Call for Papers: Techno-Ecologies Publication (AS No.11). --------------->
CALL FOR PAPERS Acoustic Space (No 11): Techno-Ecologies Techno-Ecologies is the theme of the next issue (No 11) of the Acoustic Space, peer-reviewed journal for research on art, science, technology and society. It will be published by RIXC and MPLab / Art Research Lab of Liepaja University, in Riga and Liepaja, 2012. * concept Everyday life has become so intimately interwoven with complex technological ecologies that we can no longer consider technology as the alienating 'other'. A more careful consideration of the relationships between the natural and the artificial is required. The idea that we 'inhabit' technological ecologies emphasises our connectedness to our environment (material, natural, technological), and our dependence on the resources available there (material, energetic, biological, cultural). Mastering these conditions is vital to our survival on this planet. Techno-Ecologies builds upon the concerns of Félix Guattari (the French philosopher and co-conspirator of Gilles Deleuze) about the lack of an integrated perspective on the dramatic techno-scientific transformations the Earth has undergone in recent times. Guattari urges us to take three crucially important 'ecological registers' into account: the environment, social relations, and human subjectivity. The Techno-Ecologies publication will develop a discussion between artists, theorists, designers, environmental scientists, technologists, responsible entrepreneurs and activists to extend this perspective. Diversity, social and ecological sustainability, and a much deeper understanding of technology as an extension of our desires are the building blocks that we want to bring together to build a perspective that can help us chart less hazardous routes into the future than the ones currently travelled. (Please refer to the full concept text written by Eric Kluitenberg below) The techno-ecological perspective was discussed and expanded further during the interdisciplinary academic conference, "TECHNO-ECOLOGIES: Inhabiting the deep technological spheres of everyday life", which took place in Riga, Latvia, November 4-5, 2011. (http://rixc.lv/11). The forthcoming publication will include papers presented at this conference, but will not be limited to it and is open for contributions by other authors. * Call for papers We welcome submissions - articles, conceptual and artistic texts, conference papers and visual contributions - from artists, theorists, designers, environmental scientists, technologists, activists and other lateral thinkers who are engaged with issues of social and ecological sustainability, and who are interested in a deeper understanding of technology. Deadline for submitting full papers - February 15, 2012. We welcome to submit abstracts first. Deadline for abstracts - January 31, 2012. Length of texts: between 2500 and 8000 words (i.e. 20 000 - 45 000 characters). Submitted texts should include: 1) short abstract (ca. 250 words, i.e. 1500 characters), 2) 5 - 6 keywords, and 3) short bio of the author (ca. 100 words, i.e. 800 characters). References should be either in APA or Harvard style. Language for submissions: English (all texts will be translated into Latvian as well). * Contact and submissions Please send abstracts and texts to the editors: Eric Kluitenberg <epk (at) xs4all.nl>, and Rasa Smite <rasa (at) rixc.lv> ------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------ * Concept: TECHNO-ECOLOGIES Inhabiting the deep technological spheres of everyday life Technology can no longer be understood as an alterity (otherness) that stands in opposition to biological and social relationships. Going about our regular practices of everyday living we inhabit complex technological spheres of life that require a different, a more 'ecological' understanding of our relationship to technology. In analogy to the 'deep ecology' movement, philosopher David Rottenberg recently suggested that the notion of 'deep technology' relates user and context in an ecological, symbiotic way [1]. Similarly, the idea of 'inhabiting' technological ecologies emphasises our connectedness to our environment (material, natural, technological) and our dependence on the resources available in that environment (material, energetic, biological, cultural). Mastering these conditions, which necessarily transcend the personal experience, is vital to our survival on this planet. The concept of technological ecologies as spheres of life invites a more careful consideration of the relationships between the natural and the artificial - or even the collapse of the boundaries between them - in favour of looking at such techno-ecologies as complex assemblages, comparable to how for instance philosopher Bruno Latour treats them. Our perspective should, however, not be limited to these technological 'actors'. In The Three Ecologies (1989) Felix Guattari expresses his worries about the intense techno-scientific transformations the Earth is undergoing. Guattari observes an ecological disequilibrium generated by these transformations, which leads to a general reduction of human and social relationships and the sustainability of the living environment. According to Guattari it is the relationship between subjectivity and its exteriority - be it social, animal, vegetable or cosmic - that is compromised, in a sort of general movement of 'implosion'. He warns against a merely partial realisation of the severity of these changes and inadequate responses that may come from a purely technocratic perspective. It is the ways of living on this planet that are in question, according to Guattari, in the context of the acceleration of techno-scientific mutations and exponential demographic growth. Only an 'ethico-political' articulation 'between' the three ecological registers that he identifies - the environment, social relations, and human subjectivity - would be able to clarify these questions. The paradox is that these techno scientific transformations are both the source of the current ecological disequilibrium, and even so the only realistic means to address and potentially resolve the problems they create. Somehow, however, we cannot seem to make them work. Siegfried Zielinski has pointed out that one important fallacy to overcome is to view the course of technological development as 'progress', or to consider our current state of technological sophistication as the best possible and necessary outcome of a predictable historical trajectory. In his 'Variantology' project Zielinski makes a radical break with any idea of technological progress or determinism [2]. The Variantological approach emphasises that at any point technological development (and human development along with it) is contingent (it can go anywhere). Variantology does not look for 'master media' or 'imperative vanishing points'. Instead it seeks out the moments of greatest possible diversity and individual variation. It operates in carefully chosen periods of particularly intensive and necessary work on the media,# across different cultural and physical geographies - exploring the 'deep time relationships of the arts, sciences and technologies'. Finally, an exploration of inhabitable technological ecologies needs to take into account the phantasmatic dimension of technological apparatuses and systems. Such a more psychographic understanding of the depth of technology aims to uncover hidden, or not immediately visible or discernible psychological layers attached to the technological apparatuses - perhaps we might refer to this as a 'technological unconscious' - that underpin human experience and our subjective ties with technological environments. It considers technology not only as an extension of the body but also as an extension of our deepest desires. It explores the void between the 'real' and that what is mediated by systems of language, media, and technology. It acknowledges the existence of a 'third body' (Klaus Theweleit) [3] that inserts itself between us and the (technological) objects. This third body only emerges in our interaction with these objects, but it is neither held by us nor by the objects alone. Beyond questions of finite resources and obvious forms of pollution and environmental degradation, attempts to develop sustainable relationships with technology and our living environment should take into account far more complex layerings of the way we inhabit our current technological ecologies. Such a deeply informed ethical and philosophical perspective is indispensable if we hope to find less hazardous routes into the future. Notes: 1 - www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.10/rothenberg.if.html 2 - http://entropie.digital.udk-berlin.de/wiki/Variantology 3 - www.debalie.nl/player/balieplayerpopper.jsp?movieid=93125&videofragmentsid=ank2 Eric Kluitenberg, Amsterdam, June 6, 2011 _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
