Tag Archives: University of Toronto (U of T)

MUTEK Festival: August 25 -30, 2025 and its MUTEK Forum: August 26-28, 2026 in Montréal, Canada

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MUTEK = musique/c technologie/y That seems a pretty safe guess given this from MUTEK’s Mission page,

Launched in the year 2000, MUTEK is dedicating itself to the presentation of live electronic music and real-time audiovisual performance, making it one of the rare outlets in North America for such innovations. After 20 years, the festival’s future-seeking mandate has matured—and while the promise has in many ways caught up with the present—its commitment to the ongoing mutations and variations of contemporary digital creativity remain, with its eyes and ears still fixated on what comes next.

The festival extends now to 6 days and nights—and integrates the professional Forum into the architecture of the week to enrich conversations and encounters with current technologically driven practices and philosophies. Plugged into a global circuit since inception, creating an international rendezvous for artists and publics alike, the festival thrives on creating a context for discovery and exchange. Faithful to its values of inclusion and accessibility, MUTEK is committed to a more equitable and representative programming of all diversities, in particular through the Amplify initiative.

It also magnifies Montréal, not just as its urban backdrop, but as the source of so much of its creative soul; the local is always elevated in dialogue with exceptional artists from around the world.

MUTEK has built a unique model over the years that has proven seductively exportable. Tentacles stretch across 4 continents, to 6 other cities now, with each satellite adapting the festival’s template of values as a means to inspire new ways of engaging with the richness of electronic and digital artistry.

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I have two Wikipedia entries for MUTEK. Bear with me, the contrast is striking, first the English language version, Note: Links have been removed,

MUTEK is a Montreal-based festival dedicated to the promotion of electronic music and the digital arts.[1] Its central platform is an annual six-day event in Montreal that takes place in late August.[2] Alongside the Montreal edition, MUTEK also hosts international versions of its festival.

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Now, the French language version, Note: Links have been removed,

MUTEK est un festival de musique électronique et de créativité numérique qui a lieu annuellement à Montréal depuis 2000. La plateforme centrale de l’organisme constitue le festival qui se tient chaque année à la fin du mois d’août dans le Quartier des spectacles à Montréal[1].

La mission principale du festival est d’offrir aux artistes les plus originaux et visionnaires du domaine, un tremplin visant à les faire connaître et les propulser le plus loin possible dans leur concept de création tout en visant la sensibilisation et le développement de nouveaux publics. L’engagement continu envers l’innovation et la promotion de la créativité contemporaine fait de MUTEK une organisation majeure dans le monde de la musique électronique en direct et de la performance audiovisuelle en temps réel[2].

I especially like the part where the festival offers artists, who are the most imaginary and visionary in their domains, a springboard … . So much more ebullient than the English language version, which collapses two paragraphs into one.

MUTEK Montréal Festival 2026

From the Montréal MUTEK organization Welcome homepage,

Edition 27: Amplify & Resonate

MUTEK Montréal Festival returns to the Quartier des spectacles from August 25 to 30, 2026, for six days and nights dedicated to electronic music, audiovisual performances and digital creativity.

This 27th edition brings together international artists, leading figures of the current scene and emerging voices in a program focused on live performance, sonic experimentation and immersive audiovisual experiences. In the heart of downtown Montréal, the festival unfolds across a network of venues connecting concert halls, immersive spaces and outdoor stages.

Over five distinct series, the Festival moves through different energies, aesthetics, and ways of experiencing sound, image, and space.

Explore the Schedule

Artists

A Guy Called Gerald | Abulzooz | Ah! Kosmos and Hainbach | Alan Harman | Arbor and Tzu Ni | aria | ArtSaves | Barker | BelleyFERRIS | Ben UFO | chiquitamagic | Cleo Leigh | con secuencias + Milo Reinhardt | Cry (Kilbourne & Relaxer) | CUERPOS | Dana Ruh | Dave Huismans (ex_libris) | Debit | dustbunny | ebb | El Ángel Exterminador & Anastasiia Vorobiova | ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS! | Elsewhere in India ft. Murthovic & Thiruda | Estelle Schorpp & charline dally | Evicshen | Facta | Fennesz & Lillevan | Florence-Delphine Roux | gyrofield | Hermanos Riffo Gómez | Honeydrip | Hot Sleepers | Ida Toninato | Istanbul Ghetto Club | JakoJako | jamvvis + YFBOB | Jeff Mills | Jenn Mong & Trevor Van de Velde | Jordan Gardner | JS Baillat & Mateo Murphy | Julian Sartorius | Jump Source | Kali Malone | Kara-Lis Coverdale | Korea Town Acid & Ajeebsir | M Salaciak | Marc-Antoine Barbier | Marie Delprat | Matt & Mark Thibideau | Matthew Herbert | Matthew Herbert & Julian Sartorius | Mia Koden | Monsieurmadam | MOORE + SALAS | Nazar | Nelly-Eve Rajotte | NGL Flounce | Noémi Büchi | NVST | Patche | Paul Vivien | Pick a Piper | pliq | Poirier | Polygonia | Purelink with Mika Oki | Rival Consoles | Sara Persico & Mika Oki | Sarah Rossy | shn shn | Super Galaxy Meow Meow | Tristan Perich & James McVinnie | Violent Magic Orchestra | Voices From The Lake | wetdogg | Zora Jones | 16:9 ratio

[Note: I apologize to the artists but with such a large number of names {over 50 of them} I will not be adding their names to the tagging for this posting.]

Discover the artists

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If you go to the Montréal MUTEK organization Welcome homepage and scroll down past the excerpts included here, you’ll find a a SoundCloud playlist for Edition 27. Enjoy!

MUTEK Forum 2026: Symbiotic Frequencies

Here’s a description from the MUTEK website’s forum page,

For 26 years, MUTEK has supported Montréal’s leadership in digital arts by promoting its culture, creators, and fostering local and international collaborations, as one of the world’s first festivals native to digital culture.

Within this context, MUTEK Forum serves as a dynamic platform bridging digital art, electronic music, and cutting-edge technology. Through its curated programs, the Forum addresses critical global challenges and supports artists, thinkers, and innovators in developing transformative ideas and projects. By partnering with leading research institutions, cultural organizations, and industry leaders, the Forum is a recognized marketplace for experimentation and exchange, nurturing new (and existing) alliances and collaborations within the digital arts.

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Now, from the MUTEK Forum website’s Symbiotic Frequencies webpage,

MUTEK Forum returns for its 12th edition with a renewed sense of ambition. New venues, an expanded program, and a theme that sets the tone for three days of radical imagination and curated exchange.

This opening session welcomes attendees, introduces the week’s trajectory, and unpacks the ideas at the heart of Symbiotic Frequencies, a theme exploring the entangled relationship between technology, creativity, ecology, and human connection. Expect an overview of the key moments to catch, the people shaping them, and the threads that will run through it all.

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The Symbiotic Frequencies for MUTEK Forum 2026 has an Acttivities Schedule page, which lists a number of intriguing presentations. Here are a few that particularly interest me,

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Does an AI God Have an Ass?

From Wednesday, August 26, 2026
2:15 pm_3:00 pm

Zach Blas is an artist, writer, filmmaker, and Associate Professor at the University of Toronto whose practice contends with computational technologies, their industries, and the powers that that constitute and animate them. In this lecture performance, he traces an intriguing arc from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to the techno-religiosity of Silicon Valley, exposing the religious unconscious lurking beneath contemporary AI fantasy and the systematic erasure of embodiment it requires. Through encounters with AI gods, Blas reveals what the divine machine mythology conceals: the bodies, labour and invisible workers who actually make the system run.

Part of his Silicon Traces trilogy which contends with the histories, beliefs, and fantasies shaping Silicon Valley’s visions of domination, the performance connects to CULTUS (2023), a moving image installation probing tech industry belief systems, and the artist book Ass of God (2024), published by the Vienna Secession and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König. Irreverent, meticulous and pointedly in tune with Symbiotic Frequencies: a reminder that every network has a body and every god has a supply chain.

Content warning: for adult audiences and contains explicit sexual material, including graphic descriptions of sexuality and AI-generated images of nudity.

Please note: this activity will be in English, with live transcription available.

