Computer Science PGR Seminar Tom Metcalfe and Berné Nortier

Tom Metcalfe will present Entangled: A Posthumanist Storytelling Artefact

Abstract: This seminar presents a work-in-progress exploring the making of the artefact Entangled.

Entangled is an ongoing Research through Design project: a situated physical artefact placed in the landscape that operates as both installation and enquiry. It functions as a storyteller, writing accounts of the everyday relations between human and more-than-human worlds.

Grounded in critical posthumanist commitments, the artefact is conceived as a performative participant in world-making, engaging with place through ongoing relations.

The system draws on heterogeneous, situated inputs. It responds to environmental conditions such as atmospheric change and weather patterns, alongside non-linear temporal rhythms. In parallel, it draws on a corpus of fragmented stories gathered through walking interviews with people connected to the place.

These inputs are brought into relation through a locally situated, posthumanist-orientated language model that generates short stories. These stories are then inscribed by a drawing machine.

Bio: Tom is a second-year PhD student, post-disciplinary artist-designer, and researcher exploring alternative approaches to design and HCI through critical posthumanism.

Berné Nortier will present A geometric theory of higher-order networks

Abstract: Many complex systems can be naturally modeled as hypergraphs, where hyperedges encode interactions taking place jointly among multiple system units. Surprisingly, there exists no simple generative mechanism able to explain the overlapping organisation of these interactions, a feature that is ubiquitous in real-world hypergraphs. Here, we propose a framework based on latent geometry to build realistic higher-order networks with nestedness as a naturally emergent feature. We link emergent nestedness with the underlying geometry and show analytically and numerically that nestedness undergoes an extremely smooth phase transition, as well as establishing in which regimes nestedness in the system will be finite. Our work reveals the non-trivial organisation of higher-order networks at a local level by looking at real-world datasets and suggests geometry as a framework for better understanding these systems.

Bio: Berné is a third-year PhD student under supervision of Prof. Simon Dobson. Her interests lie in Complex Systems broadly, with particular interest in geometric latent space, and higher-order, models for complex networks.