/ HAS MAGAZINE
01
Big Data and
Singularities
Creativity as a Basis for Rethinking the Human Condition
JUNE 2020

Dear readers,

We are honoured to welcome you to the first issue of Humanities, Arts and Society Magazine.

Read the whole text

Dear readers,

We are honoured to welcome you to the first issue of Humanities, Arts and Society Magazine.

Our era is full of extremely challenging ventures and explorations—unimaginable progress and innovation in many fields, but also major crises that include climate change, political turmoil, social tensions, pandemics, economic inequality, gender issues, and more.

In such times, our minds are, unsurprisingly, spinning with interrogations: What can be done? What are the responsibilities of each one of us, individually and collectively? What solutions can be undertaken for sustainable, positive change and how can we disseminate and share practical, conceptual ideas and worthy examples while implementing them? How can we turn theoretical examination into efficient action?

HAS Magazine aims to serve as a platform that presents ideas and propositions, and attempts to answer some of the above enquiries. The founding and editorial team members have envisaged a cross-disciplinary publication that tackles the most critical topics in contemporary society from the perspective of “humanity”—i.e., being human.

Our aims are not simply to echo existing concepts or to reproduce artistic projects that examine issues of importance, but to contribute to progress in cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary collaborations while being anchored in the humanities and the arts. If we take inclusiveness seriously, the diversity of disciplines and approaches will enrich each other. The necessity for inter-disciplinary collaboration becomes essential when attempting to apprehend important questions, as does proof of how creativity is fundamental to all schemes of research and practice. The arts do not replace science and are not reducible to the concerns of the sciences, but they participate in the process of imagining new futures in a diversity of fields and in critical thinking.

These aims have led to the establishment of a magazine that reaches beyond the classical boundaries of the humanities. By opening our pages to debates on pressing world issues, we hope to provide a platform for positive change in society, locally and globally.

Here, the reader will find contributions that represent a wide range of research fields and artistic practices, including analytical texts, documentary projects, and creative pieces. In representing plural reflections and concerns, HAS Magazine is not only looking to find innovative answers, but it opens paths to improve our present and future, by introducing venues for rethinking the human condition.

Our engagement with the arts and humanities follows the philosophy that recognize both as complementary and essential to—in fact define—the human condition. This is the approach we chose to investigate with the main theme of our first issue: Big Data and singularities.

Big Data offers tools and opportunities to improve actions and decision-making, serving all fields of development, including government, healthcare, education, employment, economic productivity, communication, security, ecology, and the environment. Yet it also poses concerns related to privacy, cyber security, ethics and labour.

Across fields, data has become one of the world’s most valuable resources, but facing the big data resources, individuals seem to be reduced to those providing data. Still, singularities—understood as the unique capacity of each person to perceive and interpret his or her environment—have enabled progress to be made in producing hypotheses, sciences, cultures, and arts, including the latest major technological advances.

At this juncture, the reader will realize that in the majority of the following contributions, singularities are not set in opposition with Big Data, but interpreted in their quality of making sense of Big Data, using creativity to analyse, to evaluate, and to propose.

We wish to initiate and encourage inclusive, pluralistic debates, with critical discussion valuing the essential contribution of crea- tivity to progress.

HAS Magazine is the result of a collaboration between inter-governmental agencies and non-profit organizations, following the mission of UNESCO to build peace through international cooperation in education, the sciences, and culture while working toward sustainable development goals. Sharing knowledge leads to a deepening of our understanding of ourselves and the world, and of the responsibility of each of us to act and participate.

HAS Magazine is made freely available in English, French and Chinese, aiming to be accessible to a global readership.

On behalf of our Partners and Editorial Team, welcome to the first issue of HAS Magazine.

