Against the background of an ongoing artistic research project, this presentation critically engages with the delimitation of socio-technical imaginaries and infrastructures by extractivist techno-capitalist infrastructures and narratives. Arguably, the critical and creative potential of art and design practices such as design fiction or speculative design is challenged in a present reality where the immediate and the generative have become technologically constituted cultural imperatives, leading to a state of not only “too much future”, in the dystopian meaning of this expression, but of too many futures and too many imaginations.

A de-imagining of media infrastructures

Instead then, of contributing to the inflation of seemingly different yet techno-capitalist determined futures, this presentation argues for a de-imagining of media infrastructures as evolving according to a linear temporality, and for a practice of material speculation in the cracks of the here and now. Through a project where this material speculation takes place as a practice of re-storing, as in both re-arranging and repairing, it will discuss the de-imagining of current media infrastructures into non-extractive alternatives that, instead of more, faster, and bigger, advocates for less, slower, and smaller media. The presentation is based on the ongoing 3-year artistic research project De-imagining media – material speculation beyond the immediate and the generative, supported by The Swedish Research Council.

Speakers:

Linda Hilfling Ritasdatter is an artist researcher, who, through software-based tools and interventions, explores the hidden labour, systemic inequalities, and infrastructural politics that underpin digital technologies. Linda is currently a Lecturer in Computational Arts and Programme Leader for the BSc in Digital Arts Computing at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Kristoffer Gansing is professor of Design and Visual Communication at the Department of Design of Linnaeus University. Kristoffer was artistic director of the transmediale festival for art and digital culture in Berlin (2012-20) and professor of Artistic Research at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen (2020-23). Kristoffer’s research interests span critical media studies, digital art and activism, artistic research and the possibilities for non-extractive relations of art, society and technology.

Please note this talk starts1pm sharp for once. and we will wrap up just before 3pm

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