Project acronym AN-ICON
Project An-Iconology: History, Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images
Researcher (PI) Andrea PINOTTI
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2018-ADG
Summary "Recent developments in image-making techniques have resulted in a drastic blurring of the threshold between the world of the image and the real world. Immersive and interactive virtual environments have enabled the production of pictures that elicit in the perceiver a strong feeling of being incorporated in a quasi-real world. In doing so such pictures conceal their mediateness (their being based on a material support), their referentiality (their pointing to an extra-iconic dimension), and their separateness (normally assured by framing devices), paradoxically challenging their status as images, as icons: they are veritable “an-icons”.
This kind of pictures undermines the mainstream paradigm of Western image theories, shared by major models such as the doctrine of mimesis, the phenomenological account of image-consciousness, the analytic theories of depiction, the semiotic and iconological methods. These approaches miss the key counter-properties regarding an-icons as ""environmental"" images: their immediateness, unframedness, and presentness. Subjects relating to an-icons are no longer visual observers of images; they are experiencers living in a quasi-real environment that allows multisensory affordances and embodied agencies.
AN-ICON aims to develop “an-iconology” as a new methodological approach able to address this challenging iconoscape. Such an approach needs to be articulated in a transdisciplinary and transmedial way: 1) HISTORY – a media-archaeological reconstruction will provide a taxonomy of the manifold an-iconic strategies (e.g. illusionistic painting, pre-cinematic dispositifs, 3D films, video games, head mounted displays); 2) THEORY – an experiential account (drawing on phenomenology, visual culture and media studies) will identify the an-iconic key concepts; 3) PRACTICES – a socio-cultural section will explore the multifaceted impact of an-iconic images, environments and technologies on contemporary professional domains as well as on everyday life.
"
Summary
"Recent developments in image-making techniques have resulted in a drastic blurring of the threshold between the world of the image and the real world. Immersive and interactive virtual environments have enabled the production of pictures that elicit in the perceiver a strong feeling of being incorporated in a quasi-real world. In doing so such pictures conceal their mediateness (their being based on a material support), their referentiality (their pointing to an extra-iconic dimension), and their separateness (normally assured by framing devices), paradoxically challenging their status as images, as icons: they are veritable “an-icons”.
This kind of pictures undermines the mainstream paradigm of Western image theories, shared by major models such as the doctrine of mimesis, the phenomenological account of image-consciousness, the analytic theories of depiction, the semiotic and iconological methods. These approaches miss the key counter-properties regarding an-icons as ""environmental"" images: their immediateness, unframedness, and presentness. Subjects relating to an-icons are no longer visual observers of images; they are experiencers living in a quasi-real environment that allows multisensory affordances and embodied agencies.
AN-ICON aims to develop “an-iconology” as a new methodological approach able to address this challenging iconoscape. Such an approach needs to be articulated in a transdisciplinary and transmedial way: 1) HISTORY – a media-archaeological reconstruction will provide a taxonomy of the manifold an-iconic strategies (e.g. illusionistic painting, pre-cinematic dispositifs, 3D films, video games, head mounted displays); 2) THEORY – an experiential account (drawing on phenomenology, visual culture and media studies) will identify the an-iconic key concepts; 3) PRACTICES – a socio-cultural section will explore the multifaceted impact of an-iconic images, environments and technologies on contemporary professional domains as well as on everyday life.
