Title: Growing with grAvIty: embracing possibilities of remembering why being human in higher education matters

Names of presenters: Dr Magda Karjalainen & Dr Päivi Jokinen

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Abstract:

The key not(e) performance will take place outdoors in the park, right behind the conference venue, near the Merikoski Fish Ladder/ Merikosken kalatie (see map). Please keep in mind that no fixed seating will be arranged. A small number of chairs will be available, along with some blankets and mats for anyone who prefers to sit on the ground.  We encourage you to dress comfortably and be prepared for changing weather conditions. As part of the performance (after about 20 minutes), we will invite the audience to explore the surroundings on their own terms, creating and sharing their own inspirations related to the theme.

 

Many discussions stimulated by incomprehensibly fast development of intelligent technologies focus on technologies themselves and how they are changing our lives on individual and societal level. More philosophically-oriented debates often raise the question of existential threat that AI development poses to humans as species. Indeed, if we see language and language-based cognition and action as the foundation of human identity, encroachment of Large Language Models (LLMs), which seem most relevant for us as language educators, might shake the very core of our identities. With this key not(e)-performance we would like to join discussions that turn the focus onto us – humans, taking this moment of uncertainty amidst ongoing intelligence revolution as an opportunity to remember what makes us human.

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We invite the audience to play together with gravity both as physical force and metaphor. Working with gravity helps to draw attention to the material world, bodies of matter, remembering it as force that enables and shapes life on earth. Playing with gravity as a metaphor draws attention to the gravity of the situation that we find ourselves at the moment, that of technological revolution and ethical challenges it poses. ‘Growth’ brings concrete and metaphorical together, as we find inspiration in the physical world to reimagine growth, and rethink (higher) education, often defined as human growth.

 

We invite the audience to slow down and wonder. What happens when we listen to gravity? Can we free our thinking about human growth from the idea of linear, hierarchical expansion, reflected in terms such as ‘higher’, ‘faster’, ‘further’? Can we grow inwards, outwards, sideways, in all directions simultaneously? Can we grow in intensity and detail? Can we grow small and slow? (How)can we sense, see, define, measure such growth? What could (s)lower education look like?  

 

We invite the audience to stop and wonder together what questions we can begin to hear once we truly listen not only to the words, but also bodies that generate words. What happens when we listen to words emerging from bodies, from the matter of the world? And what happens when we give these words time to inspire us rather than just be proof of what we think we already know? What happens when we free words from algorithms that tame their inspirational force? What prompts can we receive when we listen to the bodies, our own bodies and other bodies, including non-human? What can relations, communication and growth look like when we attune to the gravitational forces of the bodies around us and remember that to communicate is to listen also to our own bodies?