PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME
8:30-10:30: Screening of the movie “AI: African Intelligence” by Manthia Diawara
10:30-11:00: Conversation on the movie
 

Manthia Diawara’s essay film, “AI: African Intelligence” (2020), explores the contact zones between African rituals of possession among traditional fishing villages of the Atlantic coast of Senegal and the emergence of new technology frontiers known as Artificial Intelligence. Considering the confluence of tradition and modernity, Diawara questions how we could move from disembodied machines towards a more humane and spiritual control of algorithms. Could Africa be the context of emergence of such improbable algorithms? Read more about the film here. 
 

Manthia Diawara (born December 19, 1953) is a Malian writer, filmmaker, cultural theorist, scholar, art historian, and Professor at New York University (NYU) ). Diawara has contributed significantly the topic of film and literature of the Black Diaspora and African cinema, and he has also written and directed multiple essay and documentary films on these topics. Read more about Manthia Diawara here.
  

Organized by SHAPE “anotherAI” reading group. AnotherAI brings together researchers and students at the Department for Digital Design and Information Studies. The aim is to challenge and discuss prevailing understandings of artificial intelligence (AI) by exploring notions and practices of AI from the Global South(s). We have a focus on how colonial divides and subjects are being reproduced by AI technologies and companies, but also on how indigenous and cultural practices are resisting such divides. 

For this screening, we open up the invitation to colleagues and fellows at AIAS and AU.