"
Max ERC Funding
2 328 736 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31
Project acronym BIT-ACT
Project Bottom-up initiatives and anti-corruption technologies: how citizens use ICTs to fight corruption
Researcher (PI) Alice Mattoni
Host Institution (HI) ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Corruption is a global challenge that affects the lives of millions of citizens. In the past decade, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become indispensable tools in the fight to reduce corruption, especially when employed from the bottom-up by civil society organizations. While pioneering initiatives in this direction have flourished, to date we only have unsystematic and descriptive evidence regarding how they work and the associated consequences. With the objective of significantly advancing knowledge on this topic, BIT-ACT will open a new line of inquiry by investigating what I call anti-corruption technologies (ACTs) to: (1) assess how civil society organizations engage with ACTs to counter corruption, (2) appraise how ACTs enable intersections between bottom-up and top-down efforts against corruption, and (3) evaluate how ACTs blend with the transnational dimension in the struggle against corruption. Based on an interdisciplinary framework that combines corruption studies, science and technology studies and social movement studies, BIT-ACT will use the constructivist grounded theory method to analyze a combination of textual and visual data in a comparative and transnational research design including nine countries – Algeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Estonia, India, Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Uruguay. BIT-ACT will be groundbreaking in three ways. At the theoretical level, it will expand the debate on anti-corruption providing grounded concepts and models to explain ACTs; at the empirical level, it will advance knowledge on how the usage of ACTs is changing the relationship between citizens and democratic institutions; at the methodological level, it will innovate in the use of grounded theory assessing a new standard for cross-national comparative grounded theory. Finally, BIT-ACT will produce sound and useful knowledge for the stakeholders involved in the fight against corruption worldwide by suggesting how to best employ ICTs from the bottom-up.
Summary
Corruption is a global challenge that affects the lives of millions of citizens. In the past decade, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become indispensable tools in the fight to reduce corruption, especially when employed from the bottom-up by civil society organizations. While pioneering initiatives in this direction have flourished, to date we only have unsystematic and descriptive evidence regarding how they work and the associated consequences. With the objective of significantly advancing knowledge on this topic, BIT-ACT will open a new line of inquiry by investigating what I call anti-corruption technologies (ACTs) to: (1) assess how civil society organizations engage with ACTs to counter corruption, (2) appraise how ACTs enable intersections between bottom-up and top-down efforts against corruption, and (3) evaluate how ACTs blend with the transnational dimension in the struggle against corruption. Based on an interdisciplinary framework that combines corruption studies, science and technology studies and social movement studies, BIT-ACT will use the constructivist grounded theory method to analyze a combination of textual and visual data in a comparative and transnational research design including nine countries – Algeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Estonia, India, Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Uruguay. BIT-ACT will be groundbreaking in three ways. At the theoretical level, it will expand the debate on anti-corruption providing grounded concepts and models to explain ACTs; at the empirical level, it will advance knowledge on how the usage of ACTs is changing the relationship between citizens and democratic institutions; at the methodological level, it will innovate in the use of grounded theory assessing a new standard for cross-national comparative grounded theory. Finally, BIT-ACT will produce sound and useful knowledge for the stakeholders involved in the fight against corruption worldwide by suggesting how to best employ ICTs from the bottom-up.
Max ERC Funding
1 489 115 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-07-01, End date: 2024-06-30
Project acronym CLIC
Project Classical Influences and Irish Culture
Researcher (PI) Isabelle Torrance
Host Institution (HI) AARHUS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2018-COG
Summary The hypothesis of this project is that Ireland has a unique and hitherto underexplored history of cultural engagement with models from ancient Greece and Rome. Unlike Britain and mainland Europe, Ireland was never part of the Roman Empire. Yet the island has an extraordinarily vibrant tradition of classical learning that dates back to its earliest recorded literature, and is unparalleled in other northern European countries. Research for this project will address why this is the case, by examining sources through nine significant diachronic themes identified by the PI: language; land; travel and exile; Troy; satire; Neoplatonism; female voices; material culture; and global influence. This multi-thematic approach will enable analysis of what is remarkable about classical reception in Ireland. It will also provide a heuristic framework that generates dialogue between normally disparate fields, such as classical reception studies, Irish and British history, English-language literature, Irish-language literature, medieval studies, postcolonial studies, philosophy, material culture, women's studies, and global studies. The project will engage with contemporary preoccupations surrounding the politics and history of the divided island of Ireland, such as the current decade of centenary commemorations for the foundation of an independent Irish state (1912-1922, 2012-2022), and the on-going violence and political divisions in Northern Ireland. These issues will serve as a springboard for opening new avenues of investigation that look far beyond the past 100 years, but are linked to them. The project will thus shed new light on the role of classical culture in shaping literary, social, and political discourse across the island of Ireland, and throughout its history.