Summary
1
Feeling the Elephant
John Crowley
2
The Age of Weeping
Lin Xiang Xiong
3
Tricks of Perception and the Role of Arts and Humanities
Luiz Oosterbeek
4
Singularities and Big Data
Margalit Berriet
5
SOMNIA
Charlotte Colmant
6
How Should We Think About Big Data?
Harold Sjursen
7
Sociality
Paolo Cirio
8
Inter-individual Social Dynamics And Intra-individual Biological Grounding
Guillaume Dumas
9
Tulips On My Robot’s Tomb
Andrés Roemer
10
The Dataflow Paradigm, Dataism and the Myth of Singularity
Marc-Williams Debono
11
A Brave New Urban World
Frédéric Lenne
12
The Art Of Cybersecurity
Brendan Dawes
13
Decode and Reveal
Magdalena Zborowski & Naomi Cook
14
Multiplying Sources of Inspiration
Bernard Pictet & Florence Valabregue
15
Archive Dreaming
Refik Anadol
16
Inspiration Through Information
Zoltán Somhegyi
17
Art in the Age of Big Data
Benedicte Philippe
18
And If the Soul was Quantifiable?
Hang LU
19
Multimedia Installations in Museums
Patrice Mugnier
20
Big Data, Enemy or Ally of Filmmaking?
Che Hsien SU
21
No Worries
Michel Monteaux
22
On the Reality of Ancient Places
Dragoş Gheorghiu & Livia Ştefan
23
A Musical Journey Without Borders
Addictive TV
24
Big Data And Archaeology
François Djindjian
25
White Mountain
Emma Charles
26
Free Consumer Insights Derived From Image-Based Social Media Data
Dorothy Yen
27
Multiplicity
Moritz Stefaner
28
Datafication of an Imploring Gesture
Sylvie Anahory
29
On the Search for Terrestrial Intelligence
Olivier Auber
30
Noise and Signal
Nour Awada
31
The New Cybernetic Spirit of Capitalism
RYBN.ORG
32
The Supermarket of Images at Jeu De Paume
Ève Lepaon
R
Action/Research: Youth Eyes on the Silk Roads
UNESCO-MOST
R
Action/Research: Confronting Evil
UNESCO-MOST
R
Action/Research: CIPSH
The International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences
R
Action/Research: Mémoire de l’Avenir
Mémoire de l'Avenir
R
Action/Research: GCACS
Global Chinese Arts & Culture Society 
R
HAS 02: Call for Contributions – Between Anxiety and Hope
Humanities, Arts and Society
Editorial team

DIRECTOR Luiz Oosterbeek (CIPSH)
DIRECTOR Margalit Berriet (Mémoire de l’Avenir)
HONORARY PRESIDENT Lin Xiang Xiong (GCACS)
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Zoltán Somhegyi
PROJECT MANAGER Marie-Cécile Berdaguer
GENERAL COORDINATOR Katarina Jansdottir
ASIA COORDINATOR Kuei Yu Ho
UNESCO-MOST COORDINATOR Camille Guinet
GCACS COORDINATOR Fion Li Xiaohong
GRAPHIC DESIGN Costanza Matteucci & Élodie Vichos
ENGLISH EDITOR Dan Meinwald
FRENCH EDITOR Frédéric Lenne
PUBLIC RELATIONS AND PRESS Florence Valabregue
FRENCH AND ENGLISH TRANSLATION Ashley Molco Castello & Robin Jaslet
CHINESE TRANSLATION Kuei Yu Ho
ADMINISTRATION AND PRODUCTION Victor Gresard
DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT Patrice Mugnier
WEBMASTER Labib Abderemane
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Tamiris de Oliveira Moraes
OPERATIONS Mémoire de l’Avenir

Acknowledgements

The HAS team warmly thanks John Crowley, Chief of section UNESCO-MOST, for his collaboration and precious support of the project.
Aurore Nerrinck for her participation in the selection of contributions and Margherita Poli for her participation in the corrections.
All the people who have worked with great dedication in the creation of this first issue.

HAS Magazine is established as part of the Humanities, Arts and Society project, an international movement of artists, researches and creative projects demonstrating the impact of the arts and the humanities in society.

HAS Magazine is the next step in this project and the continuing partnership between UNESCO-MOST, The International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH), Mémoire de l’Avenir, and the Global Chinese Arts & Culture Society (GCAC). Together with an international team of highly dedicated professionals of the humanities, culture and the arts accompanied by an Advisory Panel of eminent scholars and thinkers from the sciences and the cultural sector.

Founded as Arts and Society in 2016, the Humanities, Arts and Society project was developed within the preparatory endeavour of the first World Humanities Conference in Liege in 2017, organized by UNESCO-Most and CIPSH, following the concept Humanitude* by Adama Samassékou, the President of the African Academy of Languages, former President of CIPSH and Minister of Education in Mali.

HAS Magazine is created upon an original proposition of Prof. Xiang Xiong Lin, President and founder of the GCACS, conceived and developed by Mémoire de l’Avenir, UNESCO-Most and CIPSH within the Humanities Arts and Society Project.

War begins in the minds of men. The only way to prevent war from happening is through humanity, culture, and the arts. Only by penetrating the hearts and thoughts of people, individually and collectively, can we enable culture to suppress and overcome humanity’s wild and barbarous instincts, and purify its avaricious and power-hungry desires and ambitions.

The digital publication Humanity, Arts & Society is an ambitious artistic and scientific biannual journal, sponsored by four intergovernmental, non-profit cultural organizations. The shared mission and vision that has brought these four organizations together is based upon the goal of serving people and society, promoting culture, the artistic spirit, and human thought with the aim of building a universal global village of trust and harmony.

Professor Lin Xiang Xiong

Partners