[spectre] Call for Papers: Techno-Ecologies Publication (AS No.11)

[Rasa Smite]

hello on spectre list!

please see below 'call for papers' for the next issue of Acoustic  
Space journal, which will explore the theme of "techno-ecologies"  
(following the discussions started in "art+communication" festival  
conference and exhibition, which with the same title took place last  
month in Riga: http://rixc.lv/11)

best regards,
Rasa
rixc.lv

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CALL FOR PAPERS
Acoustic Space (No 11): Techno-Ecologies

Techno-Ecologies is the theme of the next issue (No 11) of the  
Acoustic Space, peer-reviewed journal for research on art, science,  
technology and society. It will be published by RIXC and MPLab / Art  
Research Lab of Liepaja University, in Riga and Liepaja, 2012.

* concept

Everyday life has become so intimately interwoven with complex  
technological ecologies that we can no longer consider technology as  
the alienating 'other'. A more careful consideration of the  
relationships between the natural and the artificial is required. The  
idea that we 'inhabit' technological ecologies emphasises our  
connectedness to our environment (material, natural, technological),  
and our dependence on the resources available there (material,  
energetic, biological, cultural). Mastering these conditions is vital  
to our survival on this planet.

Techno-Ecologies builds upon the concerns of Félix Guattari (the  
French philosopher and co-conspirator of Gilles Deleuze) about the  
lack of an integrated perspective on the dramatic techno-scientific  
transformations the Earth has undergone in recent times. Guattari  
urges us to take three crucially important 'ecological registers' into  
account: the environment, social relations, and human subjectivity.

The Techno-Ecologies publication will develop a discussion between  
artists, theorists, designers, environmental scientists,  
technologists, responsible entrepreneurs and activists to extend this  
perspective. Diversity, social and ecological sustainability, and a  
much deeper understanding of technology as an extension of our desires  
are the building blocks that we want to bring together to build a  
perspective that can help us chart less hazardous routes into the  
future than the ones currently travelled.

(Please refer to the full concept text written by Eric Kluitenberg below)

The techno-ecological perspective was discussed and  expanded further  
during the interdisciplinary academic conference,  "TECHNO-ECOLOGIES:  
Inhabiting the deep technological spheres of everyday life", which  
took place in Riga, Latvia, November 4-5, 2011. (http://rixc.lv/11).  
The forthcoming publication will include papers presented at this  
conference, but will not be limited to it and is open for  
contributions by other authors.

* Call for papers

We welcome submissions - articles, conceptual and artistic texts,  
conference papers and visual contributions - from artists, theorists,  
designers, environmental scientists, technologists, activists and  
other lateral thinkers who are engaged with issues of social and  
ecological sustainability, and who are interested in a deeper  
understanding of technology.

Deadline for submitting full papers - February 15, 2012.
We welcome to submit abstracts first. Deadline for abstracts - January  
31, 2012.

Length of texts: between 2500 and 8000 words (i.e. 20 000 - 45 000  
characters). Submitted texts should include: 1) short abstract (ca.  
250 words, i.e. 1500 characters), 2) 5 - 6 keywords, and 3) short bio  
of the author (ca. 100 words, i.e. 800 characters). References should  
be either in APA or Harvard style. Language for submissions: English  
(all texts will be translated into Latvian as well).

* Contact and submissions

Please send abstracts and texts to the editors:
Eric Kluitenberg <epk (at) xs4all.nl>, and Rasa Smite <rasa (at) rixc.lv>


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* Concept:


TECHNO-ECOLOGIES
Inhabiting the deep technological spheres of everyday life


Technology can no longer be understood as an alterity (otherness) that  
stands in opposition to biological and social relationships. Going  
about our regular practices of everyday living we inhabit complex  
technological spheres of life that require a different, a more  
'ecological' understanding of our relationship to technology. In  
analogy to the 'deep ecology' movement, philosopher David Rottenberg  
recently suggested that the notion of 'deep technology' relates user  
and context in an ecological, symbiotic way [1].  Similarly, the idea  
of 'inhabiting' technological ecologies emphasises our connectedness  
to our environment (material, natural, technological) and our  
dependence on the resources available in that environment (material,  
energetic, biological, cultural). Mastering these conditions, which  
necessarily transcend the personal experience, is vital to our  
survival on this planet.

