Design & Crises – More-than-Human Commons in Times of Climate Urgency

How can tracking and rewilding birds be an act of mutual learning and care, preserving and increasing non-human autonomy? How can virtual reality shift the human perspective to that of the microscopic world of phytoplankton, making imperceptible ecological processes perceptible to reshape our relationship to non-human life? And what does it mean to give a river legal rights in a process of restorative justice?

Digital technologies change the ways in which we perceive, understand and relate to the more-than-human world. Data and computation increasingly mediate our encounters with ecological systems – they allow us to model environments, trace species, make invisible processes perceptible and imagine alternative futures. At the same time, these technologies do not simply reveal the world – they actively shape what can be seen, known and acted upon. The speakers in this panel will explore and discuss what happens when ecological worlds are increasingly mediated through data, digital technologies, law and governance – and whether this bewilderment can become productive, opening up new forms of ecological participation, multispecies care, and more-than-human commoning.

About the Weizenbaum Debate

With the Weizenbaum Forum event series, we open our institute on the second Tuesday of each month to perspectives and concerns from politics, business, and civil society, inviting a broad audience to engage in dialogue on research questions related to the networked society. Each event brings together three selected experts from different fields to examine the societal implications of digitalisation from diverse perspectives and to discuss them with participants. Drawing on the idea of the ancient forum, the series creates a space for encounter, exchange, and reflection, thereby building bridges between academic research and practice.

Input

• Felix Stalder (Professor, Zurich University of the Arts)
• Christian Stein (Researcher, Matters of Activity, Humboldt University of Berlin)
• Ariel Sánchez Meertens (International Expert in Restorative Justice)

Host

• Michelle Christensen (Research Group Leader - Weizenbaum Institute)

Registration