critical infrastructure lab

May 12-13, 2025 at Utrecht

The purpose of the two day workshop is to bring together scholars and artists who have each engaged in developing data walks or similar projects, in order for them to reflect on the phenomena of data walks as a methodological approach to data power and critical infrastructure studies. The two day workshop will have space and time to explore the city of Utrecht, engage with like minded participants, and conduct a collective experiment in data walking resulting in a report/fanzine. The first day is dedicated to getting to know each other and exchanging perspectives in “show and tell” style presentations of prior work and the state of the art. The second day is for devising and conducting a collective experiment in data walk as a method. After the walk we discuss the experiment and document it in the form of a report/fanzine, with the help of facilitators in spontaneous experimental publishing.

The workshop is organised by the critical infrastructure lab, Institutions for Open Societies’ Open Cities research platform and the Data School, with [urban interfaces] at Utrecht University.

‘Unequal societies will produce technologies that will reproduce inequalities’

Why do we give creative tasks to a technology that is statistically trained to give you the most mediocre answer? This question, posed by Dr. Niels ten Oever, one of the leaders of the ACES Theme Group Tech, Power, and Policy, sets the tone for a wide-ranging and critical conversation about Europe’s technological trajectory. To mark Europe Day on May 9th, ACES spoke with him about the Europe’s digital challenges the politics of infrastructure, and the values at stake in the continent’s technological future.

Read the entire interview here.

Join the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance for their upcoming event on operationalizing values in Dutch digital infrastructure. Building on our successful first get-to-together, we’re bringing together providers and purchasers to showcase real progress in implementing sustainability, transparency, and local impact in the digital infrastructure market.

Through debates, an interactive workshop and case studies, you’ll gain practical insights from market leaders who are already benefiting from this shift. Whether you’re a regional provider looking to gain a competitive edge or a purchaser wanting to shape a more sustainable market, this event offers concrete steps to transform your organization.

Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of a growing community that’s actively reshaping the digital infrastructure landscape in the Netherlands. Together, we’ll explore how transparency, sustainability, and local impact can become foundational market values.

We are organizing this event in collaboration with the critical infrastructure lab.

Date: February 25th
Time: 13.45 – 18.00
Registration required

The urgency of the ecological crisis is well documented and a growing field of environmental media scholars is drawing attention to the environmental harms of the internet, 5G, and generative AI. This experiment builds on the notion of biological computing to gain insight into what could be if we centre nature and not capital in the design of our infrastructures. With this, we take to heart Bill Reed’s (2007) call to action that to curb the ecological crisis we need to move beyond ‘doing things better’ and start by ‘doing better things’. The lab found that policymakers and tech companies present narrow sustainability efforts at best fall short of their promise and at worse intensify the extractive and exploitative models on which our economies are based. To develop approaches that ‘do better things’ we will experiment with powering the internet through mud batteries to design computational infrastructures that are non-extractive, restorative, and regenerative.

Making electricity with soil

We are collaborating with the artist Sunjoo Lee on the mud battery garden project. The project creatively explores the collaborative possibilities between natural ecosystems and digital infrastructure.

Mud batteries produce electricity by harnessing the metabolism of anaerobic bacteria living in wet soil, using a technology called Microbial Fuel Cells. Each container acts like a small battery, equipped with electrodes that capture electrons released by the bacteria. The garden’s plants and insects help feed the bacteria, allowing electricity to keep flowing as long as the ecosystem stays alive and thriving.

The project features a series of hands-on workshops. We build mud cells using soil and water, bury electrodes in the mud, and measure the amounts of electricity that they produce using multimeters. To explore if we can power alternative post-silicon and organic communication networks through mud batteries, organic materials, and e-waste.

Who knew dirt could be so current?!⚡

Interested in joining the workshop – email fieke@criticalinfralab.net

Data centres are a visible and at times contested infrastructure in the Netherlands. Local protests, such as in Zeewolde, have spotlighted the tension between the growing demand for data centres, negative public sentiment, and the broader concern that society is running up against planetary boundaries. In the sustainable and just infrastructure research project we explored this tension by asking the data centre ecosystem to identify the environmental harms associated with this infrastructure, current sustainability efforts, and things that need to be included in a policy if we rethink data centre governance in the age of scarcity. 

In the workshop, we will bring together different experts to discuss, explore, hack, and deepen the ideas and solutions that emerged during our research. For example. prioritisation rather than facilitating the mushrooming of digital infrastructures. This raises questions about on ‘What grounds do we prioritise?’, ‘How much infrastructure do we need?’, ‘What are the consequences of prioritisation?’. Or demands for an industrial policy that invests in, supports, and promotes a just and sustainable future internet. This raises questions on ‘What is sustainable and just?’, ‘Who decides?’, ‘Do we continue to invest in traditional silicon computing or is it the role of the state to dream big and differently?’ and ‘What are the opportunities and consequences of dreaming big?’.

Interested in joining the workshop – email fieke@criticalinfralab.net

Date & time: November 14th, 2024, 13:00 -18:00

Location Bushuis/Oost-Indisch Huis