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Cosmos to Quanta in 10 Terms: Curators’ Take

From Thursday, August 27, 2026
10:00 am_10:30 am

Opening the day, curatorial duo Auronda Scalera and Alfredo Cramerotti, known for projects including Art Dubai Digital, Noor Riyadh, Web to Verse at Manchester Metropolitan University/MODAL, and Cosmotechnics at Fondazione Querini Stampalia in occasion of the Venice Biennale, deliver a keynote that traces how curatorial practice has been fundamentally transformed over the last decade by technology, co-creation, and new modes of perception and knowledge production.

The talk unfolds as a constellation of ten key concepts that have shaped and continue to shape our thinking and practice : some drawn from thinkers including Yuk Hui, Donna Haraway, Félix Guattari, and Hito Steyerl; others coined within their own practice, among them Hyper-Imaging, Oneironaut, Quantum Curating and Nachleben Digitalis.

Each term marks a moment where curatorial thinking expanded and reinvented itself in dialogue with art, technology, and philosophy. Together, they form the vocabulary of a practice built on co-inhabiting, co-imagining, and co-becoming with artists, machines, and publics.

Please note: this activity will be in English, with live transcription available.

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Brainless : How the World Thinks

From Thursday, August 27, 2026
1:00 pm_1:30 pm

What if intelligence was never located in the brain to begin with?

Claire L. Evans is a writer, artist, and cultural critic whose work sits at the intersection of technology, science and human imagination – best known as the author of Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet and as a member of pop group YACHT.

In this keynote, Evans invites us to look beyond the human brain to explore purely embodied modes of intelligence. Drawing on diverse manifestations of intelligence in the natural world, she considers the potential of biological computing and asks what nature’s own systems grown rather than mined can teach us about the future of AI and the many shapes intelligence can take.

This talks sits close to the heart of Symbiotic Frequencies, a reminder that the most sophisticated networks on Earth predate the silicon chip by billions of years.

Please note: this activity will be in English, with live transcription available.

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Build it Or Buy it? Creativity and Intellectual Property (IP)

From Thursday, August 27, 2026
3:30 pm_4:20 pm

Immersive creation moves in both directions. Sometimes it starts as something specific, built by a team of collaborators chasing an idea, and only later has to figure out how to scale, tour, or license without losing what made it worth experiencing in the first place. Other times, it starts from an existing intellectual property (IP), a story, a universe, a character, and the challenge is the opposite: how do you adapt something that already exists into a memorable immersive experience, rather than just repackaging it?

Either direction raises the same underlying question: what makes original IP a real strategic asset, not just a single work, but a universe, a clear authorship, a concept with enough depth to open doors to financing, partnerships, adaptations, and wider audience reach?

This panel brings together IP specialists, performing arts centers, LBE venues, and creative studios, including The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, PHI, Mance Communications, and Supply + Demand, to talk about that pressure point. Can you adapt interdisciplinary, experimental work into something that travels and sustains itself without sanding off its edges? Can an adaptation of an existing IP still feel like a genuine immersive creation, rather than a licensing exercise? Is there a version of “successful” that doesn’t mean “safe,” especially now, when AI can generate a thousand versions of “safe” in seconds?

Rather than treating scale and commercial viability as the enemy of creativity, this conversation looks at how the best studios build IP, adapted or original, as a foundation for long-term creative and business development, without losing the strangeness, and the human point of view, that made the work worth building in the first place.

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Symbiotic Frequencies / Symbiotic Futures : A Worldbuilding Workshop presented by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

From Friday, August 28, 2026
10:00 am_1:00 pm

Advance registration is sold out. Extra spots available 15 min before, first come first served.

Calling all artists, musicians, designers, writers, filmmakers, creative technologists, and curious future-builders.

What kind of world would give rise to entirely new forms of music, instruments, and creative expression?

In this collaborative 3-hour workshop, participants will use worldbuilding as a creative design process to imagine and build a shared future civilization. Together, we’ll explore how values, technologies, ecologies, cultures and social systems shape everyday life—and how changing one part of a world transforms everything else.

Inspired by MUTEK’s 2026 theme, Symbiotic Frequencies, the workshop invites participants to question our evolving relationships with artificial intelligence, living systems, artistic practice and technological infrastructures. Rather than predicting the future, we’ll collectively imagine one that is guided by curiosity, care and creativity.

Working with natural and found materials, participants will craft a physical artifact from this imagined world—an experimental musical instrument that reflects the world’s cultural identity, a tangible expression of the world’s history, values and way of life.

As the world evolves through conversation and collaboration, facilitator-led AI visualization will create an evolving visual backdrop that brings the participants’ ideas to life in real time. These visual interpretations serve as a shared environment for reflection and discussion, while participants remain focused on the collaborative process of worldbuilding and hands-on making.

By the end of the workshop, participants will have co-created a richly imagined world, contributed to its visual identity, and leave with a handcrafted artifact from the future—a unique piece of the civilization they built together.

This workshop is a collaboration between worldbuilding facilitator Paisley Smith and Vincent McCurley, Designer, Creative Technologies at the National Film Board of Canada’s Innovation Lab.

No prior technical knowledge required.

Visual references are created by the facilitators using locally run, open-source AI tools. Participants do not use AI directly; they create their artifacts by hand using physical materials. AI is used only to visualize the group’s evolving world and support discussion.

Please note: This activity will be in English only, without live transcription nor translation. During the event, no interpreter for the Deaf will be present.

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Listening at the Edge: Sound, Quantum Physics, and the Act of Attention

From Friday, August 28, 2026
1:30 pm_2:15 pm

Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening practice asked us to expand our awareness to include all sounds, inner and outer. Quantum physics, in a strange parallel, describes a universe where observation itself changes what is observed. This session brings those two ideas into dialogue, gathering quantum physicists, composers, sonic healers, and curators to ask: what is listening? and does the physics of uncertainty change the answer?

The conversation moves between registers. Alexandre Blais, professor at Universite de Sherbrooke and co-creator of circuit quantum electrodynamics, brings the science that underlies these institutions, while sound artist and composer France Jobin finds ways to make that science felt rather than simply understood, most recently with Lueurs quantiques and The Fluctuation of Emptiness. Composer and performer Kara-Lis Coverdale approaches the same territory from a different angle, working across electronic music and pipe organ to build sonic environments that dissolve the boundaries between musical systems and languages. And Rena Anakwe, interdisciplinary artist and NEW INC [New Museum’s cultural incubator] cohort member, grounds the conversation in the body, weaving sound, scent, and traditional healing to ask how reconnecting to nature, and to one another might itself be a form of listening.

Moderated by Eva Fischer of CIVA [Contemporary Immersive Visual Art] Festival and presented by NEW INC

Please note: this activity will be in English, with live transcription available.

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That first one about whether or not an AI god has an ass reminded me of a programme (Culturama) I watched on RadioCanada, Les fesses (although I remembered the title as L’univers des fesses),

Les fesses

Accompagnée d’Elkahna Talbi, Catherine Trudeau et de Thomas Leblanc, Chantal Lamarre se penche sur la représentation des fesses dans la culture. De l’oeuvre de Spencer Tunick à la Vénus de Willendorf, en passant par Deux femmes en or et le French cancan, nombreuses sont les fesses qui ont marqué notre imaginaire.

The rest of the items relate to one or other of topics covered here: brains, quantum science, sound, intellectual property, etc.

h/t to Kris Krüg for mention of MUTEK in one of his communications to the community.

Finally, If you happen to be in Montréal, perhaps you’ll be able to catch some of presentations..

In the battle against wildfires could technology replace firefighters?

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As the world burns hotter and hotter, we are having to find new ways to deal with fire. I have two stories about fire and technology in the Northern Hemisphere. Perhaps later this year I will be able to round this out with stories about fire and technology from the Southern Hemisphere once the seasons shift. Although I world prefer that at least part of this planet has a quiet fire season.

Europe: France, Spain, and Portugal

John Laurenson wrote an August 4 (?), 2026 article for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) news online about the technology being developed to fight fires

Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes across France, Spain and Portugal as wildfires tore through forests and countryside.

In France, four men have already lost their lives fighting the wildfires and another 150 have been injured.

