2022-08-27, Savic, Selena, Savicic, Gordan, Miyazaki, Shintaro, Schneider, Birgit, Silvestrin, Daniela

The present intervention is a temporary engagement with the exhibition Curious Communication. Unusual Objects and Stories from the Collection, which stages uncommon objects and rituals pertaining to telecommunication. We seek to complement this perspective with objects that are everyday, yet hidden in the heights of telecommunication masts and towers, such as 4G and 5G antennas, and satellite receptors. Proliferation naturalises them as mundane infrastructure, sometimes even mimicking nature. Antennas are objects that increasingly re-naturalise electromagnetism: engineered to facilitate communication between people, they put to use the disposition of metals to resonate with radio waves, picking up both human-made and natural emissions, and figuring in urban and rural landscapes to secure global interconnectivity.

2021-09, Savic, Selena, Miyazaki, Shintaro, Christensen, Michelle, Conradi, Florian, Søndergaard, Morten, Beloff, Laura, Choubassi, Hassan, Elias, Joe, Hannah, Dehlia

We engage in a conversation with critical ecofeminism, which proposed to transform the colonialism-racism-capitalism-patriarchalism induced environmental crisis by non-essentialist countering of oppressions and hyper-separations produced by human/nature dualism. We modulate the critical ecofeminist approach by countering a similar dualism, namely that of nature/technology. Furthermore, our theoretical balance-act has a praxis-oriented side: we believe that computation can be included in ecofeminist action. By providing alternative forms of engagement to instrumentalization, we trace pathways to different futures, countering the binary narratives of technology but also its moralizing of socio-cultural mediation. We take an intersectional approach to outcomes of computational modelling (simulations, visualisations, forecasts) and discuss the ecofeminist method of synthesis as a way to include different perspectives into computational processes. We work with two ‘modulated models’ that pay attention to assumptions, observations and thinking about urban commoning initiatives, and amateur knowledge of radio telecommunications. We aspire to provoke discussions about different modes of inclusion in communities and archives that are centred on shared, environment-friendly, solidarity oriented life-style and mutual care. Our approach engages with feminist arguments and inquiries into ways patriarchalism is embedded in our relationship to technoscience and engineering. We explore modes of resistance by proposing skilled and alternative uses of these techniques.

2021-09-17, Savic, Selena, Miyazaki, Shintaro, Christensen, Michelle, Conradi, Florian, Søndergaard, Morten, Beloff, Laura, Choubassi, Hassan

We engage in a conversation with critical ecofeminism, which proposed to transform the colonialism-racism-capitalism-patriarchalism induced environmental crisis by non-essentialist countering of oppressions and hyper-separations produced by human/nature dualism. We modulate the critical ecofeminist approach by countering a similar dualism, namely that of nature/technology. Furthermore, our theoretical balance-act has a praxis-oriented side: we believe that computation can be included in ecofeminist action. By providing alternative forms of engagement to instrumentalization, we trace pathways to different futures, countering the binary narratives of technology but also its moralizing of socio-cultural mediation. We take an intersectional approach to outcomes of computational modelling (simulations, visualisations, forecasts) and discuss the ecofeminist method of synthesis as a way to include different perspectives into computational processes. We work with two ‘modulated models’ that pay attention to assumptions, observations and thinking about urban commoning initiatives, and amateur knowledge of radio telecommunications. We aspire to provoke discussions about different modes of inclusion in communities and archives that are centred on shared, environment-friendly, solidarity oriented life-style and mutual care. Our approach engages with feminist arguments and inquiries into ways patriarchalism is embedded in our relationship to technoscience and engineering. We explore modes of resistance by proposing skilled and alternative uses of these techniques.

2020, Savic, Selena, Miyazaki, Shintaro

If artefacts can have politics (Winner, 1980), and scientific hypotheses can be shaped by political forces (Prigogine and Stengers, 1984) where does this politics come from? Whether we are in autocratic politics or in horizontal decision making based on consensus, design and technology reproduce the principles of the socio-political systems in which they emerged. How does, in turn, design of space and technological artefacts shape the decision making processes in a community? While every kind of social order results in some form of hegemony, Chantal Mouffe (2005) reminds us, agonism reveals the very limit of any rational consensus. In this text, we contrast two extreme hegemonic positions: autocratic design of hostile architectures (unpleasant design) and the (quasi)participative data-driven city management (i.e. smart city); we then discuss an alternative to both, which is driven by a desire for self-organisation, independence and sustainability. In this scope, we discuss an ongoing research project that uses technological artefacts (computational modelling) to probe the agency of these tools in addressing complex topics related to decision making and self-organisation. Touching upon the different hegemonic positions as a starting points for articulating alternatives, we will discuss the connection between sustainable ways of living and technology developed with an emancipatory sensitivity. Working directly with three Swiss housing cooperatives, the research project poses the question of the measure and manner in which new technologies can be not only of use to community efforts but at the heart of their discussions and decision-making.

2021-09-15, Savic, Selena, Miyazaki, Shintaro

We engage in a conversation with critical ecofeminism, which proposes to transform the colonialism-racism-capitalism-patriarchalism induced environmental crisis by a non-essentialist countering of oppressions and hyper-separations produced by human/nature dualism. We modulate the critical ecofeminist approach by countering a similar dualism, namely that of nature/technology. Furthermore, our theoretical balance-act has a praxis-oriented side: we believe that computation can be included in ecofeminist action. By providing alternative forms of engagement to instrumentalization, we trace pathways to different futures, countering the binary narratives of technology but also its moralizing of socio-cultural mediation. We take an intersectional approach to outcomes of computational modelling (simulations, visualisations, forecasts) and discuss the ecofeminist method of synthesis as a way to include different perspectives into computational processes. We work with two ‘modulated models’ that pay attention to assumptions, observations and thinking about urban commoning initiatives, and amateur knowledge of radio telecommunications. We aspire to provoke discussions about different modes of inclusion in communities and archives that are centred on shared, environment-friendly, solidarity oriented life-style and mutual care. Our approach engages with feminist arguments and inquires into ways patriarchalism is embedded in our relationship to technoscience and engineering. We explore modes of resistance through proposing skilled and alternative uses of these techniques.

2020, Savic, Selena, Bedö, Viktor, Büsse, Michaela, Martins, Yann Patrick, Miyazaki, Shintaro

This article explores the use of agent-based modelling as a critical and playful form of engagement with cooperative housing organizations. Because of its inherent complexities vis-à-vis decision-making, commoning is a well-suited field of study to explore the potential of humanities-driven experimental design (media) research to provoke critical reflection, problem-finding and productive complication. By introducing two different agent-based models, the interdisciplinary research team discusses their experience with setting up parameters for modelling, their implications, and the possibilities and limits of employing modelling techniques as a basis for decision-making. While it shows that modelling can be helpful in detecting long-term results of decisions or testing out effects of unlikely yet challenging events, modelling might act as a discursive practice uncovering hidden assumptions inherent in the model setup and generating an increase of scientific uncertainty. The project “ThinkingToys for Commoning” thus argues for a critical modelling practice and culture, in which models act as toys for probing alternative modes of living together and explor- ing the constructedness of methods. In countering late forms of capitalism, the resulting situated and critical practice provides avenues for enabling more self-determined forms of governance.