I have rivers but no water; forests but no trees; cities but no buildings. What am I?
A map. (origins of riddle unknown)
In his 1931 paper “A Non-Aristotelian System and Its Necessity for Rigor in Mathematics and Physics”, Polish American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski introduced the now-iconic phrase, “a map is not the territory.” While Korzybski’s original focus was on general semantics, the metaphor he coined has since gained far greater reach, prompting deeper reflections on the relationship between representation and reality. This question, which has occupied thinkers throughout history—from Plato’s allegory of the cave to Jean Baudrillard’s concept of simulation and simulacra—remains central in understanding our entanglements with the world.
In the context of today’s rapidly shifting landscapes—shaped by advancements in digital technology, ecological crises, and societal transformations—Entangled Cartographies takes this relationship between map and territory as a jumping off point to investigate fluctuating and transmutative topographies. The conference puts forward topics of sentience, society, reality, and cosmology, where cartography, both literal and metaphorical, could serve as a critical tool for navigating and untangling these new converging landscapes.
The conference gathers together keynote speakers, Victoria Szabo (Research Professor, Duke Kunshan University), Boris Debackere (Head of Production, V2_Lab for the Unstable Media), and Ionat Zurr (Co-Founder, Symbiotica Institute of Biological Arts / Chair of Fine Arts, University of Western Australia), as well as presenters from Duke Kunshan University, New York University Shanghai, Zhejiang University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Shenzhen, Columbia University, and University of Technology Delft.
You can download the full program as a PDF (Entangled Cartographies Schedule).
Partners
This project is a partnership between the Design, Technology, Radical Media Lab (Duke Kunshan University), V2_Lab for the Unstable Media (Rotterdam, Netherlands), and Presence Lab (DKU, Duke University). The conference is generously funded by the Humanities Research Center at Duke Kunshan University.
About the Design, Technology, Radical Media Lab (DTRM)
The Design, Technology, and Radical Media Lab (DTRM) is an artist collective and research lab that investigates topics at the intersection of art, media, and technology. The lab is co-directed by Benjamin Bacon and Vivian Xu.
About V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media
V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media is an interdisciplinary center for art and media technology in Rotterdam (the Netherlands). V2_ presents, produces, archives, and publishes research at the interface of art, technology, and society. Founded in 1981, V2_ offers a platform for artists, designers, scientists, researchers, theorists, and developers of software and hardware from various disciplines to discuss their work and share their findings.
About Presence Lab
Presence Lab focuses on the exploration of theoretical, historical, and critical practice perspectives around topics of computation, media, and culture. The lab is a collaboration between Duke University’s Art, Art History & Visual Studies and Duke Kunshan University’s Computation and Design.
About the Humanities Research Center
Duke Kunshan University Humanities Research Center (HRC) promotes research and creative expression in the arts and humanities and encourages interdisciplinary efforts. Working in close partnership with Duke’s Franklin Humanities Institute, the HRC functions as a key research bridge between faculty and students at Duke and DKU. In addition, the HRC facilitates co-curricular research training, treating the entire DKU campus as a laboratory for humanities research.
Conference Theme and Tracks
Track I: Ambient Intelligence
This track explores the notion of distributed sentience, ambient intelligence and their various manifestations across scales, materialities, and temporalities through metaphysical, mechanistic, and materialistic frameworks.
Track II: Networked Societies
This track explores new notions of society, public space, and ethics that can aid in our understanding of relational and social dynamics within large, complex networked systems.
Track III: Constructed Environment and Reality
This track explores the notion of ambient intelligent environments and constructed realities through philosophical and technological lenses.
Track IV: Techno-Ontologies and Cosmology
This track explores new approaches to reframing the notion of technology itself as well as its ontological and cosmological implications.
Conference Program and Schedule
Thursday, November 6, 2025
Welcoming Words
Location Time: IB Lecture Hall / 5:30-6:00pm
Keynote One
Boris Debackere, Artist, Head of Production, V2_Lab for the Unstable Media
Location / Time: IB Lecture Hall / 6:00-7:00pm
Friday, November 7, 2025
Keynote Two
Victoria Szabo, Research Professor of Visual and Media Studies, Duke University
Location / Time: IB Lecture Hall / 9:00-10:00am
Networked Societies Track
Chair: Benjamin Bacon
Location / Time: AB1079 / 10:15-12:15pm
10:15-10:45am
Synthetic Cartographics: Constructing Landscape Demographic Data
Jia Zhang, Columbia University (online)
10:45-11:15am
Historical documents, interviews, and objects as holders of memories across generations.
Daniela Torres Medina, Duke Kunshan University
11:15-11:45am
Gathering the Cracks: Poetic Counter-Mapping of Informal Networks in Bacheng
Zhiyuan Ma (and collaborators), Duke Kunshan University
11:45-12:15pm
Entangled Intimacies: How VTuber Avatars Redraw the Cartographies of Networked Societies
Huiwei Wen, New York University Shanghai
Environments & Realities Track
Chair: Rui Hu
Location / Time: AB2103 / 10:15-11:45am
10:15-10:45am
On Performative Foraging as a Form of Sensory Cartography
Ishraki Kazi, New York University Shanghai
10:45-11:15am
A Journey to the Left: Directionality and Cartographic Perspectives in the Visual Culture of Xiyou Ji
Chengjin Su, Zhejiang University
11:15-11:45am
Navigating Commercial Media Monopolies with Embodied Mediation
Asha Sophea Janardhan, Duke Kunshan University
Keynote Three
Ionat Zurr, Artist, Associate Professor of Fine Arts, University of Western Australia
Location / Time: IB Lecture Hall / 1:30-2:30pm
Ambient Intelligence Track
Chair: Daniel Weissglass
Location / Time: AB1079 / 3:00-4:30pm
3:00-3:30pm
Conceptual Cartography: LLMs as Conceptual Maps
Daniel Weissglass, Duke Kunshan University
3:30-4:00pm
Disembodied Reflections: The AI that is its Own Map
Xinyu (Kiri) Tian, New York University Shanghai
4:00-4:30pm
Reimagining web typology by drawing on the decentralized, adaptive intelligence of slime mold from a posthuman perspective.
Yanrui (Linda) Shao, Delft University of Technology (online)
Techno-Ontologies & Cosmologies Track
Chair: Vivian Xu
Location / Time: AB2103 / 3:00-4:30pm
3:00-3:30pm
Weird World: The Networked Eco-horrors of Globalization, Translation, and “World Literature” in Pola Oloixarac’s Mona
Julia Irion Martins, New York University Shanghai
3:30-4:00pm
Nomadic Intelligence as Distributed Sentience in Central Asia
Kymbat Altybay, Duke Kunshan University
4:00-4:30pm
Female bodies, land and resistance: cuerpo-territorio as counter-cartography in resource extraction in Latin America
Qianying (Yelena) Ye, New York University Shanghai
Keynote and presenter abstracts will be posted soon.
