Some interesting prospects for the events happening this week and the next.
The first one is organised by the Centre for Cultural Inquiry (ZkF) of the University of Konstanz, where there are at this point several research agendas interested in approaching the topic of infrastructure (apparently through very diverse perspectives). The core topic of the Rethinking Infrastructure conference seems to converge in several ways with the agenda of the Cloud Gaming Atlas: It is stated that “while infrastructure constitutes a basic dimension of human life, it is widely taken as a matter of course. In a sense, this is what makes it infrastructure in the first place: if it works, it no longer has to be reflected upon but retreats to a deeper level of human consciousness and social organization. The major crises of recent years, however, suggest that infrastructure needs to be taken into consideration, and what is more: that it needs to be fundamentally rethought. Streets and bridges that are swept away by floods; health care and social security systems that collapse in the face of a pandemic; social orders that change within weeks because of a military offensive: these are all examples of infrastructure crises. Mere technical improvements to existing infrastructures will not suffice to meet such crises. Rather, we need to question on a fundamental level what we mean when we speak of infrastructures, what role we assign to them, and how we can handle them more flexibly”. Thinking through these infrastructure crises appears to be one important direction for research in the Humanities in the coming years. Bruce Robbins (Columbia University, New York) will make the opening talk of the Rethinking Infrastructure conference, entitled Elevator Pitch. Gratitude for Infrastructure, and Beyond. The event will be held at the Sigismundsaal of the Konzilgebäude Konstanz, next Wednesday at 18h30. Furthermore, from 30.06 to 01.07, the initiative will provide a workshop on cultural perspectives to rethink infrastructure.
0 Comments
After quite some time preparing (and some more time self-isolating), I was finally able to move to Konstanz to start my new research project at the Zukunftskolleg. The first weeks in Germany were (of course) dedicated to administrative paperwork. Fortunately I had help from many supportive people from the central office of the institute, the human resources department, the welcome centre, my neighbours, and many other friendly folks. Although the paperwork still seems far from over, I was finally able to meet some of my colleagues, take part in events, and start digging into my research agenda.
Speaking of which, here is a brief description of what I will be pursuing in the next years: the project “Cloud gaming atlas: from Earth’s metabolism to the longing for radiant infrastructures” is aimed at the transnational telecommunication infrastructures development to support cloud gaming platforms. What interests me more specifically is observing how these infrastructures are intertwined with the management of natural resources in local and wider environmental settings. With the project, I am seeking to explore to what extent media are ingrained within Earth systems, while questioning at the same time the regimes of visibility/invisibility of these material infrastructures. I believe these questions are important not only for their epistemological value. It might be particularly significant to assess how the environmental and aesthetic dimensions of media phenomena intermingle in a time when the so-called creative industries are migrating to a platform model based on high energy-demanding streaming services. The project is divided into three stages: the first part of the research will be dedicated to the analysis of reports concerning the environmental implications of cloud gaming and to a theoretical discussion on the continuities between media technology and the living environment that stem from remote gaming infrastructure (in the power supplies and energy grids that feed it, for instance); the second step encompasses field visits to the facilities of cloud infrastructure providers in Germany, where I aim to learn more about the developed, implemented, (and also the imagined) technologies that relate to sustainability in key aspects such as energy efficiency and waste management. The third stage of the research will be dedicated to providing a visual output to the research developed during the first stages of the project, with the sketching of a visual-textual catalog on the infrastructure assembled for cloud gaming, its environmental interdependencies, and imageries of sustainability. |
AuthorThis blog is meant to provide a space for discussing the geophysical as well as the the imaginary entanglements between media infrastructures and organic environments. In the coming months, it will be dedicated to my current project, Cloud Gaming Atlas, which is particularly interested in observing and interrogating the infrastructures developed for cloud gaming initiatives in regard to their environmental implications. Additionally, it should also gather information about events and publications related to my project at the Zukunftskolleg and the Department of Literature, Art and Media of the University of Konstanz. Archives
January 2024
Categories |