DC Labs Lecture by Andreas Roepstorff on Playfulness

Hi everyone, I'd like to invite you all to attend the following talk by Andreas Roepstorff at *2:30pm* next *Tuesday, 19th Feb*, at the Department of Computer Science (Hes. East). Andreas is an anthropologist/neuroscientist/interdisciplinarist and he directs the Interacting Minds Centre in Denmark, which explores new weird, wonderful ways of studying minds in interaction. Please find the talk abstract below (and attached), as well as directions to the seminar room in the Computer Science building. I hope you can make it! Kind regards Lauren *Playfulness: A Surprising State of Mind* *A Digital Creativity Labs Lecture by Andreas Roepstorff* *February 19, 2019, 2:30-3:30pm* *Heslington East, room **CSE/082&083 http://bit.ly/2E7aWXW <http://bit.ly/2E7aWXW>* *Attendance is free, no registration required* These days, theories of prediction error minimization are *en vogue* across the cognitive sciences. Cognition seems to be all about control: of events, hidden causes, environments, and many things in between. Playful activities seem to open up a very different terrain. They appear to involve letting go of control, to let processes, materials and collaborators do ‘their’ thing, and in and through that create unexpected trajectories. We have recently explored a number of such activities involving unusual research tools, like Ouija boards, Lego bricks, and haunted houses. I will describe some of these experiments, drawing on both qualitative and quantitative methods, to explore emergent dynamics of play-like activities. This will allow us to explore whether playfulness is a surprising state of mind. *Biography* Andreas Roepstorff is a Professor of Cognition, Communication and Culture at Aarhus University (Denmark). He works at the interface between anthropology, cognitive science, and neuroscience, and is equally interested in the workings of the mind and brain, and in how cognitive science and brain imaging, as fields of knowledge production, relate to other scientific and public fields. He is the director of the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University and is involved in a number of transdisciplinary collaborations, focusing on aspects of human interaction. Most recently, he won a major grant to work with renowned artist Olafur Eliasson to create engaging experiments on perception, decision-making, action, and collaboration in public spaces. For more, visit interactingminds.au.dk. -- Lauren Welbourne, PhD Senior Research Technician York Neuroimaging Centre University of York Innovation Way Heslington York YO10 5NY