Session: New Extractivism
https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/session/new-extractivismNaam/name Notulist: .... LauraDatum/date: 27-06-2023 12:45Sprekersnamen/speaker names:
Shownotes
(mentioned links, books, podcasts, literature, etc.)Live notes (500-750 words)
Please use full sentences and write in the spoken language of the session / Graag volledige zinnen gebruiken en de taal aanhouden van de sessieVladan Joler- identifies mostly as a cartographer to show invisible infrastructures
Investigated data centres, algorythms, systems of powers behind the infrastrutures
In order to see those landscapes you need different kinds of investigations techniques.
Vladan's method: visualise systems and relations. The result: Big black maps showing 'factories' like Facebook's algorythms.
New extractivismInvestigated extended anatomies up to mines where all the minerals come from
- show the complexity of these factories like Amazon
- planertary scale factory/systems
Main question: why? whats the meaning? what are the power relations behind the drawings?
When you look into the black box you can see it from many different angles.
--> Technical investigation - but just one dimension
--> Legal investigation
Combines ciritcal media theory + phylosophy
- film is screened: https://extractivism.online/an assemblage of concepts and allegories
Cave allegory
Prisinor: labour / product / resource
Powerstructures and social networks
Goast work / invisible labour creating the walls around the caved user: black boxes, hardware, closed code
Every aspect of us can have
behavioural surplus if surveilled. Therefor, our pure excistance can be seen as labour —> digital identity labour / autodisciplinary system
Gravitational force of big tech companies, soaking up people towards a point of no return.
Platocticum: millions of caves in panopticum structure.
1. Shadow of person
2. Interface
Data body: statistical behaviour of dividual
Condividuals: dividiuals connected, new relations are created
Surveillant assemblage: network of entangled surveilllandce systems
Content extraction: extracted content is analysed
Instruments of measurement and perception: rules and regulations of filters
Projection of the world
Enginges of extraction: Extractivism works 2 ways: deepest layers of the Earth, deepest layers of human cognition.
Enclose and afinity to infinity
Fractal supply chains
Blood sweat and toxic lakes: hidden destruction
Triangular trade
Chains of digital colonialism: exploration of human labour + natural resources online
Together: blue print of a machine = super allegory = allegory within an allegory within an allegory etc
Vladan creates an assemblage of allegories, creating together a blueprint of a machine like superstructure or: a super allegory.
Vladan:Main question: to understand the factory from different angles. New labour relations.
We are not just workers, we are stuck in a new relations: being worker, product and resource at the same time.
--> resource: what is that? You can go deeper and deeper in this relation between resource and labour.
Devices are an extention of earth because of extraction. New Extracitivsm is this new combination of extraction of our body/mind/emotions AND earthly materials.
I wanted to illustrate phylosopical concepts and this is the result.
PanelJulie: Worked in a data centre before. Now, after this video, wished she didn't.
IT sustainability is very broad and complex. Its social, economical, governmental, etc.
The heat of the data centre striked her.
She is now a Relationship Development Manager working on Sustainable clouds
Fieke Jansen:Centres people and planet over profit and capital.
Wonders what the infrastructures are that we do want?
Question: So what she misses in this map: where is agency in this story? How are the humans pushing back? Resistance? Who is capable of doing this?
Question: What's new about this?
Vladan: this is usually the question that I get.
I don't feel that i am capable of doing that. I feel like i dont know enough. Thats why i did these projects. I had little knowledge.
Evreything is also in constant change: hardware and software. In order to investigate you need a lot of time, because of this rapid change.
I support all the people fixing it. But I am not capable to claim solutions, because i'm not capable to understand everything, the full factory. I dont know about resistance or where people fight back, because i dont know where the factory is.
JulieStresses awareness about sustainability so that we can change.
We need to create awareness through education.
What tools do we need to change it?
VladanOur devices travel more than we do.
Supply chains.
Problem: statistics as a religion. The idea that we can transform social relations into statiscital/mathicmatical functions.
Classification is a form of violence.
You create an algorithmic idea of what is true and what is not. We believe we can automatise everything with tech.
FiekeWe have to recognize capitalism is a political project.
Do we need this infinite grow of infrastructures? Can we debunk false promisis.
We have to look to resistance.
JulieWe know exactly what we don't want but we don't know what we
do want. We should discuss that more. Then it can be less negative future.
VisitorCritical note from visitor: its art without activism/action/solutions only made because out of a feeling of helplessness
VladanProces was libirating. Understanding of the deepness/sadness of the problem than you can come up with a solution. I feel free to do it in this way.
JulieGreat to have a dialogue here. I dont see it as dark, but as hope as well.
We collectively need to tackle the solution.
The video can be seen as a great beginnin / starting point.
VisitorWe use art to critizise art, but it didnt help maybe.
Maybe we shouldnt save technology with technology too.
WE dont have a planetary scale coordination.
VladanI dont understand why there are not more maps like these. In order to understand this complexity we need cartography.
VisitorWhy is your map so flat? There is so little colour, clean lines, universal shapes. Not all the prisoners are the same. Not all caves are the same.
VladanCartography is not objective. Depends on the maker. Its a form of storytelling. This is my language. Colour and other dimentions would be too much, too complex.
FiekeDifferent perspectives are nessesary.
In south amercia they call extraction stealing. They dont have the word extraction.