145. Turning the ocean, the sky and the land digital: Who and what is betrayed, and when?
Annalisa Pelizza, Dpt Philosophy and Communication, University of Bologna; Claudio Coletta; Agnese Cretella; Sarah De Rijcke;
What happens when ocean, sky and land are turned digital? Deep-sea mining and oil extraction, greenhouse gasses emissions tracking and outer space explorations, precision agriculture and animal telemetry are only some examples of practices which quantify and liquefy traditional human activities in order to increase efficiency and productivity, or to provide solutions in response to societal needs. If digital translation is always a betrayal, in this panel we wonder who and what is betrayed by turning the ocean, the sky and the land digital. Is digitization the new frontier of extractivism and non-humans inhabiting water, air and soil its prime victims? Or can digitization open unforeseen, more equitable, supportive possibilities? As traditional human activities were not necessarily free from extractivist goals, digitization can either reinforce those goals, or betray them. How does digitization interact with other forms of sensing and knowing? At which stage (e.g., monitoring, analysis) does betrayal takes place? How does digitization create 'exploitable (or hackable) intervals'?
This panel seeks to investigate cases in which digitizing the ocean, the sky and the land provides new modes of knowing to pursue extractivism, and cases in which digitization betrays those goals. To this end, we invite empirical and theoretical work which may include (but are not restricted to) the following themes:
Digitization as betrayal
Digitization of deep-sea mining and oil extraction
Digital colonizing of remote land and outer space
Animal and vegetal telemetry, precision farming
Creation of exploitable/hackable intervals through digitization
Equities and inequities resulting from digital agriculture
Keywords: Information, Computing and Media Technology, Data and Quantification, Food and Agriculture, ocean, air, sky, digitization, betrayal, extractivism, intervals
