Knowledge Media Design Institute

2026 Franklin Lecture at the University of Toronto
… After the Ellipses: Loss, Lacuna, and Drift in Human and Machine Understanding

What is omitted is not simply absent—it is constitutive of meaning.

This year’s Franklin Lecture brings together Daniel Hardt and Nanna Bonde Thylstrup for a conversation on the ontologies of human and machine understanding.

Drawing on computational linguistics and science and technology studies, the lecture examines ellipsis, loss, and lacuna as fundamental features of how knowledge is produced, structured, and interpreted. It asks what it means to read and respond to such dynamics in systems that neither breathe nor inhabit a body—and what is at stake when these systems increasingly mediate our encounters with information, memory, and meaning.

CHANGE OF VENUE
Please note that the venue for the 2026 Franklin Lecture has changed. The lecture will now take place at:
📍 Northrop Frye Hall, Room MF003
73 Queen’s Park Crescent East, University of Toronto

Date and time remain unchanged.

📅 May 11, 2026
🕔 5:00–7:00 p.m.

🔗 Registration: Eventbrite LINK IN OUR BIO

Research Talk @ KMDI - Link in our bio
Sensing Bread: Food, Neuroscience, and Design Research
with Maciej Chmara

What happens when bread-making meets neuroscience and design research?

In this performative lecture, designer and researcher Maciej Chmara explores cooking as a site of scientific inquiry, embodied cognition, and sensory experience. The session features live sonification of microbial fermentation and concludes with a guided multisensory sourdough tasting.

📅 March 19, 2026
🕑 2:00 PM
📍 KMDI – Robarts Library, Room 7020
130 St George St, Toronto

The GLAM Incubator has opened its 2025 Call for Projects, inviting creative and innovative proposals for small-scale, short-term projects in the GLAM sector. The deadline for submission is August 1, 2025. For more details, visit their website: (https://glam.ischool.utoronto.ca/?page_id=2)

Call for Projects « The purpose of the GLAM Incubator is to connect GLAM organizations (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) with expertise and resources from the University of Toronto and industry partners. The Incubator is dedicated to prototyping and supporting small-scale, experimental, and innovative proje...