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CATEGORIES:Lecture/Presentation/Talk
DESCRIPTION:The Department of Art and Art History's Christensen Distinguish
 ed Lecture Series presents Nora N. Khan who will give a talk titled\, "On D
 iscernment."\n\nImages persuade us\, demand of us\, and need things from us
 \, as W.J.T. Mitchell wrote in his seminal What Do Pictures Want? over 20 y
 ears ago. Today’s images want\, desire\, and demand more from us than ever 
 before\; they are rowdy\, animated\, with unruly drive\, designed by many h
 ands beyond the frame. Looking across the landscape of synthetic and genera
 tive images\, and strange moments in mass media\, visual art\, and literatu
 re\, ‘On Discernment’ invites us to consider what generative images\, and a
 lgorithmic culture\, want from us. How can the critical impulse evolve to a
 nswer these images’ demands? Drawing on her practice as a critic\, educator
 \, and curator\, Khan explores how criticism might move with 'intelligent-s
 eeming' systems and beings that simulate liveness and likeness.\n\nThis lec
 ture probes generative visual culture to suggest what ancient dreams these 
 images seem to fulfill and what new kinds of iconoclasm are being built. To
  navigate a present and future dominated by synthetic media\, and created b
 y predictive systems\, we might take up a practice of seeing through system
 s. We swiftly explore the craft of developing a hybrid\, strategic\, collec
 tive and dissident criticism of technology. We will review cases of bafflin
 g\, seemingly inarticulable experiences from early software experiments and
  contemporary artists' interventions\, into use of AI/ML and emerging techn
 ologies. Finally\, we hope to argue for the needed evolution of contemporar
 y critical language in response to material and symbolic systems that drama
 tically shape our creative approaches and cognition. Evolving critical meth
 ods may help us better situate ourselves to identify a vast range of hidden
  fictions and beliefs about what technology is meant to do and be for us.\n
 \nNora N. Khan is an independent critic\, essayist\, curator\, and educator
  based in Los Angeles. From 2024 to 2025\, she served as Arts Council Profe
 ssor at UCLA in Design Media Arts. Her notable essay Towards a Poetics of A
 rtificial Superintelligence\, published and reprinted in ten languages sinc
 e 2015\, uses critique\, fiction\, and metaphor as strategy in contending w
 ith technological evolution. For 15 years\, her writing has focused on arti
 sts’ most trenchant ideas\, models of experimentation across creative field
 s\, and critique of technological design. In particular\, her work on philo
 sophy of AI/ML\, with a focus on ‘incomputable’ knowledge and the relations
 hip of language to computation\, is referenced widely across fields.\n\nHer
  books are AI Art and the Stakes for Art Criticism (2025)\, Seeing\, Naming
 \, Knowing (2019) and Fear Indexing the X-Files (2017)\, co-written with St
 even Warwick. She is a member of the Curatorial Ensemble of the 2026 editio
 n of Counterpublic\, one of the nation’s largest public civic exhibitions\,
  focused next on ‘Near Futures’. She was the Co-Curator with Andrea Bellini
  of the Biennale de L’Image en Mouvement 2024\, A Cosmic Movie Camera\, hos
 ted by Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève\, and also curated Manual Override 
 at The Shed (2020).\n\nKhan was a longtime editor (2014-2021) at Rhizome\, 
 served as guest editor of HOLO\, producing the well-received Mirror Stage\;
  Between Computability and its Opposite (2021)\, and as Editor-in-Residence
  at Topical Cream. She has written features and essays on Tony Conrad\, Lil
 lian Schwartz\, Josh Kline\, Sondra Perry\, Ian Cheng\, Kevin Beasley\, Mer
 iem Bennani\, Casey Reas\, and on in 4Columns\, Rhizome\, Village Voice\, F
 lash Art\, and books for Serpentine Galleries\, Chisenhale Gallery\, Centre
  Pompidou\, and Swiss Institute. Her writing has been supported by a Critic
 al Writing Grant given through the Visual Arts Foundation and the Crossed P
 urposes Foundation\, the Thoma Foundation Arts Writing Award in Digital Art
 \, and residencies at La Becque\, Eyebeam\, and Fogo Island Arts. Khan was 
 nominated for the John R. Frazier Award for Excellence in Teaching at Rhode
  Island School of Design\, where she was a professor in Digital + Media fro
 m 2018 to 2021.\n\nThis lecture is made possible by a generous grant from C
 armen M. Christensen.\n\nPortrait by Alexa Viscuis\n\nVISITOR INFORMATION\n
 This event is open to Stanford affiliates and the general public. Space for
  this program is limited\; advance registration is recommended. Those who h
 ave registered will have priority for seating. Admission is free.\n\nOshman
  Hall is located within the McMurtry Building on Stanford campus at 355 Rot
 h Way. Visitor parking is available in designated areas and is free after 4
 pm on weekdays. Alternatively\, take the Caltrain to Palo Alto Transit Cent
 er and hop on the free Stanford Marguerite Shuttle. If you need a disabilit
 y-related accommodation or wheelchair access information\, please contact J
 ulianne Garcia at juggarci@stanford.edu.\n\nConnect with the Department of 
 Art & Art History! Subscribe to our mailing list and follow us on Instagram
  and Facebook.
DTEND:20251114T030000Z
DTSTAMP:20260416T145324Z
DTSTART:20251114T013000Z
GEO:37.432546;-122.171856
LOCATION:McMurtry Building\, Oshman Hall
SEQUENCE:0
SUMMARY:Christensen Distinguished Lecture: Nora N. Khan
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URL:https://events.stanford.edu/event/christensen-distinguished-lecture-nor
 a-n-khan-1550
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