the hyper-commercialism and corporate structures that this young woman may have encountered when passing the torch to a sponsor executive whose life is what allows him or her to have the same privilege.
In sum, it is the Olympics capacity to stage rituals, ceremonies, and symbolically important experiences – like the Queen making her first acting appearance, and in a Bond film – that makes it robust to activism, political resistance, and opposition. It is the marshaling of all global media power that secures its positive legacy at times when it matters. Furthermore, it is the seemingly limitless public budget it commands that makes it too big to fail.
Yet, what it really needs to deliver Coubertin’s vision is an organized, global, creative community. Something to rival the Sports Federations, which are the true organizers of the Olympic Games. Without an organized structure around cultural matters, social change is unlikely to have a lasting legacy. Without a commitment to the Olympic movement beyond delivering the Games, they will be left to act as political boosterism for the intellectual elite and passive participation for the masses. And this really won’t do.
I'm delighted to be giving a keynote at this @BritishLibrary event on 5th Nov. It's especially nice to focus on Rio 2016, just after the London 2012 Games, and to speak to a broad brief , rather than just one topic. Social change is certainly one thing any host city can take for granted in their hosting process. The challenge is to ensure positive social change happens and this is a much disputed outcome of the Olympics, no matter how many medals a home team wins.
In the mean time, here's the programme:
From London to Rio: Social Change and the Sporting Mega-event
9-9.30
Registration/Coffee
9.30-9.45
Welcome and Introduction to the Conference Jude England, The British Library
9.45-10.15
Keynote Lecture Prof. Kenneth Maxwell, Harvard University
10.15-11.15
Panel: Politics and Security Are the games a means to implement government policies? Will the events become focal points for international and local political conflicts? Do the events serve as a catalyst for developments in cyber security and surveillance?
Speakers:
Dr. Timothy Power, Oxford University
Dr. Jeff Garmany, King’s College London
Gabriel Silvestre, University College London
Chair: TBD
11.15-11.30
Coffee Break
11.30-12.30
Panel: Economic Impact What impact do these events have on economic development and growth? What is the impact of these events on employment and labour unions? What is the impact of these events on small business and the informal market? How is the housing stock and housing market effected by such events?
Speakers:
Prof. Jane Wills, Queen Mary, University of London Dr. Mike Raco, University College London Prof. Tom Cannon, University of Liverpool
Chair: TBD
12.30-13.15 Lunch Break
13.15-14.00
Mid-day key note lecture: Prof. Andy Miah, University of the West of Scotland
14.00-15.00
Panel: Sustainability: Social and Environmental Will the games improve most people’s quality of life? What kind of long term infrastructure developments will happen? How will renewable energies and design be incorporated into these events? Speakers: Dr. Stephen Essex, Plymouth University
Dr. Russell Seymour, Sustainability Manager for Marylebone Cricket Club
Chair: Dr. Alvaro Comin, King’s College London
15.00-15.15
Coffee Break
15.15-16.15
Race, Media and Identity What kind of racial imagery and ideology do the games reproduce/challenge? Are their different impacts of the games along racial and gender lines? What kind of coverage does the media produce about the games and why?
Speakers: Prof. João Costa Vargas, University of Texas, Austin
Prof. Renato Emerson dos Santos, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro Prof. John Horne, University of Central Lancashire
Chair: Dr. Elizabeth Cooper, The British Library
16.15-17.15
Education Will the games contribute to public health agendas? Do they further the cause of sports education/participation? Speakers: Paul Docherty, Director UK 2012, British Council
Prof. Steve Cummins, Queen Mary, University of London Luke Downdey and Marigold Ride, Fight for Peace/Luta Pela Paz
Chair: Dr. Madeleine Hatfield, Royal Geographical Society (with IGB)
17.15
Closing Remarks Jude England, The British Library
17.30
Reception
Just before the London 2012 Games began, I gave a talk for South Place Ethical Society, whose Wikipedia entry says it is 'the oldest surviving freethought organisation in the world, and is the only remaining Ethical society in the United Kingdom'. Now the Games are over, people will most likely have a wider perspective on this question. One person in my talk thought I was terribly negative about the Games, which is kind of ironic. Nevertheless, I wanted to champion their capacity to create tensions as a reason for judging them positively. Their worth is born out of their being inherently contested processes and this value goes far beyond the feelings of national pride attached to medal wins.
What: conversation about the bioart of Gina Czarnecki within Manchester Science Festival. The event consider questions about body parts, donation, exhibiting biological products, and ownership. This video is from 'Palaces' one of Gina's works that involves the donation of milk teeth.When: 30 Oct, 2012 Where: Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester, UK Who: Gina Czarnecki and Dr Sara Rankin from UCL
-Should people be allowed to donate parts of their body to an artist?
-Is it right for galleries to exhibit artwork made of real human bones, teeth or fat?
-Does the use of human tissue in art serve any purpose, or is this just sensationalism?
Talk given at the Royal College of Art for their Design Interactions programme.
On 25th Sept, I'll be giving a talk at the Glasgow Science Centre as part of Social Media Week Glasgow. The talk focuses on the London 2012 Olympic Games, dubbed as the 'first social media olympics' by organizers. I'll be scrutinizing the legitimacy of this claim, the way that the Games are a lens into media change, and giving the low down on just what happened in social media terms over the Games. The Olympics have always been a space for media experimentation and London was no exception. The event is FREE and starts at 730pm. For more information, click/tap here
I've given a lot of interviews over the Olympic Games about social media, also writing a few pieces, including this one for the BBC. Here's a glimpse of some of the presentations I've given at recent conferences too. Here it is as a slideshare too, this is from the talk at Oxford University
This week, I am in Sao Paulo for the 1st Congress on Genomics and Sport, taking place at the Federal University of Sao Paulo. Some of the good and great in this area are here, many are among my oldest colleagues. My first talk on this was in 1999 at the 1st Conference on Human Rights and Sport, in Sydney. I'm aiming to give a retrospective on what's happened in bioethics and sport over the last decade, while presenting my typology of human enhancements. We'll also have a book presentation of both the Brazilian translation of 'Genetically Modified Athletes' and the new 'Olympics: Basics' book.
Among the questions I am asked about this topic is whether there will be genetically modified athletes at the next Olympic Games and I've been asked this for Athens, Torino, Beijing, and Vancouver. The honesty answer is, we don't know. IF there are, they may not win and they could certainly be risking serious health problems, but for some years now scientists have argued that it is technically feasible to achieve with limited means.
Last week, I took part as a judge in the Debating Matters programme, part of the Institute of Ideas work, funded by Wellcome Trust. It was one of the most rewarding work days I've had in a while and so exciting and inspiring to see the school students get into debates about contemporary issues. This is an awesome international programme and every school in the country should try to compete.
Over the next week, I'll be speaking at 2 events within the @edscifest. The first is on Thursday 5th April titled 'Designer Athletes: Fair Play or Foul?' and the other is called 'Human 2.0' Hope you can join us.