Summary
The hypothesis of this project is that Ireland has a unique and hitherto underexplored history of cultural engagement with models from ancient Greece and Rome. Unlike Britain and mainland Europe, Ireland was never part of the Roman Empire. Yet the island has an extraordinarily vibrant tradition of classical learning that dates back to its earliest recorded literature, and is unparalleled in other northern European countries. Research for this project will address why this is the case, by examining sources through nine significant diachronic themes identified by the PI: language; land; travel and exile; Troy; satire; Neoplatonism; female voices; material culture; and global influence. This multi-thematic approach will enable analysis of what is remarkable about classical reception in Ireland. It will also provide a heuristic framework that generates dialogue between normally disparate fields, such as classical reception studies, Irish and British history, English-language literature, Irish-language literature, medieval studies, postcolonial studies, philosophy, material culture, women's studies, and global studies. The project will engage with contemporary preoccupations surrounding the politics and history of the divided island of Ireland, such as the current decade of centenary commemorations for the foundation of an independent Irish state (1912-1922, 2012-2022), and the on-going violence and political divisions in Northern Ireland. These issues will serve as a springboard for opening new avenues of investigation that look far beyond the past 100 years, but are linked to them. The project will thus shed new light on the role of classical culture in shaping literary, social, and political discourse across the island of Ireland, and throughout its history.
Max ERC Funding
1 888 592 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-10-01, End date: 2024-09-30
Project acronym CLIOARCH
Project Cliodynamic archaeology: Computational approaches to Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic archaeology and climate change
Researcher (PI) Felix RIEDE
Host Institution (HI) AARHUS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2018-COG
Summary Late Pleistocene/early Holocene Europe is said to be the ideal laboratory for the investigation of human responses to rapidly changing climates and environments, migration and adaptation. Yet, pinpointing precisely how and why contemporaneous Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic (15,000-11,000 years BP) foragers migrated, and which environmental or other factors they adapted to – or failed to – has remained remarkably elusive. At the core of ClioArch is the radical but, in light of research-historical insights, necessary hypothesis that the current archaeological cultural taxonomy for this iconic period of European prehistory is epistemologically flawed and that operationalisations and interpretations based on this traditional taxonomy – especially those that seek to relate observed changes in material culture and land-use to contemporaneous climatic and environmental changes – are therefore problematic. Hence, novel approaches to crafting the taxonomic building blocks are required, as are novel analyses of human|environment relations in this period. ClioArch’s premier ambition is to provide operational cultural taxonomies for the Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic of Europe and to couple these with interdisciplinary cultural evolutionary, quantitative ecological methods and field archaeological investigations beyond the state-of-the-art, so as to better capture such adaptations – almost certainly with major implications for the standard culture-historical narrative relating to this period. In so doing, the project will pioneer a fully transparent and replicable – and eminently transferable – methodology for the study of the impacts of climate change and extreme environmental events in deep history. In turn, such a quantitative understanding of past adaptive dynamics will position archaeology more centrally in contemporary debates about climate change, environmental catastrophe and their cultural dimensions.
