activities

open reading group environment reading group February 2024

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:
Book: AI Infrastructures and Sustainability: Expanding Perspectives on Automation, Communication and Media edited by Anne Mollen, Fieke Jansen, Sigrid Kannengießer, and Julia Velkova. Email fieke@criticalinfralab.net for a copy of the chapters

– Sept 9 – Introduction and ‘Follow the Thing AI’ by Anna Valdivia
– Sep 23 – ‘Amazonia’s Place in AI: Minerals and Mining as the Cradle of Infrastructuring‘ by Débora Leal, Max Krüger and Sigrid Kannengießer and ‘Growing the Cloud at the “Corner of the Atlantic”‘ by AIIago Bojczuk.
– Oct 7 – ‘Aligning Energy Grids, Clouds and Public Values in Sweden‘ by Julia Velkova and ‘Aquaculture, AI, and the Planetary Domestication‘ by Patrick Brodie
– Oct 21 – ‘The Cruel Optimism of the Sustainable Cloud‘ Hamsini Sridharan and ‘Narratives of indispensability and infrastructural solutionism of AI companies‘ Salla-Maaria Laaksonen and Meri Frig
– Nov 4 – ‘Alliance or Self-reliance in New Geopolitical Technosphere‘ Malgorzata Winiarska-Brodowska and ‘Discursive Infrastructuring of AI in Russia‘ Olga Dovbysh
– Nov 18 – ‘Entangled sustainabilities‘ Anne Mollen and ‘Not Seeing the Data for the Trees‘ by Gerwin van Schie and Inte Gloerich 
– Dec 2 – ‘Responsiveness and AI in Environmental Governance‘ Jędrzej Niklas and ‘AI Infrastructures, Total Mobilisation and Decomputing‘ Dan McQuillan
– Dec 16 – ‘More compute for a burning planet?‘ by Fieke Jansen and Niels ten Oever and ‘The Good Infrastructure‘ by Johanna Sefyrin and Julia Velkova

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
– How ‘Green’ Computing is Opening Up a New Frontier in Arctic Norway by Janna Frenzel
A resourcification manifesto: Understanding the social process of resources becoming resources
What might degrowth computing look like? + Strategies for Degrowth Computing
Water justice and technology. The Covid-19 crisis, computational resource control, and water relief policy
– Draft paper on IETF; framing environmental concerns and sustainability solutions by Fieke Jansen + Solar Protocol: Exploring Energy-Centered Design
– Draft dissertation chapter about the ITU and IETF work on environment-related standards by Kimberly Anastacio
– ‘The compost engineers and sus saberes lentos: a manifest for regenerative technologies‘ by Joana Varon and Lucía Egana
– Afterlife and decolonial relations’ and ‘Chemical Regimes of Living’ Michelle Murphy ‘
– Elemental infrastructures for atmospheric media: On stratospheric variations, value and the commons by D. McCormack and The Elements of Media Studies by N. Starosielski
– On Nonscalability: The Living World Is Not Amenable to Precision-Nested Scales by Anne Tsing
– Towards Planet-Proof Computing: Ten Key Elements EU Data Centre Sustainability Policy Should Take Onboard by Jessica Commins and Kristina Irion.
– Toxic politics: Acting in a permanently polluted world by Max Liboiron, Manuel Tironi, and Nerea Calvillo ‘
– Air as Medium by Eva Horn
– Elemental infrastructures for atmospheric media: On stratospheric variations, value and the commons by D. McCormack
– Saturation: An elemental politics’ (introduction) by Melody Jue and Rafico Ruiz
– Climatic media: Transpacific experiments in atmospheric control (introduction) by Yuriko Furuhata