But why are humans and 30-year old planes being used? Why can drones replace soldiers in Ukraine but not firefighters?

Chief sergeant Guillaume Millet, a firefighter of 24 years experience heads the Fire and Rescue Service branch of the CFDT union in the Gironde, the region worst hit by wildfires in France this summer.

He says that while the techniques for tackling fire have not changed much, technology in forest fire detection has.

“The big change, especially in my département, is that now we’ve got cameras assisted by artificial intelligence to watch the forest and see where fires are starting,” Millet says.

“In the Gironde, cameras have replaced the human look-outs we had in watch towers in every town throughout the summer months,” he says. Those lookouts were often students.

The switch has reduced false alarms, he says. “An AI-assisted camera can distinguish with almost total certainty between smoke and dust thrown up by a tractor in a field, for example.”

They have an impressive range as well, detecting fires up to 20km (12 miles) away.

In the Gironde, the system was installed by a company called Midgard. In other parts of France, it’s another French start-up called FireTracking.

“As soon as the system detects a fire, there’s an alert on the fire fighters’ telephones. They open the application and see what the camera is seeing with a x40 [40 times] zoom,” explains FireTracking’s CEO Jean-Simon Chaudier.

“Next to that real-time video there’s a map with the exact location of the fire, the position of any nearby houses and a simulation of how, given the weather, the level of humidity and so on, it is expected to spread from minute to minute,” he adds.

And every minute is vital. “For the past 10 days, for example, we have the feedback from a firefighter that our AI detected seven fires 15 minutes before the first phone call. If you can help a firefighter to save 15 minutes, it’s the difference between a catastrophe and a fire which can be limited to two or three hectares,” Chaudier says.

“After one minute you can put out a fire with a glass of water, after two you need a tank of water, after three minutes you need to send a Canadair,” Chaudier says, talking about the amphibious planes that scoop up water from rivers, lakes and the sea to dump it on the flames that are the spearhead of forest fire fighting here and around the world.

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AI fire detection is going to get better over the coming years. The French civil protection service has a programme called Condor, for example, which is testing solar-powered drones that carry out continuous patrols with electro-optical cameras and AI.

There are also projects with sensors placed among the trees. Spain’s SenForFire, for example, which measures gases released before flames become visible.

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TankerVision: AI-powered fire prediction (a Canadian initiative)

A July 16, 2026 University of Toronto news release by Amanda Hacio spotlights TankerVision, Note: A link has been removed,

As wildfires grow larger, faster and impact more communities across Canada, researchers at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) are developing new technology that could give first responders a critical advantage: the ability to predict how a fire will evolve hours into the future. 

Professor Steven Waslander (UTIAS) is working with researchers at Natural Resources Canada and Simon Fraser University on TankerVision — a project aimed at creating more accurate, AI-powered fire prediction models. 

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The team has partnered with government agencies and industry, including BC Wildfire, Alberta Wildfire, Canadian Forestry Services, aircraft operator Conair Aerial Firefighting, and Voxelis, a wildfire monitoring service provider. 

“Wildfire growth is currently estimated using 15 to 20 prescribed burns from the 1980s, plus data on weather, wind and forest conditions, all fused with decades of human experience,” says Waslander. 

“But this method hasn’t been adapted to current fire severity increases due to climate change and involved a great deal of extrapolation from a limited dataset.” 

“Our big idea here is to use AI and computer vision to capture unprecedented numbers of fires from the air to build more sophisticated, data-driven wildfire prediction models.” 

To do this, high‑resolution colour and infrared cameras and computers are installed inside the piloted aircraft that are currently used to monitor and fight fires.  

In 2024, the team began collecting data onboard a bird-dog aircraft, which circles above wildfires to guide water bombers. These planes spend hours tracking the fire line, making them ideal for gathering continuous, high‑quality footage.  

:All the storage is on board the aircraft so our partners can review the data before we start working on it to make sure we aren’t logging any confidential information.” 

First, each image is segmented by AI to identify which pixels correspond to fire, smoke or ground. This is trickier than it sounds, as capturing the extent of smoke in an image can be difficult for modern segmentation techniques. 

The task poses similar challenges to autonomous navigation in adverse weather conditions — variables Waslander is already familiar with as the lead investigator of the WinTOR all-weather driving program. 

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“Last season, we logged 50 fires, which is currently the highest number recorded in one season,” says Waslander. 

“This year, we plan to expand the data collection efforts to three aircraft and hope to capture more than 100 wildfires, sufficient to start developing and validating our prediction models.”   

The team is now preparing hardware for this fire season and hopes to expand partnerships across the country, including in Ontario, to help transform how Canada responds to wildfires. 

The team’s first research paper, focused on segmentation, has been submitted, with a full-system paper and public dataset planned for release in fall 2026. 

Waslander says the project resonates deeply with students and researchers who have witnessed the increase in severe fires firsthand.   

“I think everyone involved in the project really feels passionately about the direction we’re going and see it as an opportunity to make a real impact on keeping us safe in the years to come as things get hotter,” says Waslander. 

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I can’t find anything more about TankerVision on the Natural Resources Canada or Simon Fraser University websites. Hopefully more information will become available.

Replacing firefighters?

The short answer is: not anytime soon. All these technology initiatives are aimed at improving our ability to find hot sports and fires and to respond quickly.

June 29, 2026: “Dementia Prevention in Canada: Individual Risk, Collective Responsibility” a Canadian Science Policy Centre virtual panel

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Interesting question, who’s responsibility is it? Mine or ours? A June 25, 2026 Canadian Science Policy Centre (CSPC) announcement (received via email) announces a virtual panel addressing that question in the context of dementia prevention,

June 29 [2026]: Dementia Prevention in Canada: Individual Risk, Collective Responsibility

Join us on June 29 [2026] from 11:00–12:30 PM EST for an engaging virtual panel on dementia prevention in Canada. Under the theme “Individual Risk, Collective Responsibility,” experts from research, healthcare, innovation, and policy will explore how dementia prevention extends beyond individual lifestyle choices to include the social, economic, and environmental factors that shape people’s ability to act. Drawing on recent international survey findings, the discussion will examine barriers to brain-healthy living, the role of public policy and technology, and how Canada can build a more equitable and brain-healthy society through shared responsibility and coordinated action.

Register (For Free)

Here’s a more fulsome description along with logistics and speaker information, from the Dementia Prevention in Canada: Individual Risk, Collective Responsibility event page,

This panel will examine dementia prevention in Canada through the lens of a central tension: while growing evidence shows that individuals can reduce their risk through lifestyle and health-related factors, the ability to act on that knowledge is shaped by the systems and environments around them. Framed by the theme “Individual Risk, Collective Responsibility,” the discussion will explore how dementia prevention should be understood not only as a matter of personal responsibility, but also as a societal and policy imperative that requires coordinated action across healthcare, communities, and governments.

A central focus of the conversation will be where responsibility for prevention should sit, and how to avoid placing undue burden on individuals, without ignoring the importance of individual agency. Panelists will consider how Canadians understand modifiable dementia risk, what can be learned from other public health campaigns, and how technology may support brain-healthy choices. Informed by a recent international survey of 2000+ adults, the panel will examine barriers that Canadians encounter when they consider brain healthy choices, as well as system-level gaps that exist in community design and service access that, if addressed, could support population health outcomes and more resilient health systems at scale.

Attendees will gain insight into how dementia prevention can be framed in ways that are both actionable and equitable, recognizing individual responsibility while confronting the structural realities that shape people’s options, including socioeconomic inequality, geography, transportation, and access to care and supportive services. By bringing together perspectives from clinical care, research, innovation, community-based interventions, and aging policy, the session will surface the practical and ethical questions at the heart of prevention: what individuals can reasonably be expected to do, what systems must enable, and how Canada can build a more brain-healthy society through shared responsibility.

Details

Venue

  • Zoom

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Spaakers

Dr. Allison Sekuler

President & Chief Scientist, Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, and the Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI); Sandra A. Rotman Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience, Rotman Research Institute. 

Dr. Samir K. Sinha

Dr. Samir Sinha is a Geriatrician and Clinician Scientist at Sinai Health System and the University Health Network in Toronto, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, the Director of Health Policy Research at Toronto Metropolitan University’s National Institute on Ageing, as well as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the Royal Society of Medicine. 

