Technological University Dublin
(Ireland)
consortium leader
Université Paris Lumières
(France)
University of Silesia
(Poland)
Universidad de las Artes
(Ecuador)
Dublin City Council
(Ireland)
Disnovation
(France)
The Galápagos Islands Government Council
(Ecuador)
Consortium leader:
Academic partners:
Non Academic Partners:
The project rests on three Work Packages, each responsible for a set of situated research and practical actions.
Work package 1: Critique of Computer Theory and Design of a New Ecology of the Digital extends the critique of digital technology already undertaken by the digital studies network. It aims to reconsider the foundations of computer theory in relation to the concepts of locality, negentropy, anti-entropy, data economy and networked AI by developing the concepts of technodiversity and cosmotechnics. The main objective of WP1 is to develop methods from the Digital Studies network in relation to singular ecological contexts where the questions of locality, negentropy and others can be addressed with regard to social practices. This is to defy the current context of big data and artificial intelligence, where thought (noesis) and language seem reducible to calculation and to computational models of language processing respectively. To question entropy (optimisation, standardisation) requires the encouragement of other forms of thought (noodiversity) by means of new philosophical concepts (e.g. cosmotechnics, technodiversity) and, consequently, the maximization of the negentropic (ecological) potential of digital technologies. WP1 explore historical computer foundations and current computer theory for the design of new ecological and organological forms of computation. This WP is led by IRI and UPL that have complementary experience in digital studies and noetic perspectives. Their critique of computation will go alongside organological research that experiments with human and computer functionalities in the living territories (see WP2 and WP3), combining the theory of computation with human computer interface design and artistic research. WP1 entails mobility between researchers from TU Dublin and Uartes and IRI and CSSD as well as exchanges between researchers from Paris Lumiere, TU Dublin, Uartes and Berkeley. The interaction between academic and non-academic partners will allow for the implementation of the theoretical models into specific contexts;
Work package 2: Existential Territorial Laboratories – Locality and Noodiversity aims to rehearse and introduce new forms of collective responsibility through territorial experimentation, enabling new forms of citizen participation in local governance by means of contributory research. This is to create ‘therapeutic niches,’ that is the local cultivation of knowledge via ‘therapeutic of diversity’ in order to recreate local dynamics between bio- and technodiversity and to reconstruct more sustainable urban, peri-urban and insular territories. WP2 has two main objectives. First, it aims to provide international experience of contributory research methodologies to academics and citizens. Second, it aims to enable researchers from different disciplines to engage in localized research projects (e.g. in Paris, Ecuador, Dublin, Dąbrowa Coal Basin). WP2 will include the development of research methodologies through digital studies, contributory research and artistic research to engage with citizens and localized, real world problems (for example: the implementation of scientific norms in relation to fishing Islands, the development of digital literacy for young adults and teenagers in relation to the use of social media within specific community). The leader and the main beneficiary of WP2 – UARTES – offers an outstanding experience in territorial experimentation and socially engaged projects. IRI and University of Silesia will support WP2 and learn from UARTES’ experience of contributory research and its implementation. Effects of WP2 will be discussed in an international forum generated during the ERs and ESRs secondments in these territories. All partners will be invited to take part in the development of a toolkit, which will be tested in a variety of social contexts. Among the expected outcomes of WP2 will be the toolkit for territorial experimentation and for smart territorial development and organization implemented by means of networking events (exhibitions, workshops).
Work package 3: The Archipelago of the Living intends to develop a network of territorial laboratories of digital contributory research in order to study constraints on living archipelagos with regard to the ecological niches of species that inhabit the same territories. This is to generate local understandings of singularities and functional cooperations between territorial laboratories and academics in light of the planetary threat. WP3 is a contributory research program that will bring together fishermen, farmers and inhabitants of insular territories exposed to tourism flows as well as academic researchers from various disciplines, including biologists, geographers, computing theorists, artists, economists and lawyers. WP3 aims to develop the modes of contributory research and contributive economies in local territories by drawing on the studies from WP1 and the experiments from WP2. WP3 will expand from the urban experimentations in WP2 to rural implementation in territories and islands (morphological and metaphorical) to systematically explore relations between humans and other species in the contexts of rurality and urbanity (urban agriculture, urban recycling and upcycling). The aim here is to develop intersectoral solutions (academic and non-academic) which take into account local contexts (localities) and which maximize the possibilities coming from digital technologies to harness the singularities and value of living territories and the cooperation between the living lab territories and academic laboratories. The secondments of WP3 will focus on the development of contributory research within different rural localities including L’Île-Saint-Denis, the Galapagos Islands, and Sherkin Island.
The project rehearses the potential of territorialized knowledge based on a hypothesis that digital diversification conditions the resilience of human societies and holds the key for redesigning the self-destructive model of economic development. Digital diversification – understood as noodiversity (the diversity of the forms of knowledge) and technodiversity (the diversity of technologies as the supports of knowledge) – is believed to support the revaluation of knowledge and to offer a sustainable alternative to the knowledge-unfriendly model of computing platforms.
The principle motive behind NEST is to respond to the generalized proletarianization (the loss of knowledge: the knowledge of how to live, how to do and how to think) asa consequence of the predatory cult of technological innovation, which drives short-sighted markets and destroys localities. Revaluating the vital link between knowledge and locality, the project seeks to invert the direction of technological development and to respond to the systemic crises of the Anthropocene: climate change, biodiversity loss, virological crisis, growing distrust of science, the excess of information, disinformation and the regime of post-truth, understood as the consequences of the misuses of technics and technologies.
NEST is an intercontinental and intersectoral project that links academic research with social and artistic practices to carry out theoretical inquiry on the relationship between digital technologies, living systems and the production of knowledge within territorialized laboratories forming networks of localities. The project is based on contributory research: a method combining traditional academic, artistic, technological and industrial approaches with urban/rural research practices in order to constitute territorial communities integrating different forms of knowledge (practical and theoretical). The heart of the project is a mobility program for an international exchange of researchers and staff across academic and non-academic sectors of NEST actors, which allows the articulation of local territorial situations with planetary concerns in the context of the Anthropocene.