Summary
Late Pleistocene/early Holocene Europe is said to be the ideal laboratory for the investigation of human responses to rapidly changing climates and environments, migration and adaptation. Yet, pinpointing precisely how and why contemporaneous Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic (15,000-11,000 years BP) foragers migrated, and which environmental or other factors they adapted to – or failed to – has remained remarkably elusive. At the core of ClioArch is the radical but, in light of research-historical insights, necessary hypothesis that the current archaeological cultural taxonomy for this iconic period of European prehistory is epistemologically flawed and that operationalisations and interpretations based on this traditional taxonomy – especially those that seek to relate observed changes in material culture and land-use to contemporaneous climatic and environmental changes – are therefore problematic. Hence, novel approaches to crafting the taxonomic building blocks are required, as are novel analyses of human|environment relations in this period. ClioArch’s premier ambition is to provide operational cultural taxonomies for the Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic of Europe and to couple these with interdisciplinary cultural evolutionary, quantitative ecological methods and field archaeological investigations beyond the state-of-the-art, so as to better capture such adaptations – almost certainly with major implications for the standard culture-historical narrative relating to this period. In so doing, the project will pioneer a fully transparent and replicable – and eminently transferable – methodology for the study of the impacts of climate change and extreme environmental events in deep history. In turn, such a quantitative understanding of past adaptive dynamics will position archaeology more centrally in contemporary debates about climate change, environmental catastrophe and their cultural dimensions.
Max ERC Funding
1 907 638 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31
Project acronym CompuLaw
Project Computable Law
Researcher (PI) Giovanni Sartor
Host Institution (HI) ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2018-ADG
Summary The project addresses the regulation of computations (processes and systems) through an innovative legal & technological framework: it provides epistemic, technical and normative guidance for the de-velopment of computable laws and law compliant computations.
The context is the ongoing transformation of the social world into a hybrid infosphere, populated by a huge and growing number of increasingly pervasive, autonomous and intelligent computational enti-ties. The scale, speed, ubiquity and autonomy of computations make it impossible for humans to di-rectly monitor them and anticipate all possible illegal computational behaviours. The law can hold the hybrid infosphere under its rule – providing protection, security and trust – only if it be-comes computation-oriented: legal and ethical requirements must be integrated with, mapped onto, and partially translated into, computable representations of legal knowledge and reasoning.
Current legal culture still has not adequately addressed risks and potentials of computable law. My project will fill this gap, providing concepts, principles, methods and techniques and normative guide-lines to support law-abiding computations. It has the normative purpose to uphold the principle of rule of law, translating legal norms and legal values into requirements for computable laws and legally-responsive computational agents. My project will provide major methodological and substantive breakthroughs. On the one hand, it pro-poses a socio-technical methodology for regulatory design and evaluation, integrating three discipli-nary clusters: a social-legal one, a philosophical-logical one and a computing-AI one. On the other hand, it develops a framework including: (a) norms, legal values and principles for developers, de-ployers and users; (b) languages and methods to specify requirements of computations and norms directed to them; (c) cognitive architectures for legally-responsive computational agents.
Summary
The project addresses the regulation of computations (processes and systems) through an innovative legal & technological framework: it provides epistemic, technical and normative guidance for the de-velopment of computable laws and law compliant computations.
The context is the ongoing transformation of the social world into a hybrid infosphere, populated by a huge and growing number of increasingly pervasive, autonomous and intelligent computational enti-ties. The scale, speed, ubiquity and autonomy of computations make it impossible for humans to di-rectly monitor them and anticipate all possible illegal computational behaviours. The law can hold the hybrid infosphere under its rule – providing protection, security and trust – only if it be-comes computation-oriented: legal and ethical requirements must be integrated with, mapped onto, and partially translated into, computable representations of legal knowledge and reasoning.
Current legal culture still has not adequately addressed risks and potentials of computable law. My project will fill this gap, providing concepts, principles, methods and techniques and normative guide-lines to support law-abiding computations. It has the normative purpose to uphold the principle of rule of law, translating legal norms and legal values into requirements for computable laws and legally-responsive computational agents. My project will provide major methodological and substantive breakthroughs. On the one hand, it pro-poses a socio-technical methodology for regulatory design and evaluation, integrating three discipli-nary clusters: a social-legal one, a philosophical-logical one and a computing-AI one. On the other hand, it develops a framework including: (a) norms, legal values and principles for developers, de-ployers and users; (b) languages and methods to specify requirements of computations and norms directed to them; (c) cognitive architectures for legally-responsive computational agents.