A Rhodes Scholar, Samir is a highly regarded clinician and international expert in the care of older adults. As a former member of the Government of Canada’s National Seniors Council and a current member of its Minsterial Advisory Board on Dementia he helped to develop and now oversee Canada’s National Dementia Strategy and recently led the successful development of Canada’s new National Long-Term Care Services Standard.  

Internationally, he serves as an Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the International Centre for Future Health Systems at the University of New South Wales.  Furthermore, as a longstanding member of the American Red Cross Scientific Advisory Council and a recently appointed member of the Board of Trustees for HelpAge International, he remains committed to supporting the implementation and administration of unique, integrated and innovative models of geriatric care and support that reduce disease burden, improve access and capacity and ultimately promote health.

Dr. Dallas Seitz

Dr. Dallas Seitz is the Chief of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) where he also holds the Peter and Shelagh Godsoe Chair in Late-Life Mental Health Research. He is also a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto and the Director of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry. 

He currently serves as Co-Chair of the Canadian Coalition for Seniors’ Mental Health and past president of Canadian Academy of Geriatric Psychiatry. 

He completed his undergraduate medical degree at the University of Saskatchewan (2003) and his postgraduate residency training in Psychiatry at the Queen’s University in 2008. He completed a research and clinical fellowship at the University of Toronto at Baycrest Centre and Women’s College Hospital. Dr. Seitz completed his PhD in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Services Research from the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto in 2014.

Dr. Nicole Anderson

Dr. Anderson is a Senior Scientist, Director of the Ben & Hilda Katz Interprofessional Research Program in Geriatric and Dementia Care, and Associate Scientific Director of the Kimel Family Centre for Brain Health and Wellness in the Rotman Research Institute at the Baycrest Academy for Research and Education [Toronto]. She is a Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Medicine (Psychiatry) at the University of Toronto.  She is a registered clinical neuropsychologist.  Her research focuses on how memory is affected by healthy aging and mild cognitive impairment, and on cognitive and lifestyle interventions to promote brain health and reduce dementia risk.

Dr. Saskia Sivananthan

Dr. Saskia Sivananthan, an internationally recognized strategy and policy advisor on dementia care, is the co-founder and CEO of the Brainwell Institute [in Toronto] – a nonprofit dementia policy think tank.  She is also an Affiliate Professor at McGill University.

She was formerly Chief Research and KTE [knowledge transfer and exchange] Officer at the Alzheimer Society of Canada where she oversaw a tripling of funding for dementia research, and created multiple platforms for people living with dementia to engage in research, advocate and co-design programming for their needs.  In 2020 she was appointed by the Federal Minister of Health to the ministerial advisory board on dementia.

Previously, Dr. Sivananthan served as a senior strategy and policy advisor consulting for the World Health Organization (WHO) on its overall global dementia strategy. Dr. Sivananthan co-drafted the WHO’s Global Action Plan on the Public Health Response to Dementia which was unanimously adopted at the 170th World Health Assembly by all 194 member-states. This plan served as the template for Canada’s National Dementia Strategy. It identified key priorities and established international goals to fight stigma and advance dementia care.

Very, very Toronto. Given that the CSPC usually gets at least one member of their virtual panels from another part of the country, I’m wondering if they assembled this group very quickly and relied on locally based experts.

Finally, Register Here.

Think like a scientist; critical thinking course for the incarcerated and others

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I stumbled across this September 19, 2025 article by Rosie Fernandez for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) radio programme “Qurks and Quarks” highlights science education designed to encourage critical thinking skills in some unexpected populations, Note Links have been removed,

In a world filled with misinformation, geophysicist Philip Heron is on a mission to share the benefits of critical thinking.

He is founder of a program called Think Like a Scientist, which he pioneered in the U.K., and has now brought to Canada.

It’s a brief course — only seven weeks long — that he’s taught in schools, but more surprisingly in prisons. [emphasis mine]

And for some of those who’ve experienced the program, it’s been life-changing.

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As a day job, Heron teaches in the department of physical and environmental Sciences at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus, and runs this program in the summer, including at a number of Canadian prisons. 

He says he designed the Think Like a Scientist to teach the scientific method to those who don’t necessarily see themselves as students of science, including people who have been incarcerated.

The importance of failure

Heron says one of his aims is to help people understand that failure — in life, as in science — can be a pathway to success.

Heron says that many people in prison have had negative experiences with traditional education methods for a variety of reasons, including learning differences, race, gender, class or neurodiversity. So he avoids structuring his program like a traditional classroom, and instead encourages conversation about the topic he is presenting.

Some of the topics explored are climate change, earthquakes, robotics, space mission and the science of sleep. One of the key points in this course is the idea of embracing failure. Heron says this is a fundamental part of the scientific process.

“Behind the scenes, scientists fail so often that it’s just commonplace,” Heron told Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald. “And really what I want to teach the students in prison, as well as to students at the University of Toronto, [is] that failure is part of the process and it’s something that should be accepted.”

“We don’t just fail and stop, we fail and move forward.”

In part of his curriculum about space exploration, Heron shares a quote from Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques about managing mental health in space, given that when conflict arises, there’s nowhere to go and you’re far away from the people you love.

“After I finish …the whole room is like, ‘that’s prison! Throw in terrible food and you’ve got prison. I could be an astronaut!'”

…

Some of Heron’s former students in the U.K., such as Phoenix Griffin, say they were so inspired by the course they have gone to pursue academic careers of their own. 

“The biggest thing I took away from it was the confidence to try new things,” said Griffin, who is now out of prison and in her third year of university.

“It just gave me a new way of thinking. You learn from your mistakes so if you get it wrong it’s fine. So that was really big for me.”

The September 19, 2025 article has the 18 mins. 5 secs. “Quirks and Quarks” segment embedded there.

Phil Heron’s eponymous website can be found here along with its Think Like A Scientist webpage,

‘Think Like A Scientist’ is a course designed to improve critical thinking and encourage independent thought for students in any educational environment. We use adaptive education practices to increase accessibility to science education.

Thanks for stopping by! We are a collection of educators trying to make science more accessible. We run science outreach programs but also train graduates to be more accessible in their science communication.

…

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects have historically struggled to be inclusive and accessible to students from diverse backgrounds. STEM subjects at school and university have often been rigid in their teaching structure, creating barriers to education for students with more specific (or unrecognised) learning needs.

Furthermore, exciting and important science topics (such as climate change and space exploration) are often communicated in a way that reinforces these barriers. To discuss these issues, and to combat such barriers to education in academia and in the public, I have been working on creating accessible science frameworks for researchers and educators – in the form of the course and workshop Think Like A Scientist.

Think Like A Scientist started in 2017 in the English prison system and has recently featured in prisons in Australia (2024-2025), Spain (2025), and Canada (2023-present). However, we have run the courses in other settings, including schools, adult learning facilities, and youth work (both online and in person). The success of the course is based around the creation of a classroom dynamic that is accessible, inclusive, and relatable to students from all backgrounds.

Fundamentally – science is for everyone.

…

Yes, science is for everyone.

Author Cixin Liu on why Chinese sci-fi (science fiction) like Netflix’s 3 Body Problem is booming

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Yesterday (March 11, 2026) I published a post about a new project being funded by the European Research Council (ERC) titled, SINOFANTASY – Studying Imaginative Otherworlds: Chinese Fantasy Fiction, Literary Politics, and Media Creativity.

Today (March 12, 2026) I have a story about Chinese science fiction from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) radio programme, Ideas by Nicola Luksic, which was published online on September 2, 2025, Note: the radio interview is embedded in the article,

Chinese science fiction is booming, and this makes total sense to globally renowned sci-fi writer Cixin Liu. 

“Science fiction is different from traditional literature in that it can only prosper in the fastest developing, modernizing countries,” said Liu, speaking through a translator from his home in Tianjin — a city about 140km south west of Beijing.

Liu is the author of The Three-Body Problem — a trilogy adapted into a quarter-billion dollar eight-part Netflix series. 

