“eCO2system: exploring the environmental and social impact of the internet’s materiality through a data-driven media art installation” presented by Antonopoulou
Symposium:
Session Title:
- Ecosystems and HybrId Agencies
Presentation Title:
- eCO2system: exploring the environmental and social impact of the internet’s materiality through a data-driven media art installation
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
The internet’s materiality often lacks attention in recent controversies surrounding the environmental footprint of physical versus online activity. The operation of the internet presupposes a physical infrastructure that consumes natural resources and generates pollution. The obfuscation of the materiality of the internet conceals power asymmetries produced by the uneven access to the control of the internet’s material infrastructure.
This paper investigates the social and environmental impact of the internet’s materiality through the data-driven, media art installation eCO2system. The installation consists of an aquarium which is connected to the Internet of Things and contains a small-scale ecosystem of fish. The technologically augmented aquarium retrieves data from a social media platform and detects digital activity promoting climate change awareness. The living conditions of the ecosystem deteriorate according to the number of awareness-promoting posts, highlighting the divergence between digital actions and physical consequences.
A complex network of more-than-human agents is articulated around the aquarium, including things, animals, humans, technologies, cultural structures, and other material and immaterial entities. The dynamics of this network impel us to rethink technology as part of a symbiotic whole of heterogeneous agents and to adopt less technocratic and more ethic criteria to redesign, reprogram, (re)use and recycle technologies.