Max ERC Funding
2 273 550 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-11-01, End date: 2024-10-31
Project acronym CRISP
Project Cognitive Aging: From Educational Opportunities to Individual Risk Profiles
Researcher (PI) Anja LEIST
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE DU LUXEMBOURG
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH3, ERC-2018-STG
Summary Cognitive impairment and dementia have dramatic individual and social consequences, and create high economic costs for societies. In order to delay cognitive aging of future generations as long as possible, we need evidence about which contextual factors are most supportive for individuals to reach highest cognitive levels relative to their potential. At the same time, for current older generations, we need scalable methods to exactly identify individuals at risk of cognitive impairment. The project intends to apply recent methodological and statistical advancements to reach two objectives. Firstly, contextual influences on cognitive aging will be comparatively assessed, with a focus on inequalities related to educational opportunities and gender inequalities. This will be done using longitudinal, population-representative, harmonized cross-national aging surveys, merged with contextual information. Secondly, the project will quantify the ability of singular and clustered individual characteristics, such as indicators of cognitive reserve and behaviour change, to predict cognitive aging and diagnosis of dementia. Project methodology will rely partly on parametric ‘traditional’ multilevel- or fixed-effects modelling, partly on non-parametric statistical learning approaches, to address objectives both hypothesis- and data-driven. Applying statistical learning techniques in the field of cognitive reserve will open new research avenues for efficient handling of large amounts of data, among which most prominently the accurate prediction of health and disease outcomes. Quantifying the role of contextual inequalities related to education and gender will guide policymaking in and beyond the project. Assessing risk profiles of individuals in relation to cognitive aging will support efficient and scalable risk screening of individuals. Identifying the value of behaviour change to delay cognitive impairment will guide treatment plans for individuals affected by dementia.
Summary
Cognitive impairment and dementia have dramatic individual and social consequences, and create high economic costs for societies. In order to delay cognitive aging of future generations as long as possible, we need evidence about which contextual factors are most supportive for individuals to reach highest cognitive levels relative to their potential. At the same time, for current older generations, we need scalable methods to exactly identify individuals at risk of cognitive impairment. The project intends to apply recent methodological and statistical advancements to reach two objectives. Firstly, contextual influences on cognitive aging will be comparatively assessed, with a focus on inequalities related to educational opportunities and gender inequalities. This will be done using longitudinal, population-representative, harmonized cross-national aging surveys, merged with contextual information. Secondly, the project will quantify the ability of singular and clustered individual characteristics, such as indicators of cognitive reserve and behaviour change, to predict cognitive aging and diagnosis of dementia. Project methodology will rely partly on parametric ‘traditional’ multilevel- or fixed-effects modelling, partly on non-parametric statistical learning approaches, to address objectives both hypothesis- and data-driven. Applying statistical learning techniques in the field of cognitive reserve will open new research avenues for efficient handling of large amounts of data, among which most prominently the accurate prediction of health and disease outcomes. Quantifying the role of contextual inequalities related to education and gender will guide policymaking in and beyond the project. Assessing risk profiles of individuals in relation to cognitive aging will support efficient and scalable risk screening of individuals. Identifying the value of behaviour change to delay cognitive impairment will guide treatment plans for individuals affected by dementia.