The first installment of Three Body Problem was published in China in 2006, and translated into English in 2014. In 2015 it was the first Chinese book to win the Hugo Award — essentially the Nobel Prize for science fiction. 

…

Luksic\s September 2, 2025 article features some interesting comments from Liu,

Sci-fi tends to thrive in burgeoning empires [emphasis mine], observes Liu, pointing to the birth of popular sci-fi in 9th-century Britain and the flourishing of American sci-fi in the 1950s and ’60s. 

“Now the prosperity of science fiction is happening in China [emphasis mine], which is closely related to China’s rapid modernization,” said Liu. 

“It is impossible for science fiction to prosper in a backward and slow-developing country. The prosperity of science fiction in China should be inseparable from the background of China’s rapid development, and it is this big era that is driving it.”

Liu grew up in the 1960s and witnessed massive social, technological and economic change through the Cultural Revolution to today. 

“The social changes we witnessed from childhood to adulthood were probably the greatest in human history,” he said.

“This is not an exaggeration; the world around us during our childhood and adolescence is totally two worlds, and now Chinese society is still in rapid development, which makes Chinese society full of a very strong futuristic feeling, and this feeling provides a fertile soil for the development of science fiction literature.

“I think this is the most fundamental reason for the popularity of science fiction literature in China.”

…

I wonder if Liu is hinting at or predicting a ‘Chinese century’ or a ‘Chinese millenium’. Liu’s claims seem a little facey to me but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

The September 2, 2025 article delves into the publishing environment in China,

…

All publications in China are subject to review by the General Administration of Press and Publication before they can be sold on the mass market. It has the authority to censor and ban books deemed to be critical of the government, or books that promote what it sees as western values.

But that does not significantly limit the complexity of social issues and layers of story that can be told through sci-fi, according to PhD student Zichuan Gan. Originally from China’s Fujian province he is pursuing his PhD thesis in comparative literature at the University of Toronto. 

“There is a very hot discussion about how Chinese science fiction is inherently non-binary,” said Gan.

“Non-binary not only in the sense of gender, not just two genders, but also in the way we think about things. Instead of putting things into black and white categories like male or female, human or machines, west or east, Chinese science-fiction often shows that reality and life are more mixed and complicated.”

,,,

… he also points to the moral complexity of the main characters in The Three-Body Problem.

“When Western readers read Chinese science fiction, they very often assume like, ‘oh, this work has some political meaning’, but in many cases it’s not black and white, it is not propaganda, and this non-binary feature is worth discussing.”

…

Gan is particularly interested in how ethical questions about the promise of technology are introduced, developed and explored in Chinese sci-fi. Having grown up in a part of China that took on a lot of the world’s e-waste over the past two decades, he is wary of what’s called ‘techno-fetishism.’ Something he defines as “a tendency to view technology as something detached from society, something immaterial, something magical.”

“Technology is not neutral,” said Gan. “We often hear that technology is just a tool and the only thing that matters is how we use technology. But in reality, who designs technology and what purpose it serves all shape the final product.”

…

Here’s one last bit from the September 2, 2025 article and it’s about the history of science fiction in China,

While Chinese sci-fi is flourishing in the 21st century, the genre’s roots in the country go back to the late 1880s and into the early 20th century as the imperial period ended. 

“Everything was in turmoil. The dynasties that had been in place for thousands of years were suddenly crumbling. People didn’t know what to do,” said Ari Heinrich, professor of Chinese literature and media at the Australian National University.

…

“Science fiction was on the table as a way of introducing technology to build better tools for society,” said Heinrich. “So people were deeply invested in a kind of nationalist way in what kind of technologies were out there and science fiction was a way to imagine what those technologies could be.”

…

[see article for image] First published in the 1880s, the fantastical illustrated journal Dianshizhai Pictorial, published three times a month out of Shanghai. (Wikimedia/Free Domain)

“It was an illustrated, widely circulated journal, and you can see these pictures in it of bizarre flying machines, like a ship in the sky with wings, but also, you know, a hot air balloon that is clearly based on an actual one,” said Heinrich. 

“So from a very early period people were writing stories that had all kinds of actual technology in it, even if it was tweaked and made weird, but it was still somehow grounded in a desire to improve Chinese capacity. And you could say that’s still going on now.”

…

If you have time, do check out the September 2, 2025 article and/or the embedded Ideas podcast/radio programme.

I have a few previous posts about Chinese science fiction and Chinese fantasy literature, Note: For those who are unfamiliar with the genres, they are often linked together as a category or in a story,

  • Chen Qiufan, garbage, and Chinese science fiction stories (May 31, 2019 posting)
  • Telling stories about artificial intelligence (AI) and Chinese science fiction; a Nov. 17, 2020 virtual event (November 16, 2020 posting)
  • The science in science fiction television (scroll down to “3 Body Problem (television series)” (June 27, 2024 posting)
  • SINOFANTASY – Studying Imaginative Otherworlds: Chinese Fantasy Fiction, Literary Politics, and Media Creativity (March 11, 2026 posting)

Given how important Korean pop culture has been internationally, it seems surprising that I haven’t stumbled across Korean science fiction/fantasy.

Nanoscale fletching for a safer alternative non-stick coating

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Before the ‘fletching’ explanation (in the news release), there’s the announcement in a July 27, 2025 news item on ScienceDaily,

A new material developed by researchers from University of Toronto Engineering could offer a safer alternative to the non-stick chemicals commonly used in cookware and other applications.

The new substance repels both water and grease about as well as standard non-stick coatings — but it contains much lower amounts of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a family of chemicals that have raised environmental and health concerns.

…

A July 23, 2025 University of Toronto (U of T) news release (also on EurekAlert but published July 25, 2025) by Tyler Irving, which originated the news item goes on to describe nanoscale fletching, Note: Links have been removed,

“The research community has been trying to develop safer alternatives to PFAS for a long time,” says Professor Kevin Golovin, who heads the Durable Repellent Engineered Advanced Materials (DREAM) Laboratory at U of T Engineering. 

“The challenge is that while it’s easy to create a substance that will repel water, it’s hard to make one that will also repel oil and grease to the same degree. Scientists had hit an upper limit to the performance of these alternative materials.” 

Since its invention in the late 1930s, Teflon — also known as polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE — has become famous for its ability to repel water, oil and grease alike. Teflon is part of a larger family of substances known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). 

PFAS molecules are made of chains of carbon atoms, each of which is bonded to several fluorine atoms. The inertness of carbon-fluorine bonds is responsible for the non-stick properties of PFAS. 

However, this chemical inertness also causes PFAS to resist the normal processes that would break down other organic molecules over time. For this reason, they are sometimes called ‘forever chemicals.’ 

In addition to their persistence, PFAS are known to accumulate in biological tissues, and their concentrations can become amplified as they travel up the food chain. 

Various studies have linked exposure to high levels of PFAS to certain types of cancer, birth defects and other health problems, with the longer chain PFAS generally considered more harmful than the shorter ones. 

Despite the risks, the lack of alternatives means that PFAS remain ubiquitous in consumer products: they are widely used not only in cookware, but also in rain-resistant fabrics, food packaging and even in makeup. 

“The material we’ve been working with as an alternative to PFAS is called polydimethylsiloxane or PDMS,” says Golovin. 

“PDMS is often sold under the name silicone, and depending on how it’s formulated, it can be very biocompatible — in fact it’s often used in devices that are meant to be implanted into the body. But until now, we couldn’t get PDMS to perform quite as well as PFAS.” 

To overcome this problem, PhD student Samuel Au developed a new chemistry technique that the team is calling nanoscale fletching [emphasis mine]. The technique is described in a paper published in Nature Communications. 

“Unlike typical silicone, we bond short chains of PDMS to a base material — you can think of them like bristles on a brush,” says Au. 

“To improve their ability to repel oil, we have now added in the shortest possible PFAS molecule, consisting of a single carbon with three fluorines on it. We were able to bond about seven of those to the end of each PDMS bristle. 

“If you were able to shrink down to the nanometre scale, it would look a bit like the feathers that you see around the back end of an arrow, where it notches to the bow. That’s called fletching, so this is nanoscale fletching.” 

Au and the team coated their new material on a piece of fabric, then placed drops of various oils on it to see how well it could repel them. On a scale developed by the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists, the new coating achieved a grade of 6, placing it on par with many standard PFAS-based coatings. 

