Digital Ecologies 3 – Machine / Material / Land

The Digital Ecologies 3 Symposium examines the complex material relationship between technology, society, food and energy production and the land. It is informed by Yuk Hui’s notion that the essence of contemporary technology is to ‘consider everything as a standing reserve, as a resource to be ordered and exploited’. Along these lines Hito Steyerl identifies AI generative media as ‘Mean Images’ and looks at their reliance on ‘vast infrastructures of polluting hardware and menial and disenfranchised labour’.

We must scrutinise the material and ecological cost of production, extraction, AI and technological acts, and seek to reimagine our relationship with technology, not as a tool for exploitation, but as a means of seeing things differently and fostering care and attention towards all entities.

Over the two days, papers will be presented in three strands performance and encounters, workshops and screenings with plenty of opportunities to meet and talk.

The Keynote Speakers
Professor Simon O’Sullivan and artist Miranda Whall.
Participants 
Daniel Shanken, Michelle Atherton, Jenny Dunseath, Warren and Moseley, Megan Broadmeadow, Libby Bove, Cherry Truluck, Frances Disley Evans, Luca Scheunpflug, Sniazhana Diduc, Conrad Moriarty-Cole, Stephen Cornford, Andy Weir, Rolien Hoyng, Niya B, Max Dovey, Steve Klee, Mike Stubbs,  Anna Mundet, Harry Meadows, Geza Csosz, Claire Loder, Sam Wilkins, Dave Webb, Charlie Tweed

The conference strands that we will explore are:
· Machine Futures
· Landscape, Ritual & Technology
· Soil as Place, Internet as Place-less-ness

On the evening of the 24th there is the opportunity to walk in procession to the nearby Roseberry Road Studios for screenings, performances and a chance to socialise. There is an optional Feast at Roseberry Road Studios in the evening, for which there is a charge and an opportunity to pay-forward to enable others to attend.

About the Feast
Sonny’s Kitchen are Gaz and Sarah Philips. Gaz became co-director of an award-winning street food & hospitality business, catering over 250 events & markets in London. Sarah set up her own non-profit arts organisation (Caravan Arts) and is now doing her PhD in contemporary art and migration. Since moving to Frome, Somerset they’ve both worked in some top restaurants, and been asked to cook for parties, events & weddings. Sonny’s kitchen will provide a menu of carefully selected locally sourced food for the evening Feast.