Environmental Media Symposium

Environmental Media & More-than-Human Infrastructures Making Sense of Sensor-Environments

22 April 2023 ・ Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Join us for an interdisciplinary symposium on sensing practices, environmental media and more-than-human infrastructures!

With contributions by Christoph Borbach, Jan Distelmeyer, Clemens Driessen, John Durham Peters, Ksenia Fedorova, Daniela van Geenen, Max Kanderske, Judith Keilbach, Linda Kopitz, Gwen Ottinger, Lisa Parks, Ben Peters, Michelle Westerlaken and others.

Sensor-generated data – such as information about air quality – has immediate impact on our everyday lives. Micro-technologies of sensing have pervaded almost all areas of public and private life. Sensors enable and sustain so-called smart cities and smart homes, monetizing public and domestic space as data capital. Understanding how this data is being used to shape policies and how we, as a society, can take ownership of it can create a stronger connection to our environment and place us in a better position in the conversation with governments and businesses. Sensor literacy is a matter of urgent societal relevance.

The symposium will serve as an interactive platform for exchange, dialog and learning. Leading international researchers will present their on-going projects on sensor technology, and discuss sensor cultures and justice, environmental sensing networks and emerging media infrastructures of sense-making that expand beyond the realm of human perception.

The goal of the symposium is to reconsider what it means to ‘think ecologically’ and critically interrogate sensing technology and its onto-epistemological challenges, but also to collaboratively generate constructive ways of conceptualizing sensors: Does sensing technology have any viable tactical potential for commoning? Can it foster and contribute to sustainable (media) practices? Can we reclaim sensors to build new – socially, culturally and environmentally equitable – futures? What open tools are needed to realize those futures, and how can they be developed quickly, cheaply and accessibly? How can we generate productive aesthetic approaches to and new uses of environmental media and sensing technology?

Participation is free of charge and open to anyone interested. Please register via: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/making-sense-of-sensor-environments-day-2-tickets-547900223317

• When? 22 April 2023, 9:30 – 18:15
• Where? Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Main Building, room KC-07

This event is organised by Dr. Sebastian Scholz, Dr. Marek Jancovic and Dr. Jolanda Veldhuis in collaboration with Waag Futurelab, and financed by a CLUE+ Connected World grant.