“While we did use a PFAS molecule in this process, it is the shortest possible one and therefore does not bioaccumulate,” says Golovin. 

“What we’ve seen in the literature, and even in the regulations, is that it’s the longest-chain PFAS that are getting banned first, with the shorter ones considered much less harmful. Our hybrid material provides the same performance as what had been achieved with long-chain PFAS, but with greatly reduced risk.” 

Golovin says that the team is open to collaborating with manufacturers of non-stick coatings who might wish to scale up and commercialize the process. In the meantime, they will continue working on even more alternatives. 

“The holy grail of this field would be a substance that outperforms Teflon, but with no PFAS at all,” says Golovin. 

“We’re not quite there yet, but this is an important step in the right direction.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Nanoscale fletching of liquid-like polydimethylsiloxane with single perfluorocarbons enables sustainable oil-repellency by Samuel Au, Jeremy R. Gauthier, Boran Kumral, Tobin Filleter, Scott Mabury & Kevin Golovin. Nature Communications volume 16, Article number: 6789 (2025) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-62119-9 Published: 23 July 2025

This paper is open access.

$$$, the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA), and the Expert panel for 2025’s The State of Science, Technology, and Innovation in Canada + a November 26, 2025 innovation event

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I’m a little late to a July 11, 2024 Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) announcement of the members for an expert panel the an upcoming report on The State of Science, Technology, and Innovation in Canada, Note: This will be the fifth report

The science, technology, and innovation (STI) landscape has changed rapidly in recent years, as a result of new technologies, ongoing digitization of the economy, a global pandemic that transformed supply chains, and new global security considerations. Since 2006, the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) has been documenting Canada’s standing in this landscape by benchmarking science, technology, and innovation strengths and weaknesses in a series of reports, most recently with Competing in a Global Innovation Economy (2018). At the request of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, CCA has formed an expert panel to provide an updated assessment of developments in the STI ecosystem, the extent to which barriers and knowledge gaps continue to impede innovation, and potential opportunities for Canada. Dr. Ilse Treurnicht, managing partner at TwinRiver Capital, will serve as Chair of the expert panel.

“CCA’s reports on this topic have repeatedly highlighted how Canada has historically excelled in research but struggled with innovation and productivity,” said Dr. Treurnicht. “I look forward to mining the extensive evidence and expertise on the topic to determine how things have evolved over the past few years and what new insights can be gained.”

Dr. Treurnicht is a general partner at North South Ventures, chair of the Public Policy Forum Board, and a director of the Equality Fund and Zentek. She was CEO of MaRS Discovery District in Toronto from 2005-2017. She has an extensive background in scientific research and commercialization, building health and cleantech firms, venture and impact investing, and public policy.

As Chair, Dr. Treurnicht will lead a multidisciplinary group with expertise in academic research, industrial research and development, financing, science and innovation policy, economics, and methodological approaches. The Panel will answer the following question:

What is the state of science, technology, and innovation in Canada, and how does Canada compare internationally?

“We are delighted that Dr. Treurnicht has agreed to take on the role of chair,” said Tijs Creutzberg, President and CEO of the CCA. “This is a timely and important assessment—the data and expert analysis by the panel will inform critical conversations about how Canada can position itself for the future.”

…

The Expert Panel on the State of Science, Technology, and Innovation in Canada:

  • Ilse Treurnicht (chair), Managing Partner, TwinRiver Capital
  • Robert Atkinson, President, ITIF[Information Technology and Innovation Foundation] Centre for Canadian Innovation and Competitiveness
  • Ulrike Bahr-Gedalia, Senior Director, Digital Economy, Technology and Innovation, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
  • Joel Blit, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Waterloo
  • Christina Freyman, Deputy Director, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, National Science Foundation
  • Jean Hamel, Chief Engineer, FPInnovations
  • Kathryn Hayashi, CEO, TRIUMF Innovations; Co-Lead Canadian Medical Isotope Ecosystem
  • Burhan Hussein, NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow, Concordia University
  • Vincent Larivière, UNESCO Chair on Open Science, Université de Montréal
  • Elicia Maine, W.J. VanDusen Professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship and Associate Vice President, Knowledge Mobilization and Innovation, Simon Fraser University
  • Alexandra McCann, Executive Director, ONSIDE
  • R. Sandra Schillo, Associate Professor, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa
  • Jeffrey R. Taylor, Associate Vice-President, Applied Research and Innovation, Nova Scotia Community College
  • Hans-Joachim Wieden, Associate Vice-President Partnerships, Knowledge Mobilization and Innovation, University of Manitoba

Expert panel members serve as individuals and do not represent the views of their organizations of affiliation or employment.

The skill set for members of the expert panel’s would seem to be highly concentrated in the fields of business, commercialization, entrepreneurship, and economics. As for geographic representation, it’s a bit unusual (but not unheard of) for two people (Robert Atkinson and Christina Freyman) from the US to be members of the expert panel. Usually, the American or Americans are peer reviewers. Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same as usual, a preponderance of experts from eastern Canada (emphasis on Ontario and Québec) with a few representatives from western Canada and no one from the North. The male/female split is about 50/50.

I missed the fourth report but of the ones I’ve commented on, this one is my favourite, “The Hedy Lamarr of international research: Canada’s Third assessment of The State of Science and Technology and Industrial Research and Development in Canada (1 of 2)” and “The Hedy Lamarr of international research: Canada’s Third assessment of The State of Science and Technology and Industrial Research and Development in Canada (2 of 2)” both published April 12, 2018.

The State of Science, Technology, and Innovation in Canada report summary is here.

The Walrus Talks Innovation Nation: November 26, 2025 hybrid event

For those unfamiliar with the magazine, from The Walrus’ Wikipedia entry,

The Walrus is an independent, nonprofit Canadian media organization. It is multi-platform and produces an eight-issue-per-year magazine and online editorial content that includes current affairs, fiction, poetry, and podcasts, a national speaker series called The Walrus Talks, and branded content for clients through The Walrus Lab.

…

The first issue was in September 2003. Given how tough the publishing environment is, The Walrus has an impressive survival record. Bravo!

Coming up shortly is their innovation event, from The Walrus Talks event page,

Canadian research to real-world solutions

A new federal government is setting its sights on a stronger, more resilient Canada—and the key to getting there is homegrown innovation.

The Walrus Talks Innovation Nation celebrates the transformative research emerging from Canadian universities that’s already shaping how we live, work, and thrive. From life-saving medical breakthroughs to bold climate solutions and cutting-edge artificial intelligence, university-led research is transforming visionary ideas into tangible solutions that are fueling our economy, improving our well-being, and elevating Canada’s global leadership.

Join us in Ottawa or online for an inspiring evening of rapid-fire talks from award-winning researchers and pioneering experts. In dynamic seven-minute presentations, they’ll share how groundbreaking innovation is creating real-world impact—and how Canadian research is defining tomorrow’s possibilities.

…

Featuring seven-minute talks by:

  • Dr. André Blais, Emeritus Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montreal
  • Dr. Kyle Bobiwash, Assistant Professor and Indigenous Scholar, Department of Entomology, University of Manitoba
  • Dr. Sarah Burch, Executive Director, Waterloo Climate Institute; Professor, Geography and Environmental Management; Canada Research Chair
  • Dr. Graham Carr, President and Vice-Chancellor, Concordia University
  • Rahul G. Krishnan, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto; Canada CIFAR Artificial Intelligence Chair
  • Dr. Catalina Lopez-Correa, Chief Global Strategy Officer, Genome Canada
  • Dr. Gina Ogilvie, MD DrPH FCFP FRSC; Professor and Canada Research Chair, Faculty of Medicine; Associate Director, Women’s Health Research Institute, University of British Columbia
Canadian Museum of Nature,
4th Floor Gallery,
240 McLeod Street, Ottawa
 
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. ET
 
General Admission: $20
Student/Senior: $12
Livestream: Free with registration

….

You can register here.

Toronto’s ArtSci Salon is hosting a couple more October 2025 events

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I have two art/science events and one art/science conference/festival (IRL [in real life or in person] and Zoom) taking place in Toronto, Ontario.