Max ERC Funding
1 148 290 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
Project acronym FACETS
Project Face Aesthetics in Contemporary E-Technological Societies
Researcher (PI) Massimo LEONE
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TORINO
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2018-COG
Summary FACETS studies the meaning of the face in contemporary visual cultures. There are two complementary research foci: widespread practices of face exhibition in social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Tinder; and minority practices of occultation, including the mask in anti-establishment political activism (e.g., Anonymous) and in anti-surveillance artistic provocation (e.g., Leonardo Selvaggio). Arguably, the meaning of the human face is currently changing on a global scale: through the invention and diffusion of new visual technologies (e.g., digital photography, visual filters, as well as software for automatic face recognition); through the creation and establishment of novel genres of face representation (e.g., the selfie); and through new approaches to face perception, reading, and memorization (e.g., the ‘scrolling’ of faces on Tinder). Cognitions, emotions, and actions that people attach to the interaction with one’s and others’ faces might soon be undergoing dramatic shifts. In FACETS, an interdisciplinary but focused approach combines visual history, semiotics, phenomenology, visual anthropology, but also face perception studies and collection, analysis, and social contextualization of big data, so as to study the cultural and technological causes of these changes and their effects in terms of alterations in self-perception and communicative interaction. In the tension between, on the one hand, political and economic agencies pressing for increasing disclosure, detection, and marketing of the human face (for reasons of security and control, for commercial or bureaucratic purposes) and, on the other hand, the counter-trends of face occultation (writers and artists like Banksy, Ferrante, Sia, or Christopher Sievey / Frank Sidebottom choosing not to reveal their faces), the visual syntax, the semantics, and the pragmatics of the human face are rapidly evolving. FACETS carries on an innovative, cross-disciplinary survey of this phenomenon.
Summary
FACETS studies the meaning of the face in contemporary visual cultures. There are two complementary research foci: widespread practices of face exhibition in social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Tinder; and minority practices of occultation, including the mask in anti-establishment political activism (e.g., Anonymous) and in anti-surveillance artistic provocation (e.g., Leonardo Selvaggio). Arguably, the meaning of the human face is currently changing on a global scale: through the invention and diffusion of new visual technologies (e.g., digital photography, visual filters, as well as software for automatic face recognition); through the creation and establishment of novel genres of face representation (e.g., the selfie); and through new approaches to face perception, reading, and memorization (e.g., the ‘scrolling’ of faces on Tinder). Cognitions, emotions, and actions that people attach to the interaction with one’s and others’ faces might soon be undergoing dramatic shifts. In FACETS, an interdisciplinary but focused approach combines visual history, semiotics, phenomenology, visual anthropology, but also face perception studies and collection, analysis, and social contextualization of big data, so as to study the cultural and technological causes of these changes and their effects in terms of alterations in self-perception and communicative interaction. In the tension between, on the one hand, political and economic agencies pressing for increasing disclosure, detection, and marketing of the human face (for reasons of security and control, for commercial or bureaucratic purposes) and, on the other hand, the counter-trends of face occultation (writers and artists like Banksy, Ferrante, Sia, or Christopher Sievey / Frank Sidebottom choosing not to reveal their faces), the visual syntax, the semantics, and the pragmatics of the human face are rapidly evolving. FACETS carries on an innovative, cross-disciplinary survey of this phenomenon.
Max ERC Funding
1 997 803 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-06-01, End date: 2024-05-31
Project acronym GenPercept
Project Spatio-temporal mechanisms of generative perception
Researcher (PI) David BURR
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI FIRENZE
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH4, ERC-2018-ADG
Summary How do we rapidly and effortlessly compute a vivid veridical representation of the external world from the noisy and ambiguous input supplied by our sensors? One possibility is that the brain does not process all incoming sensory information anew, but actively generates a model of the world from past experience, and uses current sensory data to update that model. This classic idea has been well formulised within the modern framework of Generative Bayesian Inference. However, despite these recent theoretical and empirical advances, there is no definitive proof that generative mechanisms prevail in perception, and fundamental questions remain.
The ambitious aim of GenPercept is to establish the importance of generative processes in perception, characterise quantitatively their functional role, and describe their underlying neural mechanisms. With innovative psychophysical and pupillometry techniques, it will show how past perceptual experience is exploited to manage and mould sensory analysis of the present. With ultra-high field imaging, it will identify the underlying neural mechanisms in early sensory cortex. With EEG and custom psychophysics it will show how generative predictive mechanisms mediate perceptual continuity at the time of saccadic eye movements, and explore the innovative idea that neural oscillations reflect reverberations in the propagation of generative prediction and error signals. Finally, it will look at individual differences, particularly in autistic perception, where generative mechanisms show interesting atypicalities.
