RMeS Workshop | Environmental Media & More-than-Human Infrastructures
Environmental Media & More-than-Human Infrastructures
Making Sense of Sensor-Environments
21 & 22 April 2023 | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
When: 21 & 22 April 2023
Where: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Organizers: This event is organised by Dr. Sebastian Scholz, Dr. Marek Jancovic and Dr. Jolanda Veldhuis in collaboration with Waag Futurelab, and financed by a CLUE+ Connected World grant.
For: PhD Candidates and Research master students who are a member of a Dutch Graduate Research School (onderzoekschool).
For ECTS: 1 ECTS (for participation, conference report and/or panel moderation)
Registration for the Workshop on Day 1: please send an email to rmes@rug.nl
Registration for Symposium on Day 2: via this link
(NOTE: participation Day 1 limited / Day 2 open to anyone)
Join us for an interdisciplinary symposium on sensing practices, environmental media and more-than-human infrastructures!
With contributions by Christoph Borbach, Clemens Driessen, John Durham Peters, Ksenia Fedorova, Daniela van Geenen, Max Kanderske, Gwen Ottinger, Lisa Parks, Michelle Westerlaken and others.
Sensor-generated data – such as information about air quality – has immediate impact on our everyday lives. Micro-technologies of sensing have pervaded almost all areas of public and private life. Sensors enable and sustain so-called smart cities and smart homes, monetizing public and domestic space as data capital. Understanding how this data is being used to shape policies and how we, as a society, can take ownership of it can create a stronger connection to our environment and place us in a better position in the conversation with governments and businesses. Sensor literacy is a matter of urgent societal relevance.
On Day 1, we will conduct a collaborative workshop focused on experimenting with different ways of sensing the environment. This will be a hands-on activity: We will do outdoor field research in the Amsterdam Buitenveldert area, engage with the theme of air quality in an embodied way and work with Sodaq air quality sensors. (Spaces are limited, please register soon!) The academic symposium on Day 2 will serve as an interactive platform for exchange, dialog and learning. Leading international researchers will present their on-going projects on sensor technology, and discuss sensor cultures and justice, environmental sensing networks and emerging media infrastructures of sense-making that expand beyond the realm of human perception.
The goal of the symposium is to reconsider what it means to ‘think ecologically’ and critically interrogate sensing technology and its onto-epistemological challenges, but also to collaboratively generate constructive ways of conceptualizing sensors: Does sensing technology have any viable tactical potential for commoning? Can it foster and contribute to sustainable (media) practices? Can we reclaim sensors to build new – socially, culturally and environmentally equitable – futures? What open tools are needed to realize those futures, and how can they be developed quickly, cheaply and accessibly? How can we generate productive aesthetic approaches to and new uses of environmental media and sensing technology?