October 16, 2025

There is a closing event for the “I don’t do Math” series mentioned in my September 8, 2025 posting,

…

ABOUT
“I don’t do math” is a photographic series referencing dyscalculia, a learning difference affecting a person’s ability to understand and manipulate number-based information.

This initiative seeks to raise awareness about the challenges posed by dyscalculia with educators, fellow mathematicians, and parents, and to normalize its existence, leading to early detection and augmented support. In addition, it seeks to reflect on and question broader issues and assumptions about the role and significance of Mathematics and Math education in today’s changing socio-cultural and economic contexts. 

The exhibition will contain pedagogical information and activities for visitors and students. The artist will also address the extensive research that led to the exhibition. The exhibition will feature two panel discussions following the opening and to conclude the exhibition.

…

I have some information from an October 12, 2025 ArtSci Salon announcement (received via email) about the “I don’t do math” closing event,

in us for 

Closing Exhibition Panel Discussion
Thursday, October 16 2025
10:00 am -12:00 pm room 309
The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences (or online)

Artist Ann Piché will be in conversation with
Andrew Fiss, Jacqueline Wernimont, Amenda Chow, Ellen Abrams, Michael Barany and JP Ascher

RSVP here

…

October 21, 2025

The second event mentioned in the October 12, 2025 ArtSci Salon announcement, Note 1: A link has been removed, Note 2: This event is part of a larger series,

…

Marco Donnarumma 
Monsters of Grace: bodies, sounds, and machines

Tuesday, October 21, 2025
3:30-4:30 PM
Sensorium Research Loft 
4th floor
Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts
York University

About the talk
What is sound to those who do not hear it? How does one listen to something that cannot be heard? What kind of sensory gaps are created by aiding technologies such as prostheses and artificial intelligence (AI)? As a matter of fact, the majority of non-deaf people hear only partially due to age and personal experience. Still, sound is most often considered through the normalizing viewpoint of the non-deaf. If I become your body, what does sound become for me? Join us to welcome Marco Donnarumma  ahead of his new installation/performance at Paul Cadario Conference Room (Oct 22, 8-10 PM University College [University of Toronto] – 15 King’s College Circle). His talk will focus on this latest work in the context of a largest body of work titled “I Am Your Body,” an ongoing project investigating how normative power is enforced through the technological mediation of the senses.

About the artist:
Marco Donnarumma is an artist, inventor and theorist. His oeuvre confronts normative body politics with uncompromising counter-narratives, where bodies are in tension between control and agency, presence and absence, grace and monstrosity. He is best known for using sound, AI, biosensors, and robotics to turn the body into a site of resistance and transformation. He has presented his work in thirty-seven countries across Asia, Europe, North and South America and is the recipient of numerous accolades, most notably the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education’s Artist of the Science Year 2018, and the Prix Ars Electronica’s Award of Distinction in Sound Art 2017. Donnarumma received a ZER01NE Creator grant in 2024 and was named a pioneer of performing arts with advanced technologies by the major national newspaper Der Standard, Austria. His writings are published in Frontiers in Computer Science, Computer Music Journal and Performance Research, among others, and his newest book chapter, co-authored with Elizabeth Jochum, will appear in Robot Theaters by Routledge. Together with Margherita Pevere he runs the performance group Fronte Vacuo.

…

I wonder if Donnarumma’s “Monsters of Grace: bodies, sounds, and machines’ received any inspiration from “Monsters of Grace” (Wikipedia entry) or if it’s just happenstance, Note: Links have been removed,

Monsters of Grace is a multimedia chamber opera in 13 short acts directed by Robert Wilson, with music by Philip Glass and libretto from the works of 13th-century Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Rumi. The title is said to be a reference to Wilson’s corruption of a line from Hamlet: “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” (1.4.39).

So, the October 21, 2025 event is a talk at York University taking place before the “Who’s afraid of AI? Arts, Sciences, and the Futures of Intelligence” (more below).

“Who’s afraid of AI? Arts, Sciences, and the Futures of Intelligence,” a conference and arts festival at the University of Toronto

The conference (October 23 – 24, 2025) is concurrent with the arts festival (October 19 – 25, 2025) at the University of Toronto. Here’s more from the event homepage on the https://bmolab.artsci.utoronto.ca/ website, Note: BMO stands for Bank of Montreal, Note: No mention of Edward Albee and “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?,”

2025 marks an inflection point in our technological landscape, driven by seismic shifts in AI innovation.

Who’s Afraid of AI? Arts, Science, and the Futures of Intelligence is a week-long inquiry into the implications and future directions of AI for our creative and collective imaginings, and the many possible futures of intelligence. The complexity of these immediate future calls for interdisciplinary dialogue, bringing together artists, AI researchers, and humanities scholars.

In this volatile domain, the question of who envisions our futures is vital. Artists explore with complexity and humanity, while the humanities reveal the histories of intelligence and the often-overlooked ways knowledge and decision-making have been shaped. By placing these voices in dialogue with AI researchers and technologists, Who’s Afraid of AI? examines the social dimensions of technology, questions tech solutionism from a social-impact perspective, and challenges profit-driven AI with innovation guided by public values.

The two-day conference at the University of Toronto’s University College anchors the week and features panels and debates with leading figures in these disciplines, including a keynote by 2025 Nobel Laureate in Physics Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI” and 2025 Neil Graham Lecturer in Science, Fei-Fei Li, an AI pioneer.

Throughout the week, the conversation continues across the city with:

  • AI-themed and AI powered art shows and exhibitions
  • Film screenings
  • Innovative theatre
  • Experimental music

Who’s Afraid of AI? demonstrates that Toronto has not only shaped the history of AI but continues to prepare its future.Step into this changing landscape and be part of this transformative dialogue — register today!

Organizing Committee:

Pia Kleber, Professor-Emerita, Comparative Literature, and Drama, U of T
Dirk Bernhardt-Walther, Department of Psychology, Program Director, Cognitive Science, U of T
David Rokeby, Director, BMO Lab, Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, U of T
Rayyan Dabbous, PhD candidate, Centre for Comparative Literature, U of T

…

This looks like a pretty interesting programme (if you’re mainly focused on AI and the creative arts), from the event homepage on the https://bmolab.artsci.utoronto.ca/ website, Note 1: All times are ET, Note 2: I have not included speakers’ photos,

The conference will explore core questions about AI such as its capabilities, possibilities and challenges, bringing their unique research, creative practice, scholarship and experience to the discussion. Speakers will also engage in an interdisciplinary conversation on topics including AI’s implications for theories of mind and embodiment, its influence on creation, innovation, and discovery, its recognition of diverse perspectives, and its transformation of artistic, cultural, political and everyday practices.

Thursday, October 23, 2025

Mind the World

9 AM | Clark Reading Room, University College – 15 King’s College Circle

What are the merits and limits of artificial intelligence within the larger debate on embodiment? This session brings together an artist who has given AI a physical dimension, a neuroscientist who reckons with the biological neural networks inspiring AI, and a humanist knowledgeable of the longer history in which the human has tried to decouple itself from its bodily needs and wants.

Suzanne Kite
Director, The Wihanble S’a Center for Indigenous AI

James DiCarlo
Director, MIT Quest for Intelligence

N. Katherine Hayles
James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emerita of Literature

Staging AI

11 AM | Clark Reading Room, University College – 15 King’s College Circle

How is AI changing the arts? To answer this question, we bring together theatre directors and artists who have made AI the main driving plot of their stories and those who opted to keep technology secondary in their productions.

Kay Voges
Artistic Director, Schauspiel Köln

Roland Schimmelpfennig
Playwright and Director, Berlin

Hito Steyerl
Artist, Filmmaker and Writer, Berlin

Recognizing ‘Noise’

2 PM | Clark Reading Room, University College – 15 King’s College Circle

How can we design a more inclusive AI? This session brings together an artist who has worked with AI and has been sensitive to groups who may be excluded by its practice, an inclusive design scholar who has grappled with AI’s potential for personalized accessibility, and a humanist who understands the longer history on pattern and recognition from which emerged AI.