A full understanding of generative processes will lead to fundamental insights in understanding how we perceive and interact with the world, and how past perceptual experience influences what we perceive. The project is also of clinical relevance, as these systems are prone to dysfunction in several neuro-behavioural conditions, including autism spectrum disorder.
Summary
How do we rapidly and effortlessly compute a vivid veridical representation of the external world from the noisy and ambiguous input supplied by our sensors? One possibility is that the brain does not process all incoming sensory information anew, but actively generates a model of the world from past experience, and uses current sensory data to update that model. This classic idea has been well formulised within the modern framework of Generative Bayesian Inference. However, despite these recent theoretical and empirical advances, there is no definitive proof that generative mechanisms prevail in perception, and fundamental questions remain.
The ambitious aim of GenPercept is to establish the importance of generative processes in perception, characterise quantitatively their functional role, and describe their underlying neural mechanisms. With innovative psychophysical and pupillometry techniques, it will show how past perceptual experience is exploited to manage and mould sensory analysis of the present. With ultra-high field imaging, it will identify the underlying neural mechanisms in early sensory cortex. With EEG and custom psychophysics it will show how generative predictive mechanisms mediate perceptual continuity at the time of saccadic eye movements, and explore the innovative idea that neural oscillations reflect reverberations in the propagation of generative prediction and error signals. Finally, it will look at individual differences, particularly in autistic perception, where generative mechanisms show interesting atypicalities.
A full understanding of generative processes will lead to fundamental insights in understanding how we perceive and interact with the world, and how past perceptual experience influences what we perceive. The project is also of clinical relevance, as these systems are prone to dysfunction in several neuro-behavioural conditions, including autism spectrum disorder.
Max ERC Funding
2 480 969 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-06-01, End date: 2024-05-31
Project acronym IMAGINE
Project EUROPEAN CONSTITUTIONAL IMAGINARIES: UTOPIAS, IDEOLOGIES AND THE OTHER
Researcher (PI) Jan KOMAREK
Host Institution (HI) KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2018-STG
Summary While scholars have presented and promoted a series of specific theories of EU constitutionalism, no one has yet attempted to analyse their wider intellectual context and the relationship among them – what we call here ‘European constitutional imaginaries’ (ECIs). In addition, IMAGINE does not limit this general analysis to the mainstream thinkers writing for the audience located at the supranational/transnational level. It includes the perspective of thinkers writing in particular EU member states. IMAGINE seeks to uncover whether there are individuals and ideas that have made important, yet often overlooked, contributions to ECIs. Crucially, IMAGINE puts emphasis on post-communist Europe’ experience, hitherto mostly ignored in EU constitutional scholarship.
As a result, IMAGINE will provide the first-ever synthesis and critical evaluation of the core theories of EU constitutionalism, theorizing their mutual relationship and the way in which they have influenced each other.
The overarching objective is to provide a novel account of ECIs: one informed by their intellectual history, which comprises both Old and the post-communist Europe, and which seeks to understand the various problems that lead some people to reject EU constitutionalism and its core values, seeing them as mere utopias or oppressing ideologies.
IMAGINE employs an innovative combination of research methods: empirical surveys, citation network analyses and elite in-depth interviews, together with traditional legal analysis. It will involve experts from particular member states though a number of workshops and a conference organized by the IMAGINE Team.
The PI is uniquely placed to realise IMAGINE: now based as a Professor of EU law at an elite socio-legal research centre iCourts (University of Copenhagen), he has participated in EU constitutional discourse both as a scholar and practitioner in one of the member states of post-communist Europe for more than 10 years.
Summary
While scholars have presented and promoted a series of specific theories of EU constitutionalism, no one has yet attempted to analyse their wider intellectual context and the relationship among them – what we call here ‘European constitutional imaginaries’ (ECIs). In addition, IMAGINE does not limit this general analysis to the mainstream thinkers writing for the audience located at the supranational/transnational level. It includes the perspective of thinkers writing in particular EU member states. IMAGINE seeks to uncover whether there are individuals and ideas that have made important, yet often overlooked, contributions to ECIs. Crucially, IMAGINE puts emphasis on post-communist Europe’ experience, hitherto mostly ignored in EU constitutional scholarship.
