critical infrastructure lab

Talk in the panel BP3: Reimagining Data (in Bangalore location), Friday 09:00 CEST, 12:30 IST, room B-RM R305.

The proposed panel brings together scholars and artists for methodological reflections on data walk as an empirical method and social practice. Data walk as a method emerged recently as a creative method employed by academics and artists for a variety of purposes from public engagement and project-based education to artistic research, or as a means of data collection for straightforward empirical studies. Loitering in urban public spaces of data infrastructures as a way to check our assumptions about more abstract notions of data power is the sensitivity that may connect these approaches. Nonetheless, the sensitivities go back historically and philosophically to the works of Walter Benjamin on the flaneur, the Situationist International on psychogeography, and to hacker practices such as wardriving.

After the fervent period of experimentation that describes the last few years, does it make sense now to discuss classical methodological issues such as canonisation, normative criteria, or the affordances and limitations of the interpretative power of the data walk methodology? In other words, what is a programmatic data walk? What is a successfully performed data walk? What data walks are suitable to address what epistemological questions? Which uses are there for data walks in academic life and artistic research?

A symposium on the topic is to be held Sprint 2025 at the University of Utrecht, bringing the results of the discussion at the data power conference to dedicated practitioners.

More about the Data Power conference and the programme.

Clingendael en Internet Society nodigen je uit voor een online paneldiscussie op maandag 8 juli over huidige stand van zaken rond digitale soevereiniteit. Panelleden zullen met elkaar én met deelnemers in gesprek gaan over de vraag: “Digitale soevereiniteit: zin of onzin?” Ofwel: wat is het nut en de noodzaak van digitale soevereiniteit? Wat zijn de belangrijksteuitdagingen om het in de praktijk te brengen?

Programma

Het panel bestaat uit

• Bert Hubert, Onafhankelijk technologie-expert
• Corinne Cath, Technische Universiteit Delft
• Martijn Lucassen, Ministerie van Economische Zaken en Klimaat
• Paul Brand, Stratix
• Diana Krieger, Soverin (ntb)

De sessie wordt ingeleid door Ruben Brave (Internet Society, internetpionier) en gemodereerd door Maaike Okano-Heijmans (Senior Research Fellow Clingendael, programmaleider Geopolitics of Technology and Digitalisation)

Date: 08 July 2024 14:00 – 14:45

For more information about the event, please check Clingendael website.

You can sign up here (in Dutch)

The GIG-ARTS (Global Internet Governance Actors, Regulations, Transactions and Strategies) conference is a European annual multidisciplinary academic venue to present and discuss developments in Global Internet Governance (GIG) and their implications in and beyond this field of research. It is one of the outcomes of the GIG-ARTS project.

Paper Panel Session 3: Multistakeholderism and Digital Sovereignty

Infrastructural Sanctions, the War in Ukraine, and EU Digital Sovereignty
Niels ten Oever, University of Amsterdam; Clément Perarnaud, Brussels School of Governance; John Kristoff, University of Illinois Chicago; Max Resing, University of Twente; Moritz Müller, University of Twente; Arturo Filastò, Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI); Cris Kanich, University of Illinois Chicago

Date: 3-4 June 2024

Please find more information and abstracts of presentations on the GIG-ARTS webiste

This workshop, organized by the project B02 „Control/Space“ at the Collaborative Research Center 1265 at TU Berlin, explores different spatial changes and dynamics of the Internet infrastructure using the notion of refiguration, which presents a concept of tensions between four key spatial figures and spatial logics: the place, the territory, the network, and the route. These tensions allow for the explanation of key conflicts in contemporary modernity. Conference book with full programme available.

Maxigas (critical infrastructure lab): Media ecologies, infrastructures and environments: Infrastructure walk as a methodological approach

Or, things we learned from infrastructure walks.

The critical infrastructure lab held a series of “infrastructure walks” in
Amsterdam and Berlin, exploring the visibility of digital infrastructures
deployed in public spaces. I situate the methodological approach in
relation to other practices addressing key conflicts in contemporary urban
life that immerse observers within the spatial figures and spatial logics
of urban radioscapes. Subsequently, I highlight the methodological
advantages of the infrastructural walk compared to similar approaches.
Then, I report on the empirical and theoretical results obtained from the
walks. In short, the infrastructure walk experience is a good basis for
rethinking the key concepts of media infrastructures, media environments
and media ecologies.

Industrial standards can be mobilised as an analytical grid to structure
the urban experience of radioscapes. The insights thus generated
correspond to counter-mapping the spatial control exercised over and
through the electromagnetic spectrum in urban spaces. Such work exposes
the reconfiguration of power relationships in the city through emerging
technologies and legacy protocols. Infrastructure walks address the
question of what media technologies may mean “after all”, that is in the
context of the life world, lived experiences and action possibilities of
end users as embodied citizens.

Slides download

In our rapidly digitizing world, the demand for data storage and processing has surged, leading to the proliferation of data centers and cloud computing infrastructure. However, this exponential growth comes with significant environmental costs, as data infrastructure consumes vast amounts of energy and contribute to carbon emissions. This roundtable addresses this pressing issue, delving into the critical intersection of technology and environmental sustainability from the civil society perspective.

About the speakers

Fieke Jansen is the co-founder of the Critical Infrastructure Lab and a post-doctoral Researcher at the University of Amsterdam. She also coordinates the Green Screen Climate Justice and Digital Rights Coalition.

Kristina Irion is Associate Professor at the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam. 

Becky Kazansky is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Political Science department at the University of Amsterdam.

Stefania Milan is Professor of Critical Data Studies at the University of Amsterdam’s Department of Media Studies and a Research Associate with the Chair in AI & Democracy at the Florence School of Transnational Governance of the European University Institute.

Max Schulze is the Founder of the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance (SDIA).

Pepijn de Reus is a master student Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the University of Amsterdam.

Date: 20 March 2024, 20:00
More info here