[Commlist] Material Ecologies of Media symposium 22-23 June

*Material Ecologies of Media and Their Histories*

22-23 June, 2-day symposium

Senate House, London, Room 104

Organised by Olga Goriunova, David Young, JP Kelly, Nick Hall and Hugh 
Hammond

Supported by the Department of Media Arts; Centre for the History of 
Television Culture and Production; School of Performing and Digital 
Arts, Royal Holloway University of London

All welcome, no registration required

This two-day event focuses on the material constitution of media, from 
television and film to networks and computation. The ecological impact 
of (digital) media is immense. It is estimated that by 2030, 
computation-related activities will account to up to 25% of global 
carbon emissions. Media devices are built with metals and minerals that 
sustain violent conflicts; rewards for labour that produces and 
maintains networked computation are distributed unequally impoverishing 
the Global South; and the infrastructures of global media prioritise 
energy-intensive activity. This event critically examines contemporary 
cultures of media production and carefully explores some of the 
alternative models, including radical practices of maintenance and 
renewal, archival strategies and historical assemblages in their 
relation to memory, care and heritage.

*Programme*

*22 June*

*10.00-13.00 with a refreshments break*

*Panel 1.****Permacomputing and the Technopolitics of Sustainability *

The destructive effects of the tech industry are well documented, 
ranging from the increasingly aggressive extraction of rare earth metals 
and the exploitative labour practices employed by hardware 
manufacturers, to the wasteful premature obsolescence of digital devices 
and the globalised infrastructures of electronic waste.This panel aims 
to respond to these critical concerns by examining how creative media 
degree programmes, which rely precisely on these highly resource 
intensive devices, can be taught both critically and sustainably. 
Specifically, the panel will explore the practical and philosophical 
implications of ‘permacomputing’—that is, an array of practices and 
strategies that seek to make better use of the computing hardware we 
already have rather than accept the cycles of consumption encouraged by 
big tech corporations. In doing so, the panel will discuss how 
permacomputing can combine urgent theoretical and practical questions 
concerning the technopolitics of sustainability, and open up novel (and 
reframe existing) possibilities to renegotiate how we design, use, and 
maintain our computers.

David Young (Royal Holloway, University of London)

MarloesdeValk(London Southbank)

AymericMansoux(University of Rotterdam)

TimCowlishaw(BAU, College of Art and Design Barcelona)

*13.00-14.00 Lunch break*

*14.00-17.00 with a refreshments break*

*Workshop, led by Nick Hall*

Britain's network of television masts and transmitters has a long 
heritage, and their ongoing maintenance is a continuous concern for the 
hundreds of engineers employed to work on them. However, masts and 
transmitters have been largely absent from histories of television. TV 
shows and their stars have been studied in depth and detail, and there 
have been substantial enquiries into production centres and the 
industrial organisation of the industry. The distribution of television 
as a commodity (on home video formats like VHS and DVD, and on-demand 
platforms like Netflix) has similarly been studied. However, 
transmission – the crucial intermediate step between television 
production and reception – has been overlooked, because all of the work 
and all of the technology is located far from the domestic space.

The Alexandra Park and Palace Charitable Trust recently acquired a 
five-metre-tall section of a prototype television transmitter mast built 
by EMI in the 1930s. Rescued from storage in a car park on the site of 
the old EMI factory at Hayes, the mast section is now on public display 
in the East Hall of Alexandra Palace. The display brings to ground level 
a piece of television infrastructure usually inaccessible to the 
public.The focus for the panel is to explore how this history can be 
brought to life in imaginative ways using new tools such as augmented 
reality and virtual reality, integrating archive television in order to 
engage new audiences in the material history of television, and to raise 
questions about the future of traditional television broadcasting in a 
digital future.

Nick Hall (Royal Holloway, University of London)

Kirsten Forrest (Alexandra Palace)

John Wyver (Westminster)

Jamie Medhurst (Aberystwyth University)

*23 June*

*10.00-11.20****with a refreshments break*

*Panel: Im/material histories of the television interface*

This roundtable will feature a discussion on the preservation of 
television interfaces, with a specific focus on public service 
video-on-demand platforms. The discussion will focus on the challenges 
involved in preserving these interfaces and the broader cultural 
significance of doing so.

As video-on-demand interfaces become increasingly prevalent, there is a 
growing need to preserve them for future generations. Public service 
interfaces in particular, which provide access to a wide range of 
culturally significant content, require careful consideration and 
preservation. This roundtable will explore questions such as: What are 
the key challenges facing the preservation of video-on-demand 
interfaces? What are the implications of failing to preserve these 
interfaces for future generations? How can we ensure that these 
interfaces are preserved in a way that is accessible and meaningful to 
future audiences?

JP Kelly (Royal Holloway, University of London)

Jannick Kirk Sørensen (Aalborg University, Denmark)

Julie Münter Lassen (Aarhus University, Denmark)

*11.20-12.30 Practical Workshop, led by JP Kelly*

*Doing VOD/Interface Analysis*

*12.30-14.00 Lunch and Closing remarks*

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