Unraveling Intelligence

Peter is a philosopher of science, technology and media. His work examines artificial intelligence and robotics as a form of digital media, the ethical dimensions of algorithms and data, and the ways in which technology mediates social relations and shapes our experience of the world.

His current research focuses on the social, cultural, political, legal and ethical dimensions of automation and autonomous technologies, from a perspective that combines media theory with science and technology studies. He has written widely-cited papers on autonomous weapons from the perspective of just war theory and human rights, and the legal and moral issues raised by law enforcement robots and predictive policing. Prof. Asaro’s research also examines agency and autonomy, liability and punishment, and privacy and surveillance as it applies to consumer robots, industrial automation, smart buildings, UAVs and drones, and autonomous vehicles. His research has been published in international peer reviewed journals and edited volumes, translated into French, German, Korean and Braille, and he is currently researching a book that interrogates the intersections between advanced robotics, and social and ethical issues.

Peter is currently Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Programs at the School of Media Studies of the New School, and he was recently a Visiting Professor at TU Munich’s Center for Technology in Society, and has held research positions at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University, Center for Cultural Analysis at Rutgers University, the HUMlab of Umeå University in Sweden, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Born near Toronto, Canada, Elizabeth studied Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo before moving to ETH Zurich to complete her PhD in Development Economics. Following her doctoral work, she spent five years as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Malawi in Blantyre, before returning to ETH in 2021 as the new Professor in Global Health Engineering (GHE).

Thematically, her research centers on sanitation and waste management through a multi-disciplinary lens. Blending engineering, economics, and the social sciences, she is specifically interested in how open science acts as a tool for both liberation and oppression, and the role that information can play in the acceleration of equity and health.

Growing up in Canada, as a settler on stolen indigenous land, she has striven to embed her life, published work, and teaching within class consciousness and anti-colonial praxis.

Moreover, as one of a small number of female professors within D-MAVT, she has served as a vocal advocate for women in Engineering and has demonstrated a singular commitment to creating a transformative and inclusive workspace at ETH, and within the growing GHE group.

Nitin is a researcher focusing on urban studies, political ecology, and sociology and works as part of the transdisciplinary project on agri-urbanisms at the Chair of Sociology at D-ARCH, ETH Zürich. He has also taught critical and postcolonial urban theory, urban research methods, applied to housing cooperatives and global housing challenges.

He actively combines academic research with artistic practices of filmmaking, and socially-engaged art. His films investigate the entanglements between land, body, ecology, and labour and have been honored with accolades and screenings at prominent film festivals.

Melanie is CEO/Co-founder of Radically Open Security (the world’s first not-for-profit computer security company), and “Post Growth” startup incubator Nonprofit Ventures. She is also a former Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Free University of Amsterdam.

She was named “Most Innovative IT Leader of the Netherlands” by CIO Magazine (TIM Award) in 2017, and one of the “9 Most Innovative Women in the European Union” (EU Women Innovators Prize) in 2019. She is also one of the 400 most successful women in the Netherlands by Viva Magazine (Viva400) in 2010 and 2017, and one of the fifty most inspiring women in tech (Inspiring Fifty Netherlands) in 2016, 2017, and 2019. Her company, Radically Open Security was named the 50th Most Innovative SME by the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (MKB Innovatie Top 100) in 2016.

Emily is Professor of Cognitive & Social Neuroscience and dancer based at ETH Zürich, where she leads the Social Brain Sciences (SBS) Team and co-directs the Social Brain in Action Laboratory (www.soba-lab.com). Through her research, she uses complex action learning paradigms (often involving dance, acrobatics, and music), social interaction manipulations, and robots, in combination with brain imaging and brain stimulation, to explore how our brains and behaviours are shaped by different kinds of experience throughout the lifespan and across cultures.

Through her work in the SoBA lab, she addresses how experience shapes perception and is especially interested in how we learn new physical skills by watching others, how action expertise is manifest in the brain, the neural foundations of art appreciation, and how learning shapes our social encounters with artificial agents. When not in the lab, Emily can be found exploring the great outdoors with her two young sons, or trying to learn Swiss German. Emily has previously held faculty positions at Radboud University Nijmegen/Donders Institute in the Netherlands, Bangor University in Wales, University of Glasgow in Scotland, and Macquarie University and the MARCS Institute at Westerny Sydney University in Australia.

In addition to research and teaching, she is passionate about raising the profile and participation of women in science, and engaging and enthusing the public about scientific research and how the arts and sciences and mutually benefit each other. She regularly presents public lectures and interactive events that have people interacting with robots, learning to dance, and/or discovering new and exciting things about the human brain!

Berta is an engineer passionate about finding creative solutions to lessen the impact of human activities on our environment. She did her PhD in applied soil sciences enjoying a broad international experience in the water, food, waste, and energy nexus which in recent years led her to work with biochar and climate change mitigation projects. She is currently part of the science team at Carbonfuture, helping establish robust monitoring and accounting systems for novel carbon dioxide removal approaches.

Kai aka Hitashya is an artist, director, performer and musician. She makes work in conceptually soft-branded “teams” and series which she treats as palettes, production identities and states of self (mind/body/heart). She views these teams as encrypted ways of seeing and being, modes or avatars which can be activated anywhere, anytime.

Living and working internationally in a blend of hyper-urban hubs and off-grid havens, she takes cues from a holistic range of material, social and philosophical understandings–bringing them together into new hybrid languages and aesthetics. Many of her projects focus on tensions between large, abstract, external systems and the inner, primordial self (or communal self).

The resulting projects can include everything from installations and videos, objects and images, to music and social media feeds. She has been trained as a musician, fine artist, conceptual artist, performer, and media artist, as well as a curator and theorist. She has also grown up surrounded by cameras, social media, smartphones and various forms of “counter culture” and community.

She uses social and editorial spaces as much as galleries, and often authors entire vocabularies and genres around each project, causing her to be dubbed a “Post Internet Influencer” and earning her awards like the inaugural Net Art Prix in 2014 and a place on panels such as The New Museum’s Seven on Seven, as well as a major debut solo show, Xomia, in 2015 and many group shows and publications. She works to evolve art past single works into entire networks, identities and world-building cultural hacks. She also pushes for works to be experienced instead of consumed, understood as ceremonial, social and contemplative full sensory scenes which are performed through objects, images, people and events.

Andreas, born in Zurich 1948. Grown up in an artists family. Wanted to become a wizard. Failed. Tried differently and succeeded partly.

Since 1986 Lectures, Advices, temporary Teachings, Workshops, Exhibitions for Institutions e.g. Swiss Ceramics, SfGB+B, VHS Zurich, ETH Zurich and CCA, Oakland, USA.

1998 – 2004 Co-Head Swiss Ceramics Association

2001- 02 Training in Wood carving and Stone carving in San Francisco, USA

Since 1978 works in his own Studio in Switzerland

Tony is an inspirational musician and story-teller. He is palestinian, living in Zurich since many years with his wife and two daughters. Tony’s interest lies in the use of drumming to expand awareness, to connect to oneself and to change.

Janne is a ceramic artist, medical practitioner, and a core team member of Kaleido based in Zurich. She is currently pursuing her further studies in Art Education at Zurich University of Arts (ZhdK).

Clarissa’s curiosity has been Expression. First, she got a seamstress and costume tailor diploma, and expressed herself through garments and accessories. The joy she felt through dance reappeared in her 30s. She started to explore expression from the inside through body and movement. Intensive Butoh workshops and a wide variety of other movement and dance classes offered great depth in understanding the body and emotions. The unexpected boost of creative energy and joy for life she experienced through dance made her decide to be an artist (which apparently she was already). With Flukt, an experimental performance group in Norway, Clarissa collaborated and performed in different roles. She got two different certified trainings in body awareness and healing arts and expanded her knowledge through many books.
One of the burning questions was: “What is human nature?” For now, her answers are 1: creativity and 2: cultivating.

Clarissa is convinced that if we want to develop society in a healthy and sustainable way, we need to work with the wisdom of our bodies. Because she sees all humans as creative beings, she invites all to explore that creative power and become more aware of how we cultivate it in big and small moments in life.

Spreading positivity and offering a safe and open space, where failing is encouraged, beauty is found, and surprises happen are her specialties.

She is offering art experiences for anyone and loves mixed groups. To connect to embodied creativity, playfulness, and trying out  new forms of working together.

Jennifer, in recent years, has found a harmonious balance in her work as a singer, songwriter, mentor and permanent student of life.

For as long as she can remember she has been surrounded by music. Her Filipino mother moved around the world as a singer and she grew up as a musician child ‘on the road’. She had her first performances by her mother’s side when she was three years old. At the age of 15 she was a singer in her first band, and at the age of 19 she started her career in the music business. Commercial success and recognition followed her early ambitions, but a desire for creative freedom and self-expression soon led her to the decision to become independent. An important turning point was 2014, when she decided to take a break with signs of sudden hearing loss.

It was during this time that she encountered both a Buddhist prayer meditation practice and yoga for the first time. The mantras, mindfulness exercises and philosophies gave her a firm footing in the fast pace of the competitive music industry and opened up a new perspective on myself and my environment. Since then she has been been exploring the healing power of the voice, supporting people in activating their natural expression and creativity.

Her work is aimed at guiding people to look into their hearts through the power of music, to discover their essence and to express it freely.

Daisy has roots from Chile and Italy and grew up in Switzerland. She is a spoken word poet and movement facilitator. She’s thrilled to be a Movement For Life facilitator at the Kaleido retreat. As someone who has experienced the transformative power of conscious movement practice, she’s beyond grateful to be able to share with everyone, the knowledge that has helped her change her life for the better.

Daisy struggled with depression and drug addiction at a young age, and experienced the limits of conventional therapy. She felt the need for somatic approacthes to have real breakthrough and start living the life she wanted. She discovered the approach of Movement For Life, a healing arts practice, and through the guidance and support of Gisela, the founder of Movement For Life, she began a journey of self-discovery and personal growth that has completely changed her life. She has learned and is still learning so much about hereself and her own values, patterns and trauma. She has been able to overcome her struggles with depression and addiction and now feels more empowered and confident. She is excited to share the gift with others as a Movement for Life Facilitator.

Naveen is a co-founder and host at Kaleido.
He’s a community organizer and facilitator, and passionate about catalyzing the creative potential of individuals and social systems.
He co-founded Humane Warriors, a for-impact organization empowering the diaspora to work on social and environment projects back in their home countries, and also The Origin AG, which develops mindful technologies and tools for creativity. He was formerly a senior researcher and lecturer for robotics at ETH Zurich.

He currently lives, works, and plays in Lichtensteig, Switzerland as a pioneer.

Simone shares
“I see my calling in opening and creating spaces in which people can experience their interconnectedness – with themselves, with other people, with nature and with the greater whole.”

Lucas is a musician and soundscape artist who’d take people on a captivating journey into the world of electronic music. With over a decade of experience in the art of DJ-ing and a music release journey that began in 2020, Lucas is a seasoned explorer of sonic landscapes. His expertise spans various genres, allowing him to curate a dynamic introduction workshop that unveils the nuances of electronic music.