Ethnographic research experience
🌴 MIT & Northeastern University – Boston MA, USA
Toward the Art and Aesthetics of Entangled Posthuman Engineers – Unravelling the Complexities of Posthumanity by Playfully Challenging Human-Machine Boundaries in the Assemblage of Art and Engineering
This anthropological research follows human-machine relations in the Boston setting of robot engineers and posthuman artists, with the purpose of showing what the interplay between art and engineering could mean in an ethical and social sense.
🌴 VU University – Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Human and Machine: Breaching Boundaries – Reconsidering Human Agency in Posthumanity: From the ‘Other’, to the ‘Self’, to the ‘Über-self’
This research answers the question: how does the process from Othering the threatening machine, to breaching boundaries between human and machine, help us reconsidering human agency in posthuman time?
Academic awards
🌵 FSW Johannes van der Zouwen Master Thesis Prize 2018 – VU Faculty of Social Sciences
“Kootstra’s Toward the Art and Aesthetics of Entangled Posthuman Engineers dives deep into the world of ‘techies’ who inhabit the laboratories of two prestigious North American universities where he uncovers the complex relation between posthuman engineers and artists in their joint exploration of human-machine boundaries; a fascinating ethnographic quest into the utopic and dystopic faces of technology-humanity entanglement.”
Academic activities
🌱 2020 – Guest lecture 21st Century Challenges at the VU University.
🌱 2018 – to date – Moderator of academic, cultural events at SPUI25 – platform that connects the academic world with the cultural sector.
🌱 2018 to date – Guest lecturer PUC Digital Lives at the VU University.
🌱 2018 – Guest lecturer Anthropology – History & Theory Course at the VU University.
🌱 2018 – Guest lecturer at Anthropology Summer School at the VU University.
🌱 2018 – Discussant at EUI conference Emerging Technologies & the Future of Citizenship, Berlin.
🌱 2018 – Student advisor and Personal assistant of Prof. Dr. Dimitris Dalakoglou.
🌱 2017 to date – Research assistant and internship at VU University – guiding students and courses, giving lectures, writing research proposals and presenting at congresses.
🌱 2017-2019 – Team Leader of the editorial team of academic and cultural platform SPUI25 in Spe.
🌱 2017 to date – Member of the editorial team of Standplaats Wereld – Anthropology blog of the VU University.
🌱 2017-2018 – Member of organisation committee of the Ethnographic Film Festival at the VU University.
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