BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID:-//Columba Systems Ltd//NONSGML CPNG/SpringViewer/ICal Output/3.3- M3//EN VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20230316T162146Z DTSTART:20230524T110000Z DTEND:20230524T123000Z SUMMARY:Research Café: AI\, Robotics and Creativity UID:{http://www.columbasystems.com/customers/uom/gpp/eventid/}e182-lfbbjr 2b-tulbkr DESCRIPTION:Join us for an informal lunch event exploring how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics are transforming many sectors\, including the creative industries. \n\nRevolutionary technologies are changing th e way we create\, design\, and interact with the world around us in many diverse sectors\, such as creative industries\, health and social care and finance. \n\nCan these technologies contribute to creativity in new fields\, in new ways? How are human-machine interactions changing? Are m achines changing what we mean by creativity? What limits the contributio n of AI and robotics now? Explore these questions and hear about recent research by leading University of Manchester academics including Angelo Cangelosi\, Professor of Machine Learning and Robotics\, Erica Baffelli \, Professor of Japanese Studies\, Julia Dobson\, Professor of French Fi lm and Performance and Scott Midson\, Lecturer in Liberal Arts\, \n\nThi s event is presented in partnership with the Creative Manchester and Dig ital Futures Research Platforms at The University of Manchester. \n \nE rica Baffelli is Professor of Japanese Studies at The University of Manc hester (UK). Before arriving at Manchester in 2013 she was a Lecturer/Se nior Lecturer in Asian Religions at the University of Otago (New Zealand \, 2007-2013). She is interested in religion in contemporary Japan\, wit h a focus on groups founded from the 1970s onwards. Her recent research projected focused on religion in contemporary Japan\, religion and media \, new and minority religions\, religion\, gender and violence\, and Bud dhism and emotions. Publications include: Erica Baffelli\, Jane Caple\, Levi McLaughlin\, and Frederik Schröer\, eds. “The Aesthetics and Emotio ns of Religious Belonging: Examples from the Modern Buddhist World.” Spe cial issue NVMEN: International Review for the History of Religions\, 68 \, 5-6\, 2021\; Erica Baffelli\, Fabio Rambelli and Andrea Castiglioni eds. Handbook of Religion in Japan (2021)\; Erica Baffelli and Ian Reade r Dynamism and the Ageing of a Japanese 'New' Religion (2019)\; Media an d New Religions in Japan (2016).\n\nAngelo Cangelosi is Professor of Ma chine Learning and Robotics at The University of Manchester (UK) and co- director and founder of the Manchester Centre for Robotics and AI. He al so is Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute London. His research in terests are in cognitive and developmental robotics\, neural networks\, language grounding\, human robot-interaction and trust\, and robot compa nions for health and social care. Overall\, he has secured over £35m of research grants as coordinator/PI. Cangelosi has produced more than 300 scientific publications. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journals Interacti on Studies and IET Cognitive Computation and Systems\, and in 2015 was E ditor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Development. He has ch aired numerous international conferences\, including ICANN2022 Bristol\, and ICDL2021 Beijing. His book “Developmental Robotics: From Babies to Robots” (MIT Press) was published in January 2015\, and translated in Ch inese and Japanese. His latest book “Cognitive Robotics” (MIT Press)\, c oedited with Minoru Asada\, was recently published in 2022.\n\nJulia Dob son is Professor of French Film and Performance\, and Head of Modern Lan guages and Cultures in the School of Arts\, Languages and Cultures at Th e University of Manchester. Her diverse research interests across film a nd performance share a sustained engagement with negotiations of identit y\, exploring the representation of agency\, voice and the body in conte mporary film and theatre alongside shifting constructions of the private and the political. She is an editor of French Screen Studies and regula rly works with film festivals and promotes French film to diverse audien ces. Her current research in performance focuses on object-based theatre - examining the radically disruptive presence of performing objects (pu ppets\, dolls\, machines\, robots and everyday objects) at the foundatio ns and frontiers of popular and avant-garde performance. She is interest ed in the impact of the co-presence of human actors and non-human perfor ming objects\, addressed through consideration of voice\, agency\, scale and bodies. In a world of smart objects\, artificial intelligences and enhanced bodies\, the uncanny materiality and ambiguous agency of perfor ming objects reveals contemporary renegotiations of what it means to be (human).\n\nScott Midson is Lecturer in Liberal Arts in the School of Ar ts\, Languages and Cultures at The University of Manchester. A member of LTI\, previously he was Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Institut e\, where he was lead researcher on the ‘Living with and Loving Machines ’ project (2016-19). This project brought together questions about how w e understand humans and technologies in their relationships\, and sought to encourage an alternative way of reflecting on these using the theolo gical notion of ‘love’.\n STATUS:TENTATIVE TRANSP:TRANSPARENT CLASS:PUBLIC LOCATION:Oddfellows Hall\, Manchester END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR