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<td style="color: #FF0000;">[△EXTERNAL]</td>
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<font color="#000000" face="arial, sans-serif"><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px;font-weight:600"><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px;font-weight:600">Join us on Friday April 24, for the 2026 ICCIT Annual Lecture,
presented by Professor Amanda Lagerkvist (Uppsala University, Sweden):<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></strong></strong><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px;font-weight:600"><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px;font-weight:600">AI
as Existential Media: Refiguring Human–Technology Relationality at 'the End Times'.</strong></strong></em></font></p>
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<font color="#000000" face="arial, sans-serif">In a moment of interrelated crises, advanced technologies that we call “AI” (<em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">artificial intelligence</em></em>)
have hijacked the future itself. Offering prophecies of both doom and salvation, these technologies are simultaneously hailed as the inevitable solution to all of humanity’s problems. This lecture offers a refiguration of “AI” through the lens of existential
media studies and some of its key concepts, frameworks and themes. I will show how, in what I call the ‘digital limit situation’ (Lagerkvist 2020, 2022) of<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">Krisis</em></em><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"><span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></em></em>and
potentially<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">Kairos,</em></em><span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>the technology
is entrusted to be salvaging humanity and feared to render us extinct, spurring new investments. I will then zoom in on “the human self,” which seems to be encroached from all sides, as new “subjects” are meanwhile envisioned to be born inside the models.
This raises a series of pressing questions as humans are in deep relationality with media technologies: What norms for being human in the world do advanced technologies bring about, challenge or reactivate? And how can we, beyond the apocalyptic AI imaginary,
envision our selves and technologies relationally as well as within limits, for promoting an existentially sustainable future with machines?</font></p>
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<em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"><font color="#000000" face="arial, sans-serif">About the speaker:</font></em></em></p>
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<font color="#000000" face="arial, sans-serif"><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px;font-weight:600"><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px;font-weight:600">Amanda</strong></strong><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px;font-weight:600"><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px;font-weight:600"><span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></strong></strong><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px;font-weight:600"><strong style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px;font-weight:600">Lagerkvist</strong></strong><span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>is
Professor of media and communication studies, PI of the<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.uu.se/en/department/informatics-and-media/research/uppsala-informatics-and-media-hub-for-digital-existence" title="https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uu.se%2Fen%2Fdepartment%2Finformatics-and-media%2Fresearch%2Fuppsala-informatics-and-media-hub-for-digital-existence&data=05%7C02%7Ctero.karppi%40utoronto.ca%7Ccbe208e1c2204c2d2c7608de8f503135%7C78aac2262f034b4d9037b46d56c55210%7C0%7C0%7C639105771815265560%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=w2ZZZM5p6oRw7xi7gmBMMzIO0%2FatHuJotC6BE8mYjhU%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">Uppsala
Hub for Digital Existence<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></a>; guest researcher at the<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.uu.se/en/centre/crs" title="https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uu.se%2Fen%2Fcentre%2Fcrs&data=05%7C02%7Ctero.karppi%40utoronto.ca%7Ccbe208e1c2204c2d2c7608de8f503135%7C78aac2262f034b4d9037b46d56c55210%7C0%7C0%7C639105771815323400%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=yG6Nd1B3yGEerdrMeolUisNqxkBSum9%2FdaAKWisokNk%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">Centre
for Multidisciplinary Research on Religion and Society (CRS)<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></a>at Uppsala University and Core Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, The University of Helsinki (2025-2026). As Wallenberg Academy
Fellow (2014-2018) she founded the field of existential media studies. Her work has spanned the existential dimensions of digital memories, death online and lifeworlds of biometrics. She currently explores intersections of datafication, disability and selfhood;
and the ambivalent AI imaginary and its relationship to both futures and endings. In her monograph<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">Existential
Media: A Media Theory of the Limit Situation</em></em><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"></em></em>(OUP, 2022) she introduces Karl Jaspers’ existential philosophy for media theory.
She is the co-editor of<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">Relational Technologies: In Search of the Self Across Datafied Lifeworlds</em></em>with
Dr. Jacek Smolicki (Bloomsbury) and she is currently under contract for her new monograph<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">Dismedia:
Technologies of the Extraordinary Self</em></em><span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>with The University of Michigan Press.</font></p>
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<em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">About the ICCIT Annual Lecture:</em></em><br style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">
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The ICCIT Annual Lecture is organized by<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.utm.utoronto.ca/iccit/" title="https://www.utm.utoronto.ca/iccit/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">the
Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology</a>, at the University of Toronto Mississauga. ICCIT researches the relationship between humans and technology and is a communication and media department for the 21st Century. The ICCIT Annual
Lecture features invited scholars who bring different theoretical orientations, philosophies, and methodologies to human-technology problems.<br style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">
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<em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px"><em style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">Time and Location:</em></em><br style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">
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Friday April 24, 2026, from 2:00 to 4pm, with reception to follow.<br style="box-sizing:border-box;padding:0px;margin:0px">
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<font face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);letter-spacing:0.1px">University of Toronto Mississauga, Collaborative Digital Research Space (CDRS), located in Maanjiwe nendamowinan (room MN3230).</span></font></p>
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<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:18.672001px;letter-spacing:normal">University of Toronto Mississauga</span></p>
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<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:18.672001px;letter-spacing:normal">3359 Mississauga Road</span></p>
<font color="#000000" face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:18.672001px">Mississauga, ON, L5L 1C6</span></font>
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<div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><font size="4"><font color="#000000"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 42, 92);">Register here: </span></font></font><span style="font-size:large"><a href="https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/iccit-annual-lecture-2026-amanda-lagerkvist-tickets-1986372462507?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl">https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/iccit-annual-lecture-2026-amanda-lagerkvist-tickets-1986372462507?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl</a></span></font></div>
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<p style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4">Tero</font></p>
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<p style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="font-size:9pt">---</span></p>
<p style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="font-size:9pt">Tero Karppi, PhD</span></p>
<p style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="font-size:9pt">Associate Professor, University of Toronto</span></p>
<p style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="font-size:9pt">--Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology (UTM)<br>
--Faculty of Information (St. George)</span></p>
<p style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="font-size:9pt">ICCIT Associate Director, Research</span></p>
<p style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="font-size:9pt">Books:</span></p>
<p style="color:rgb(0,0,0);margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-size:9pt">-- Disconnect <</span><span style="font-size:9pt;color:purple"><a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/disconnect" title="Original URL:
https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/disconnect
Click to follow link." style="color:purple;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px">https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/disconnect</a></span><span style="font-size:9pt">><br>
-- Undoing Networks <</span><span style="font-size:9pt;color:purple"><a href="https://meson.press/books/undoing-networks/" title="Original URL:
https://meson.press/books/undoing-networks/
Click to follow link." style="color:purple;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px">https://meson.press/books/undoing-networks/</a></span><span style="font-size:9pt">></span></p>
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