barbaric toys

Illustrated transcript of my keynote talk – Barbaric toys: technologies and bodies in play before and aftermath Human – at the 15th Beyond Humanism conference, at Paris 8 on 26th June 2025.

For this talk I concentrated on anthropomorphic play objects, from dolls to automata. What can these devices tell us about the relationships between embodiment, imagination, nature and the artificial? And what is the role of play – before the Human (animal and human infant toying) and after (as Artificial Intelligence individuates through game environments and anthropomorphic agents)? 

Transcript