open reading group infrastructure reading group
bi- weekly tuesday session 16:00 – 17:00 cest/cet* (once every two weeks)
facilitated by niels@criticalinfralab.net
meet up here: https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/6365963924
take notes here: https://pad.criticalinfralab.net/unz6CPM9SpieqIlkXf-Oqg
sign up for the mailinglist here (don’t forget to click the link in the confirmation email):
https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/infrastructure-readinggroup
October 29th – Telegraphic Imperialism – Introduction + Chapter 1 // The Apple II Age – Introduction
November 12th – Telegraphic Imperialism – Chapter 2 // The Apple II Age – Chapter 1
November 26th – Telegraphic Imperialism – Chapter 3 // The Apple II Age – Chapter 2
December 10th – Telegraphic Imperialism – Chapter 4 // The Apple II Age – Chapter 3
January 7th, 2025 – Telegraphic Imperialism – Chapter 5 // The Apple II Age – Chapter 4
January 21st – Telegraphic Imperialism – Chapter 6 // The Apple II Age – Chapter 5
February 4th – Telegraphic Imperialism – Chapter 7 // The Apple II Age – Chapter 6
February 18th – Telegraphic Imperialism – Chapter 8 + Conclusion // The Apple II Age – Chapter 7
March 4th – The Apple II Age – Inconclusions + Epilogue
March 18th – European Objects and Lifelines of our Society – Chapter 1
April 1st – European Objects and Lifelines of our Society – Chapter 2
April 15th – European Objects and Lifelines of our Society – Chapter 3
April 29th – European Objects and Lifelines of our Society – Chapter 4
May 13th – European Objects and Lifelines of our Society – Chapter 5
May 27th – European Objects and Lifelines of our Society – Chapter 6
June 10th – European Objects and Lifelines of our Society – Chapter 7
June 24th – European Objects and Lifelines of our Society – Chapter 8 and conclusion
July 8st – The Dawn of Everything and The Invisible Weapon – Chapter 1
July 22nd – The Dawn of Everything and The Invisible Weapon – Chapter 2
August 5th – The Dawn of Everything and The Invisible Weapon – Chapter 3
August 19th – The Dawn of Everything and The Invisible Weapon – Chapter 4
September 2nd – The Dawn of Everything and The Invisible Weapon – Chapter 5
September 16th – The Dawn of Everything and The Invisible Weapon – Chapter 6
September 30th – The Dawn of Everything and The Invisible Weapon – Chapter 7
October 14th – The Dawn of Everything and The Invisible Weapon – Chapter 8
October 28th – The Dawn of Everything and The Invisible Weapon – Chapter 9
November 11th – The Dawn of Everything and The Invisible Weapon – Chapter 10
November 25th – The Dawn of Everything and The Invisible Weapon – Chapter 11
December 9th – The Dawn of Everything and The Invisible Weapon – Chapter 12
December 23rd – The Invisible Weapon – Chapters 13, 14, 15
books we still hope to read (someday):
- Dalrymple, William – The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company.
- Deudney, Daniel – Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics, and the Ends of Humanity.
- Diogo, Maria Paula, and Dirk van Laak – Europeans Globalizing: Mapping, Exploiting, Exchanging.
- Fickers, Andreas, and Pascal Griset – Communicating Europe: Technologies, Information, Events.
- Högselius, Per, and Erik van der Vleuten – Europe’s Infrastructure Transition: Economy, War, Nature. Making Europe
- Kaiser, Wolfram, and J. W. Schot – Writing the Rules for Europe: Experts, Cartels, and International Organizations.
- Knox, Hannah, and Penny Harvey – Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise.
- Long, Pamela O. – Engineering the Eternal City: Infrastructure, Topography, and the Culture of Knowledge in Late Sixteenth-Century Rome.
- Swenson, Edward – Infrastructures of Religion and Power: Archaeologies of Landscape, Ritual, and Semiotics.
