Rematerialising the Digital: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue

Schedule

Wed Feb 08 2023 at 03:00 pm to 05:00 pm

Location

MacLaren Stuart Room, Old College, The University of Edinburgh | Edinburgh, SC

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Re-materialising the Digital: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Actions, Challenges and Possible Futures (in-person and online)
About this Event

A hybrid event presented by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) and the Centre for Data, Culture and Society (CDCS) at the University of Edinburgh.

As we become increasingly immersed in life online, the material reality of toxic harms to the lives and landscapes remains hidden from view. As we know, every stage of the process of producing, distributing, using, and finally disposing of digital devices creates a toxic legacy that has yet to be fully reckoned with. Invariably, the highly polluting stages in the production of digital technologies, from digging for ‘conflict minerals’ to dumping of digital debris in landfills, form the livelihoods of marginalized communities in developing countries of Africa, Asia and South America, where lax regulations enable the continued exploitation of vulnerable people and places. Moreover, the true environmental costs of sprawling energy-hungry and water-thirsty data centers, and the subterranean/marine wires and cables that give “life” to the Cloud, are becoming areas of study in themselves, through ‘critical infrastructure studies’ for example (e.g. Easterling 2014; Parks and Starosielski 2015). More broadly we can ask: what are the ways in which the digital and the virtual are transforming the material and the embodied?

Of course, the ‘digital’ was always inextricable from the ‘material’. The point of ‘re-materialising’, however, is to bring to critical attention the environmental and social burdens of our everyday, digitally-dependent lives. Re-materialising the digital therefore acknowledges the complexity of such problems, as being bound up with technoscientific, socio-cultural, and ethico-political issues. With acknowledged experts from around the world, this cross-disciplinary workshop invites you to engage in an afternoon of knowledge-exchange and conversation, to consider potential critical approaches, policy implications, and practical solutions to the problems of re-materialising the digital.

Join us on Wednesday 8 February 2023 in the MacLaren Stuart Room in Old College at the University of Edinburgh from 3-5pm, or online via Zoom. This will be a hybrid event. The Zoom link will be provided to registered participants.

List of speakers:

1) Robert Porter (Research Director, Communication, Culture and Media Studies, Ulster University)

2) Chris Speed (Director, Edinburgh Futures Institute, University of Edinburgh)

3) Sean Smith (Chair of Future Construction, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh)

4) Michelle Keown (Professor of Pacific and South Island Studies, Dept. of English, University of Edinburgh)

5) Mark Paterson (Associate Professor, Dept. of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh)

6) Vassilis Galanos (Teaching Fellow, Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, University of Edinburgh)

7) Dipali Mathur (Digital Scholarship Postdoctoral Fellow, IASH, University of Edinburgh)


Light snacks and non-alcoholic beverages will be provided.


The discussions can draw on but are not limited to the following topics:

• E-waste management as a political, social and cultural problem

• What kind of solutions are sustainable and affordable? What are the problems in implementing them?

• Cloud infrastructures (data centers/cables and wires) and their environmental and human costs

• AI ethics (ethical data sets and machine learning programmes) and the underlying physical architectures and infrastructures

• Policy and governance regulating big tech/industry/digital toxicities (e-waste, mining etc.)

• Sustainable and ethical design and innovation – challenges and triumphs

• The circular economy bill as ‘solution’

• Colonial histories of annexation, extraction, and exploitation supporting the new global digital architecture


This is a free event, which means we overbook to allow for no-shows and to avoid empty seats. While we generally do not have to turn people away, this does mean we cannot guarantee everyone a place. Admission is on a first come, first served basis.

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Where is it happening?

MacLaren Stuart Room, Old College, The University of Edinburgh, South Bridge, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

Tickets

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Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH)

Host or Publisher Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH)

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