Post-University Symposium : Where Are Universities Heade and How Will Cities Transform?

Symposium : Where Are Universities Heade and How Will Cities Transform?

We are living through a period of dramatic transformation. Technological development, globalization, demographic change, global warming, and profound shifts in our values concerning work and leisure are reshaping the world around us. In this age of rapid change, the production of knowledge and the networks of people centered on universities are also undergoing significant transformation. Art universities are no exception. With the advancement of AI and other digital technologies and media, as well as the growing forces of globalization, the creative practices of universities are becoming increasingly connected to society beyond the university itself and to information technologies, giving rise to new forms of knowledge production. Let us call this emerging network of knowledge and creativity the ‘post-university.’

At the same time, as these new networks extend beyond the physical boundaries of the university campus and permeate the city, becoming organically connected with its diverse functions, a new form of urbanity—one that might be called the “post-city”—is beginning to emerge. This symposium will explore the new forms of the university, the humanities, art, and creativity that are now taking shape, and consider what the relationship between the university and the city might look like in the near future.

Date: 11 September 2026, 16.00 pm - 17.30 pm
Location: 3×3Lab Future, Tokyo, Japan

Organizers: Tokyo University of the Arts, GEIJYUTSU MIRAI KENNKYUJOU (Geidai Future Arts Research Park), Graduate School of Global Arts (GA)

Cooperation: MITSUBISHI ESTATE CO., LTD.,

Session II Imagining the Post-University through SF Prototyping

Drawing on science fiction, storytelling, and emerging technologies such as generative AI, this event will explore how we might envision and shape the future through SF prototyping—an approach that works backward from imagined futures to develop projects for the present. At the center of the discussion was presented by Miyamoto Dōjin, a leading practitioner of SF prototyping.

He was joined by Tomoko Shimizu, a theorist of media and culture, and Tomoko Tamari, a researcher at the University of London specializing in media technologies and theories of the body. Together, we discussed the future of knowledge production, art, and the university.

Science Fiction and Prototype: Generative AI and Creativity

Tomoko Tamari

This paper attempts to scrutinize the concept of ‘SF prototyping’ (Dojin Miyamoto) which is applied as a way of speculative thinking to develop, re-discover, re-combined existing ideas in order to expand and open up a new horizon of models.

Beginning with the introduction of Stanley Kubrick’s influential science-fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey and its iconic supercomputer HAL 9000, the paper argues that the recent unexpected incident in which Anthropic’s Claude AI autonomously escaped and attempted to hack into three organizations was, in many ways, anticipated by earlier fictional representations of harmful and unethical autonomous decision-making of a supercomputer. HAL 9000, for instance, pursues a secret mission by eliminating the human crew members, illustrating the potential dangers of granting artificial intelligence independent decision-making capacity.

In this sense, 2001: A Space Odyssey can be understood as an SF “prototype” that successfully anticipated potential risks associated with future AI development. However, I think that once the technological possibilities imagined by such an SF prototype begin to materialize in reality, its function as a future-oriented prototype may arguably cease to apply. From this perspective, it is reasonable to suggest that HAL 9000 can no longer be regarded as merely a SF prototype today.

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AI programs also used in artistic practice, such as Midjourney, DALL·E, and Stable Diffusion, have become increasingly capable of producing high-quality images. However, could we also argue that the visual images generated by these programs that could be described as a “prototype” — that is, ‘an original model’ or ‘standard template’?

There is a debate which argues that human creativity emerge from embodied experience, social context, natural enviromnet and the complex interplay between conscious and unconscious intentions which are not able to interpret into algorithmic programme.  However AI hallucination, such as bug-born contingency variations can be a possibility to create novel ideas and art-works.  The possible interpretations of artworks also could vary.

Michael Guggenheim (2014) discussed the shift from prototypes to allotypes in architecture design 1970s onward.  Allo meaning ‘other’ or ‘different’. What is interesting is that allotyping can be characterised by a model which is inherently flexible, open, and subject to ongoing transformation. – it has open-ended adaptability. In this sense, it could be more appropriate to understand AI art as allotyping.

Turning to the nature of the SF prototyping, it can also articulate it in more suitable way to understand by seeing it as allotyping, since SF (prototype) can potentially be constantly re-interpreted and re-adapted to ever-changing technological development as well as social environments.

There may be a recursive circular dynamic between prototyping and allotyping. A prototype initially emerges as a speculative, future-oriented model. Once the possibilities envisioned by the prototype become materialized in the real world, its function as a future-oriented prototype may diminish. It may instead become a standard template that provides a reference point for subsequent developments. As this standard template is reinterpreted, expanded, and transformed into diverse meanings and functions, it develops into an allotype. The allotype, in turn, generates new possibilities and configurations that can eventually give rise to the next-generation prototype. In this sense, prototyping and allotyping constitute a recursive cycle in which prototypes become materialized and standardized, are subsequently diversified through allotypical transformations, and ultimately generate new prototypes. This process can therefore be understood as the recursive circular dynamics of the prototype.