As a result, IMAGINE will provide the first-ever synthesis and critical evaluation of the core theories of EU constitutionalism, theorizing their mutual relationship and the way in which they have influenced each other.
The overarching objective is to provide a novel account of ECIs: one informed by their intellectual history, which comprises both Old and the post-communist Europe, and which seeks to understand the various problems that lead some people to reject EU constitutionalism and its core values, seeing them as mere utopias or oppressing ideologies.
IMAGINE employs an innovative combination of research methods: empirical surveys, citation network analyses and elite in-depth interviews, together with traditional legal analysis. It will involve experts from particular member states though a number of workshops and a conference organized by the IMAGINE Team.
The PI is uniquely placed to realise IMAGINE: now based as a Professor of EU law at an elite socio-legal research centre iCourts (University of Copenhagen), he has participated in EU constitutional discourse both as a scholar and practitioner in one of the member states of post-communist Europe for more than 10 years.
Max ERC Funding
1 497 685 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-02-01, End date: 2024-01-31
Project acronym JustSites
Project The Global Sites of International Criminal Justice
Researcher (PI) Mikkel Jarle CHRISTENSEN
Host Institution (HI) KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2018-STG
Summary JustSites studies the multitude of localities in which international criminal justice is produced, received and has impact. Building an innovative scientific vocabulary, the project understands these justice sites to be social topographies in which the political, legal and professional activities that collectively create international criminal justice are developed. The justice sites include locations in which forensic exhumations are carried out, NGO offices in conflict zones, foreign ministries, private law firms, media outlets, academic research centers, and the international criminal courts. These sites are closely related, and all depend on and compete with each other to define the direction of international criminal justice. With its analysis of justice sites, the project moves beyond the conventional focus on courts and their context to investigate instead the balances of authority and power that affect the relations between these topographies and thus drive the development of international criminal justice as a field of law. To investigate the relational topography of justice sites, the multidisciplinary project analyzes how these sites produce international criminal justice ideas and practices, and how such ideas and practices are received and have impact in other sites. By following the impact of ideas and practices as they move from one site to another, the relative and perceived authority and power of these sites will be identified and analyzed. Through their productive and receptive character, the justice sites also communicate the results of international criminal justice to broader audiences, labelling them in the process as a success or a failure. Therefore, contributing the first investigation of the topography of justice sites is not only of significant value as frontier research, but is crucial for understanding the wider societal, legal and political impact of this field of law.
Summary
JustSites studies the multitude of localities in which international criminal justice is produced, received and has impact. Building an innovative scientific vocabulary, the project understands these justice sites to be social topographies in which the political, legal and professional activities that collectively create international criminal justice are developed. The justice sites include locations in which forensic exhumations are carried out, NGO offices in conflict zones, foreign ministries, private law firms, media outlets, academic research centers, and the international criminal courts. These sites are closely related, and all depend on and compete with each other to define the direction of international criminal justice. With its analysis of justice sites, the project moves beyond the conventional focus on courts and their context to investigate instead the balances of authority and power that affect the relations between these topographies and thus drive the development of international criminal justice as a field of law. To investigate the relational topography of justice sites, the multidisciplinary project analyzes how these sites produce international criminal justice ideas and practices, and how such ideas and practices are received and have impact in other sites. By following the impact of ideas and practices as they move from one site to another, the relative and perceived authority and power of these sites will be identified and analyzed. Through their productive and receptive character, the justice sites also communicate the results of international criminal justice to broader audiences, labelling them in the process as a success or a failure. Therefore, contributing the first investigation of the topography of justice sites is not only of significant value as frontier research, but is crucial for understanding the wider societal, legal and political impact of this field of law.
Max ERC Funding
1 497 436 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