- Trischler, Helmuth, and Martin Kohlrausch – Building Europe on Expertise: Innovators, Organizers, Networkers.
previous books read in this reading group:
- The Smartness Mandate – Orit Halpern
- Technology of Empire – Daqing Yang
- News from Germany – Heidi J.S. Tworek
- balkan cyberia – viktor petrov
- how not to network a nation – benjamin peters
- technologies of speculation – sun-ha hong
- the closed world – paul edwards
- four internets – kieron o’hara & wendy hall
- what is wrong with rights – radha d’souza
- digital design and topological control – parisi
- golden age of analog – galloway
- countering the cloud – luke munn
- medium design – keller easterling
- reluctant power – rita zajác
- between truth and power – julie cohen
- the question concerning technology in china – yuk hui
/* We use CEST between the last Sunday of March until the last Sunday of October, then we switch back to CET
open reading group environment reading group
bi- weekly tuesday session 16:00 – 17:00 cet (once every two weeks)
facilitated by fieke@criticalinfralab.net
meet up here: https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/5689070082 | sign up for the mailinglist here and add you reading suggestions here.
Upcoming readings:
September 10: Janna Frenzel – ‘How ‘Green’ Computing is Opening Up a New Frontier in Arctic Norway’ (email fieke for a copy)
September 24: A resourcification manifesto: Understanding the social process of resources becoming resources
October 8: What might degrowth computing look like? + Strategies for Degrowth Computing
October 22: Water justice and technology. The Covid-19 crisis, computational resource control, and water relief policy
November 5: cancelled and replaced by Sustainable and Equitable Internet Infrastructure panels 5-7 Nov
November 19: Fieke Jansen – paper on IETF; framing environmental concerns and sustainability solutions (email fieke for a copy) + Solar Protocol: Exploring Energy-Centered Design
December 3: Kimberly Anastacio – Dissertation chapter about the ITU and IETF work on environment-related standards (email fieke for a copy)
*** break ***
January: [manifesto!] ‘The compost engineers and sus saberes lentos: a manifest for regenerative technologies‘ by Joana Varon and Lucía Egana
previous books and articles read in this reading group:
– pollution is colonialism by Max Liboiron
– myth of green capitalism by Katharina Pistor
– from moore’s law to the carbon law by Daniel Pargman, Aksel Biørn-Hansen, Elina Eriksson, Jarmo Laaksolaht, Markus Robèrt
– solarities; seeking energy justice by After Oil Collective
– the value of a whale by Adrienne Buller
– after geoengineering: climate tragedy, repair, and restoration by Holly Jean Buck
– against crisis epistemology by kyle whyte
– discard studies: wasting, systems, and power by Max Liboiron and Josh Lepawsky
– An alternative planetary future? Digital sovereignty frameworks and the decolonial option by Sebastián Lehuedé
– ‘Socialism is not just Built for a Hundred Years’: Renewable Energy and Planetary Thought in the Early Soviet Union (1917–1945) by Daniela Russ
– Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador by Thea Riofrancos
– The Security–Sustainability Nexus: Lithium Onshoring in the Global North by Thea Riofrancos
– The Internet Shutdown and Revolutionary Politics: Defining the Infrastructural Power of the Internet by Michael Truscello
– The world wide web of carbon: Toward a relational footprinting of information and communications technology’s climate impacts by Anne Pasek, Hunter Vaughan, and Nicole Starosielski.
– Shifting from ‘sustainability’ to regeneration by Bill Reed
– A Digital Tech Deal: Digital Socialism, Decolonization, and Reparations for a Sustainable Global Economy by Michael Kwet
– We Need To Rewild The Internet by Maria Farrell and Robin Berjon
– Beyond Wiindigo Infrastructure by Winona LaDuke and Deborah Cowen
workshop Operationalizing Values in Dutch Digital Infrastructure February 2025
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
workshop Data Walk Workshop May 2025
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.