The concept of technological ecologies as spheres of life invites a  
more careful consideration of the relationships between the natural  
and the artificial - or even the collapse of the boundaries between  
them - in favour of looking at such techno-ecologies as complex  
assemblages, comparable to how for instance philosopher Bruno Latour  
treats them. Our perspective should, however, not be limited to these  
technological 'actors'. In The Three Ecologies (1989) Felix Guattari  
expresses his worries about the intense techno-scientific  
transformations the Earth is undergoing. Guattari observes an  
ecological disequilibrium generated by these transformations, which  
leads to  a general reduction of human and social relationships and  
the sustainability of the living environment.

According to Guattari it is the relationship between subjectivity and  
its exteriority - be it social, animal, vegetable or cosmic - that is  
compromised, in a sort of general movement of 'implosion'. He warns  
against a merely partial realisation of the severity of these changes  
and inadequate responses that may come  from a purely technocratic  
perspective. It is the ways of living on this planet that are in  
question, according to Guattari, in the context of the acceleration of  
techno-scientific mutations and exponential demographic growth. Only  
an 'ethico-political' articulation 'between' the three ecological  
registers that he identifies - the environment, social relations, and  
human subjectivity - would be able to clarify these questions.

The paradox is that these techno scientific transformations are both  
the source of the current ecological disequilibrium, and even so the  
only realistic means to address and potentially resolve the problems  
they create. Somehow, however, we cannot seem to make them work.

Siegfried Zielinski has pointed out that one important fallacy to  
overcome is to view the course of technological development as  
'progress', or to consider our current state of technological  
sophistication as the best possible and necessary outcome of a  
predictable historical trajectory. In his 'Variantology' project  
Zielinski makes a radical break with any idea of technological  
progress or determinism [2]. The Variantological approach emphasises  
that at any point technological development (and human development  
along with it) is contingent (it can go anywhere). Variantology does  
not look for 'master media' or 'imperative vanishing points'. Instead  
it seeks out  the moments of greatest possible diversity and  
individual variation. It operates in carefully chosen periods of  
particularly intensive and necessary work on the media,# across  
different cultural and physical geographies - exploring the 'deep time  
relationships of the arts, sciences and technologies'.

Finally, an exploration of inhabitable technological ecologies needs  
to take into account the phantasmatic dimension of technological  
apparatuses and systems. Such a more psychographic understanding of  
the depth of technology aims to uncover hidden, or not immediately  
visible or discernible psychological layers attached to the  
technological apparatuses - perhaps we might refer to this as  a  
'technological unconscious' - that underpin human experience and our  
subjective ties with technological environments. It considers  
technology not only as an extension of the body but also as an  
extension of our deepest desires. It explores the void between the  
'real' and that what is mediated by systems of language, media, and  
technology. It  acknowledges the existence of a  'third body' (Klaus  
Theweleit) [3]  that inserts itself between us and the (technological)  
objects. This third body only emerges in our interaction with these  
objects, but it is neither held by us nor by the objects alone.

Beyond questions of finite resources and obvious forms of pollution  
and environmental degradation, attempts to develop sustainable  
relationships with technology and our living environment should  take  
into account far more complex layerings of the way we inhabit our  
current technological ecologies. Such a deeply informed ethical and  
philosophical perspective is indispensable if we hope to find less  
hazardous routes into the future.


Notes:
1 - www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.10/rothenberg.if.html
2 - http://entropie.digital.udk-berlin.de/wiki/Variantology
3 -  
www.debalie.nl/player/balieplayerpopper.jsp?movieid=93125&videofragmentsid=ank2


Eric Kluitenberg, Amsterdam, June 6, 2011


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