26/04/2022

AI and Environment

Jennifer Gabrys will present “Sensing Smart Forests” as part of the NordAI seminar series “AI and Environment” on 5 May 2022. The series is curated by Tirza Meyer and Adam Wickberg from the research project “The Mediated Planet” by the Environmental Humanities Laboratory at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. Running February and June 2022, the series features contributions from leading scholars working with AI at the interface between the human and non-human world, exploring the question: what constitutes the environment through the lens of artificial intelligence?

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05/04/2022

How to Make Breathable Worlds

In April, Jennifer Gabrys will present the first Melbourne School of Design Dean’s Lecture for 2022. Jennifer will draw on material from her forthcoming book, Citizens of Worlds: Open-Air Toolkits for Environmental Struggle, to discuss how atmospheric citizens are constituted through practices of sensing environments and working to build more breathable worlds. She’ll unfold Citizen Sense research and projects, from documenting emissions in urban environments and creating air-quality gardens, to citizens collaborating to monitor air pollution from fracking infrastructure. This public lecture will be held on Tuesday 12 April at 6:30pm AEST / 9:30am BST. Register via the link below.

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20/03/2022

Instruments of Change

Jennifer Gabrys recently discussed the sensory infrastructures of smart forests at “Instruments of Change” — a multi-day symposium focused on the technological and scientific frontiers of sensing, simulating, and experimentation in the landscape. Jennifer spoke as part of the “Sensed Landscapes (Mapping Change)” session on 15 February 2022, which examined the use of both ground-based sensors and aerial and satellite-gathered imagery for mapping landscape change. Tune in to the recordings from this and the other sessions via the Environmental Modeling Lab (EMLab) at the University of Pennsylvania.

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16/03/2022

Atmospheric Citizens

Environmental sensors are meant to activate particular forms of data-oriented envi­ronmental citizenship. Plugging in a digital kit and join­ing a disparate community of users are the steps to be followed that in principle should mobilize environmental data and rights in the making. Yet rather than unfold a more straightforward form of political engagement, citizen sensing kits and the citizen data they generate can often give rise to even more complex struggles with urban environmental life. Jennifer Gabrys will present “Atmospheric Citizens: How to Make Breathable Worlds” as part of the University of Texas’s Digital Writing and Research Lab speaker series on Thursday 28 April at 10:30am CT / 4:30pm BST.

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09/03/2022

Urban Inhabitation and Technicity

For the Urban Institute’s new program “Urban Inhabitation and the Urban Technical”, Jennifer Gabrys joins an exciting line-up of interdisciplinary scholars for an inception meeting to explore questions of planetary habitability. The discussion will push beyond conventional notions of habitability, asking: how might an expanded sense of technicity open up new horizons for thinking about what the urban could be? Jennifer will discuss the breathability of worlds, drawing on work from her forthcoming book, “Citizens of Worlds: Open-Air Toolkits for Environmental Struggle”. This free, online conversation will be hosted by the University of Sheffield’s Urban Institute on Friday 18 March at 4pm GMT.

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24/02/2022

Sound's Colonialities

For “Sound’s Colonialities: Formatting, Recording and Saving on Indigenous Lands”, Max Ritts draws from Smart Forests’ expansive research into forests, conservation politics, and digital acoustics — advancing critical questions into a central interleaving theme: coloniality. We explore how new acoustical monitoring technologies, rapidly being established to legitimately respond to escalating conservation issues worldwide, pose ethical dilemmas and material consequences for Indigenous communities whose lands, livelihoods, and ecological realities can enter their calculations in meaningful yet oftentimes unanticipated ways. This talk is part of Decolonial Research Lab at Talks.cam and takes place on 25 February 2022.

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23/02/2022

Im/materialities

Jennifer Gabrys will be presenting at “Im/materialities — Structural tensions between AI and the environment” on 24 February. This panel discussion by the JUST AI Network will explore the possibilities and limitations of AI as a solution to the climate crisis. Register via the link.

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23/02/2022

Media Ecologies

For the Center for Comparative Media at Columbia University’s “Media Ecologies” seminar series, Jennifer Gabrys will present “The Forest that Walks: Digital Fieldwork and Distributions of Site” on 25 February 2022. The series brings together a diverse set of thinkers examining the relationship between technology and the bodies that interact with them.

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28/01/2022

Planetarities

We’re excited to announce a new series by Goldsmiths Press and MIT Press for 2022 — “Planetarities”. Co-edited by Jennifer Gabrys, Ros Gray, and Shela Sheikh, the Planetarities Series investigates the rise of research and practice that attends to earthly and planetary concerns.

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21/01/2022

Beyond the Human

Michelle Westerlaken recently joined the Lightning Lunch series, “Beyond the Human” — hosted by the Critical Digital Humanities Initiative at the University of Toronto. She presented “Imagining Multispecies Worlds”, exploring her research at the intersection of design, digital technologies, and the more-than-human. Watch this engaging discussion with scholars focused on digital humanities work with plants, birds, insects, fish, and fungi.

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14/01/2022

Being Planetary as Praxis

For “Narratives about Earth”, an evening of films and talks, Jennifer Gabrys presented “Being Planetary as Praxis” — the concept that informs the ethos of the Planetary Praxis research group. The lecture formed part of “Constellations for Futures: Stories on Ecology, Kinship and Sciences”, co-hosted by La Loge and Goethe-Institut Brussels. If you missed it, you can playback the talk — and the entire three-day program — via the link below.

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08/01/2022

Data Citizens and the Right to Data

In the recent presentation, “Data Citizens and the Right to Data”, Jennifer Gabrys discussed how environmental monitoring practices and infrastructures mobilize rights to data, air, and breathable worlds. The talk shares research from chapter three of “Citizens of Worlds”, which examines how practices of monitoring urban air pollution activate urban dwellers as data citizens. Watch the presentation and conversation with the Centre for Data, Culture & Society at the University of Edinburgh by following the link below.

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06/01/2022

AI for Earth

For the AI & Sustainability series of Cambridge Zero Research Symposia, Jennifer Gabrys presented “AI for Earth” — considering the social consequences of environmental technologies with a focus on Smart Forests. The keynote explores how smart forests are shaping environmental governance and transforming forest cosmologies. Watch via the link below.

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05/01/2022

Sensing Smart Forests

As part of the event, “Human Entities 2021: Culture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”, Jennifer Gabrys presented “Sensing Smart Forests” — investigating the sensory arrangements that smart forests generate. Organised by CADA in partnership with the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, the event was presented both online and in the open-air environment of Palácio Sinel de Cordes in Lisbon, Portugal. Listen to the podcast via the link.

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01/01/2022

Becoming Planetary

How is the planetary configured, rather than assumed to be self-evident? This essay addresses the topic of the planetary, and outlines the concept of being planetary as praxis that informs the ethos of the Planetary Praxis research group.

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01/01/2022

Planetary Health in Practice

This article asks how citizen-sensing practices tune into the problem of air pollution in Southeast London, and in so doing differently configure pollution and planetary health.

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