[Commlist] CFP - Digital Ecologies III: Machine / Material / Land

CFP: Digital Ecologies III: Machine / Material / Land
Date: July 24-25 2025
Location: Bath, UK
Venue: Bath Spa University, Locksbrook Campus

Organised 
by<https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/research-and-enterprise/research-centres/art-research-centre/art-and-technology/>_Material 
: Art and Technology Research Group 
<https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/research-and-enterprise/research-centres/art-research-centre/art-and-technology/>_ (Sam 
Wilkins, Claire Loder, Dave Webb and Charlie Tweed)
Digital Ecologies III isa two-day symposium which examines the complex 
material relationships between technology, society, food and energy 
production and the land. It is informed by Yuk Hui’s notion that the 
essence of contemporary technology is to ‘consider everything as a 
standing reserve, as a resource to be ordered and exploited’ (Hui, 
2021). Along these lines Hito Steyerl identifies AI generative media as 
‘Mean Images’ and looks at their reliance on ‘vast infrastructures of 
polluting hardware and menial and disenfranchised labour’ (Steyerl, 2023).

The digital age has become our modern-day philosopher’s stone; with its 
infrastructure exploiting both base and precious materials. Whilst our 
technologies hold the potential to transform our world in ways we are 
only beginning to understand, we must approach this potential with a 
deep understanding of the material and spiritual consequences for the 
human and non-human world.  We must scrutinise the ecological cost of 
production, extraction, AI and technological acts, and seek to reimagine 
our relationship with technology, not as a tool for exploitation, but as 
a means of seeing things differently and fostering care and attention 
towards all entities.

Our symposium is organised around three main themes:
Machine Futures (Charlie Tweed)
In this strand we explore how we can challenge Hui’s notion of 
contemporary technology as a tool for extraction and exploitation of 
resources. We ask how technology and our relationship with machines of 
all sorts can be re-imagined in creative, critical and sustainable 
ways.  Here we would like to expand on Hui ‘s other ideas which consider 
how philosophy and art can transform the concept of technology, 
including the imagination, invention and use of technology’ away from 
the conditions of exploitation.

We are interested in a range of responses that explore themes including:

  *
    Speculative machine futures and imaginaries – re-imagined ethical
    and sustainable machines
  *
    Machines that help us to communicate with, & understand non-human
    intelligences
  *
    Non-western and postcolonial machine futurisms
  *
    Organic and biological machines
  *
    Caring machines

Soil as place, internet as place-less-ness (Claire Loder and Dave Webb)
This strand thinks about digital technologies and their entanglements 
with soil and food systems.  Vandana Shiva argues that the techno 
optimism advanced by Big Tech and Big Ag, will only exacerbate the 
climate emergency. How might thinking-with soil, an undertheorized body, 
offer fresh perspectives?

Soil, when understood as biologically intact, interconnected and 
ongoing, is contingent on place. Conversely, cloud technologies and 
internet infrastructure have a place-less-ness - our everyday actions 
online, both trivial and essential, feel immaterial and weightless 
thanks to metaphors and abstractions like the cloud. These tools are 
constructed and operational through complex relationships with soil and 
land.

What sense does soil make of our digital actions, what seeps in and out 
of soily bodies – materially, conceptually, philosophically?
How might we create new metaphors for the digital that materialise and 
bring to mind these hidden realities, manifesting with mass, visibility, 
and place in a more authentic digital ecology?
We are interested in a range of responses that explore themes including:

  *
    Soil-human relations
  *
    Soil-food-data synergies
  *
    Food culture
  *
    Extraction
  *
    Data and transfer
  *
    New metaphors and stories for digital infrastructure and digital
    actions
  *
    (Digital) compost and a (digital) lifecycle
  *
    Temporality
  *
    Acoustic soilscapes
  *
    Belowground digital ecologies
  *
    Photosynthesis and carbon
  *
    Phenology
  *
    Soil care practices and rituals

Landscape, Ritual & Technology (Sam Wilkins)
This strand seeks to understand how technology has altered human 
interaction with the landscape and our ritualistic practices. We welcome 
papers that explore how we are adapting to change and uncertainty 
through ritualistic and folk behaviours in the face of the current 
climate crisis.

The question arises: How has technology altered our interaction with the 
landscape and our ritualistic practices? Furthermore, in what novel or 
traditional manners are we exploring, celebrating, and adapting to 
change and uncertainty?

We are interested in a range of responses from artists, academics, 
historians and technologists who are investigating the intersections of 
landscape and technology through ritual, folklore or performance to 
submit papers and present work that explore the following themes:

  *
    Ritual & Rites
  *
    Embodied practices
  *
    Energy Production: Solar, Wind, Hydro
  *
    Alchemy
  *
    Technology as revered object
  *
    Festival/Carnival/Rave/Music/Dance/Theatre
  *
    Folk Practices and Costumes
  *
    Uncertainty
  *
    Celebration / Feasting
  *
    Human / more-than-human
  *
    Calendrical: Seasons / Harvest / Spring / May Day

Submission Process
We welcome submissions from academics, artists, researchers, and 
practitioners who are exploring these themes. We also welcome proposals 
for non-traditional approaches to papers including proposals for 
exhibits and moving image screenings, sound works & performances.
Abstracts must be submitted in English by February 20th 2025 to 
(_artandtechnologyresearch /at/ bathspa.ac).uk_ with the subject “Abstract DE3 
2025” and should not exceed 300 words. Abstracts must include the 
presentation title & the author's name. For practice based work please 
provide the title and a summary/description of the work including 
duration for sound/video works.
Shortly after the conference, participants will be invited to submit 
their work for an online publication.
Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their submission by April 
28th 2025. Subsequent information regarding the registration process and 
process for submitting work will be made available closer to the 
symposium date.



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