critical infrastructure lab

The enormous environmental impact of AI products and services has become a major concern. At the same time, researchers are still struggling to exactly measure this impact. Companies such as Microsoft and Google share numbers on their use of resources and energy but do so in strategic and sometimes confusing ways.

During this symposium, organized by the Special Interest Group Greening the Digital Society, we invite you to discuss these issues and hear from experts in the field. We will discuss the limitations of (current forms of) measuring and defining sustainability. We ask: how can we investigate the harms throughout the production line of the AI industry, as well as emerging forms of resistance? How do Big Tech companies who are part of this industry try to strategically shape debates? And how can institutions and regulatory bodies, such as the EU monitor, and address this impact?

Valentina Ochner will present her research on Big Tech, carbon emissions, and the Greenhouse Gas protocol: https://www.uu.nl/en/events/gds-symposium-measuring-the-unsustainability-of-the-ai-industry

RMeS will organise the first Netherlands Media Studies Conference. This one-day event will take place in Utrecht on Thursday 23 October 2025. It provides a space for media studies scholars and students to discuss their work and make connections with peers.

Media Studies is a flourishing field in the Netherlands and has a leading position internationally. Currently, ten universities that offer education and do research in the field are participating in the NetherlandsResearch School for Media Studies (RMeS). RMeS aims to bring the field together across universities, different strands, traditions and themes. This conference offers a stimulating space to cross bridges and have in-depth conversations through a range of formats.

Valentina Ochner will present her research on Big Tech’s influence in the re-negotiation of the GHG protocol: https://www.rmes.nl/netherlands-media-studies-conference-organised-by-rmes/

In today’s digital world, young people are constantly engaging online — sharing content, ideas, and personal data — often without full awareness of where that data ends up, who profits from it, or how it shapes their digital identity and autonomy. But as surveillance intensifies and powerful tech corporations consolidate control over the internet’s core infrastructure, youth are increasingly disempowered in determining the terms of their own participation.

In response, governments across the Asia-Pacific have begun to tighten digital regulation — often in the name of national sovereignty. While these moves are framed as necessary safeguards, they raise urgent questions about personal freedom, access to information, and digital self-determination. For example, Nepal’s proposed social media law requires local registration or face platform blockage, chilling youth participation. Similar policies in Australia, Canada, and the UK mirror a growing global trend: the centralization of power at the expense of individual agency.

Meanwhile, tech giants from the U.S. and China continue to dominate the digital space — shaping content, collecting data, and deploying opaque algorithms that influence what youth see, think, and share. The lack of transparency and accountability in these systems makes it harder for young people to exercise informed consent, resist manipulation, or build alternatives.

This panel brings together youth leaders and regional stakeholders to explore these intersecting threats to digital autonomy. How do we balance regulation with rights? How can we push back against corporate consolidation? And what would it look like for digital policy frameworks to truly reflect youth voices, values, and leadership?

Date: Saturday, October 11, 2025
Time: 11:25-12:25 UTC
Format:
  – Introduction (5 mins)
  – Panel discussion (40 mins)
  – Q&A and Roundtable discussion (10 mins)
  – Closing remarks (5 mins)

Moderator
Nawal Munir, Strategic Content & Research Manager, NetMission.Asia

Speakers 
Archit Lohani, AI Safety, Online Harms & Platform Governance Researcher
Dmitry Kuznetsov, Researcher at Critical Infrastructure Lab & NetMission Advisory Board member
Dr. Nur Adlin Hanisah Shahul Ikram, PhD in Data Privacy

Policy Questions
  1. How can APAC governments protect children online while safeguarding their fundamental rights to digital participation and access to information?
  2. As data localization and sovereignty efforts rise, how can APAC countries promote cross-border digital collaboration that supports youth education, creativity, and innovation without undermining national interests?
  3. How should APAC nations coordinate their regulation of Big Tech to consistently protect youth data and rights, while overcoming the challenges of fragmented digital governance across the region?

https://yigf.asia/yigf-2025-themes-and-topics.html#content15-9c

Dmitry helped the Asia Pacific Regional Youth Internet Governance Forum during the capacity building Day 0 programme. The panel discussion focused on national/regional digital governance issues and the role of youth as a stakeholder group.

Maxigas led a class on just urban energy transition, public values, and smart city infrastructures at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture, sharing findings from studying 5G standardisation and its contestation, as well as field work findings from India on alternative technological trajectories.

August 31, 2025 at Noorderlicht Biennale, Akerkhof 12, 9711 JB Groningen

Organisers

• Christy Westhovens
• Noorderlicht photography biennale
• critical infrastructure lab
• Kunstpunt Groningen

We constantly move through a sea of radio signals. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cell towers and satellites form an invisible landscape that permeates our everyday lives. These electromagnetic waves shape how we communicate, move and live together — and yet, we never see them.

With Signals of you, her installation at the Tschumipavilion, Christy Westhovens makes this hidden network tangible. The red panels respond to Bluetooth signals emitted by our devices, revealing how we continuously broadcast digital traces. The pavilion becomes an archive of daily presence, showing how infrastructure and behaviour together shape urban space.

The Radioscape Symposium offers a deeper exploration of this work. Bringing together artists, scholars and critical voices, we will reflect on how radio signals construct public space. What role do we play in these digital environments? Who has access to these invisible layers, and who is excluded? And what does it mean to render such ubiquitous but hidden signals visible?

Programme

• 12:00—13:00 Visit: Noorderlicht Biënnale, Niemeyerfabriek, Paterswoldeweg 43, Groningen
• 13:30—14:30 Data walk and visit Signals of you, Het Tschumipaviljoen van Kunstpunt, Hereplein, Groningen
• 16:00—18:00 Symposium, Noorderlicht, Akerkhof 12, Groningen
  • Introduction by Christy Westhovens
  • Roundtable with artists, researchers and guests
  • Discussion with Q&A

A manifesto has been released in conjunction with the event.

Photos by Sebastiaan Rodenhuis.

This program is made possible through funding of Mondrian Foundation, Fonds 21, Stimuleringsfonds voor Creative Industrie.

Lineup

• Arthur Elsenaar >> Artist and teacher at ArtScience Interfaculty,
  Hogeschool der Kunsten Den Haag (KABK/KonCon)

• Christy Westhovens >> Artist and researcher, Technology, Performance and
  Society research unit, University of Music and Theatre Munich (HMTM)

• David Gauthier — moderator >> Artist and Assistant Professor of
  Computational Media and Arts, Utrecht University (UU)

• Gabriel Pereira >> Assistant Professor in AI & Digital Culture, University
  of Amsterdam (UvA)

• Juli Laczkó >> Artist and teacher at HKU Media, Image and Media
  Technology, Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht (HKU)

• Maxigas >> Co-principal investigator, critical infrastructure lab;
  Assistant Professor of Computational Methods, Utrecht University (UU)

• Niels ten Oever >> Co-principal investigator, critical infrastructure lab;
  Assistant Professor, European Studies, University of Amsterdam (UvA)

• Pawan Seshadri Venkatesh >> CTO, UrbanVind

Photos by Sebastiaan Rodenhuis.