Marco Donnarumma
Artist, Inventor, Theorist, Berlin

Jutta Treviranus
Director, OCADU [Ontario College of Art & Design University],
Inclusive Design Research Centre

Eryk Salvaggio
Media Artist and Tech Policy Press Fellow, Rochester

Art, Design, and Application are the Solution to AI’s Charlie Chaplain Problem

4 PM | Hart House Theatre – 7 Hart House Circle

Daniel Wigdor
CoFounder and Chief Executive Officer, AXL

Keynote and Neil Graham Lecture in Science

4:15 PM | Hart House Theatre – 7 Hart House Circle

Fei-Fei Li
Sequoia Professor in Computer Science, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI

Geoffrey Hinton
2024 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Professor Emeritus in Computer Science

…

Friday, October 24, 2025

Life with AI

9 AM | Clark Reading Room, University College – 15 King’s College Circle

How do machine minds relate to human minds? What can we learn from one about the other? In this session we interrogate the impact of AI on our understanding of human knowledge and tool-making, from the perspective of philosophy, computer science, as well as the arts.

Jeanette Winterson
Author, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Great Britain

Leif Weatherby
Professor of German and Director of Digital Theory Lab at
New York University

Jennifer Nagel
Professor, Philosophy, University of Toronto Mississauga

Discovery & In/Sight

11 AM | Clark Reading Room, University College – 15 King’s College Circle

This session explores creative practice through the lens of innovation and cultural/scientific advancement. An artist who creates with critical inspiration from AI joins forces with an innovation scholar who investigates the effects of AI on our decision making, as well as a philosopher of science who understands scientific discovery and inference as well as their limits.

Vladan Joler
Visual Artist and Professor of
New Media, University of Novi Sad [Serbia]

Alán Aspuru-Guzik
Professor of Chemistry and Computer Science, University of Toronto

Brian Baigrie
Professor, Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science & Technology, University of Toronto

Social history & Possible Futures

2 PM | Clark Reading Room, University College – 15 King’s College Circle

How does AI ownership and its private uses coexist within a framework of public good? It brings together an artist who has created AI tools to be used by others, an AI ethics researcher who has turned algorithmic bias into collective insight, and a philosopher who understands the connection between AI and the longer history of automation and work from which AI emerged.

Memo Akten
Artist working with Code, Data and AI, UC San Diego

Beth Coleman
Professor, Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology, University of Toronto

Matteo Pasquinelli
Professor, Philosophy and Cultural Heritage Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia [Italy]

A Theory of Latent Spaces | Conclusion: Where do we go from here?

4 PM | Clark Reading Room, University College – 15 King’s College Circle

Antonio Somaini, curator of the remarkable ‘World through AI’ exhibition at the Museé du Jeu de Paume in Paris, will discuss the way in which ‘latent spaces’, a core characteristic of current AI models as “meta-archives” that shape profoundly our relation with the past.

Following this, we will engage in a larger discussion amongst the various conference speakers and attendees on how we can, as artists, humanities scholars, scientists and the general public, collectively imagine and cultivate a future where AI serves the public good and enhances our individual and collective lives.”

Antonio Somaini
Curator and Professor, Sorbonne Nouvelle [Université Sorbonne Nouvelle]

…

You can register here for this free conference, although, there’s now a waitlist for in person attendance. Do not despair, there’s access by Zoom,

In case you can’t make it in person, join us by Zoom:

Link: https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/82603012955

Webinar ID: 826 0301 2955

Passcode: 512183

I have not forgotten the festival, from the event homepage on the https://bmolab.artsci.utoronto.ca/ website,

Events Also Happening

October 22 | 2 PM | Student Forum and AI Commentary Contest Award | Paul Cadario Conference Room, University College – 15 King’s College Circle

October 22 | 8 – 10 PM | Marco Donnarumma, world première of a new performance installation | Paul Cadario Conference Room, University College – 15 King’s College Circle

October 23 | 2 PM | Jeanette Winterson: Arts & AI Talk | Paul Cadario Conference Room, University College – 15 King’s College Circle

October 24 | 7 PM | The Kiss by Roland Schimmelpfennig | The BMO Lab, University College – 15 King’s College Circle (Note: we are scheduling more performances. Check back for more info soon!)

October 25 | 8 PM | AI Cabaret featuring Jason Sherman, Rick Miller, Cole Lewis, BMO Lab projects and more| Crow’s Theatre, Nada Ristich Studio-Gallery – 345 Carlaw Avenue..

Get tickets for the AI Cabaret

(Use promo code AICAB for 100% discount)

Enjoy!

Year of Quantum Across Canada Conference October 6 – 9, 2025, Waterloo, Ontario (call for submissions deadline: Sept. 19, 2025)

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A September 9, 2025 Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) notice (received via email) announces a quantum conference and call for posters,

Join leading quantum researchers at the Year of Quantum Across Canada Conference that will highlight advances in quantum information theory and applications. The conference is co-hosted by the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) and Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics from October 6 to 9, 2025.

  • Learn about and share the latest advances in quantum information theory and applications.
  • Find opportunities to collaborate with local, Canadian and international quantum researchers.
  • Celebrate 100 years since the initial development of quantum mechanics this International Year of Quantum.

IQC and Perimeter Institute invite all scientists who are interested in:

  • Quantum metrology
  • Quantum simulation and quantum advantage
  • Quantum error-correction and fault tolerance
  • Quantum complexity and algorithms
  • Quantum communication and networks
  • Quantum cryptography
  • Quantum information in quantum matter and quantum gravity

Register Today

Registration Deadlines: 

  • In-Person: September 22 [2025] at 23:59 ET
  • Virtual: October 6 [2025] at 23:59 ET

We are hosting a poster session on Tuesday, October 7 [2025]. Abstract submission deadline is September 19 [2025] at 23:59 ET.

Please forward this email to your colleagues who would be interested in attending. Questions can be directed to mail to: iqc.events@uwaterloo.ca

I have more information about the call for poster submissions, from the Year of Quantum Across Canada’s Call for Abstracts webpage,

Submission deadline: Sep[t] 19, 2025, 11:59 PM [ET]

The Year of Quantum Across Canada Symposium will be hosting a poster session on Tuesday, Oct 7th [2025] at IQC. Poster submissions are welcome and will be reviewed by the program committee. Some posters may be selected to present as a contributed talk. If you are interested in your poster being considered for a talk, please indicate this on the submission form.

NOTE: You must be in attendance at the Symposium in Waterloo to present a poster and/or contributed talk. We encourage you to register for the Symposium as soon as possible as space is limited. You will be advised if your poster has been accepted before the registration fee payment deadline.

If you have questions about the Call for Abstracts with respect to your research, please contact Alex May (amay@perimeterinstitute.ca).

Any logistical questions about the application process, the website or decision timelines should be directed to conferences@perimeterinstitute.ca

Then, there’s this from the Year of Quantum Across Canada’s Speaker List webpage, Note: Two confirmed speakers from Canada to “celebrate and aim to strengthen the quantum information science community in Canada and beyond, by bringing together leading Canadian researchers as well as members of the broader quantum community” as per the conference homepage. Maybe they’ll get a few more before October 2025?,

Speaker List

Confirmed Speakers:

Christian Bauer (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
Alexandre Blais (Université de Sherbrooke)
Sergey Bravyi (IBM Research – Thomas J. Watson Research Center)
Nikolas Breuckmann (University of Bristol)
Soonwon Choi (MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology])
Zohreh Davoudi (University of Maryland)
Matthew Fisher (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Dakshita Khurana (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
Aleksander Kubica (Yale University)
Hank Lamm (Fermilab)
Laura Mancinska (University of Copenhagen)
Antonio Mezzacapo (IBM)
John Preskill (Caltech)
Martin Savage (University of Washington)
Brian Swingle (Brandeis University)
Nathan Wiebe (University of Toronto)
Yu-Xiang Yang (The University of Hong Kong)

Moving on, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) took a slightly more celebratory approach to their launch of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology 2025 (IYQ 2025) in February 2025 (see my January 31, 2025 posting).

You can find the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology 2025 (IYQ 2025) website here. It provides information about a plethora of quantum events in countries around the world along with this video embedded here too,

Happy International Year of Quantum Science and Technology 2025 (YQ 2025)!