Dear list members,
On behalf of my colleagues I am happy to announce the website launch for our multimodal research project, ‘Against Catastrophe’ <https://againstcatastrophe.net/>, with the Ukraine Dispatch. Our project challenges the normalization of catastrophic thinking and necropolitical designs in the contemporary world. It does so through the histories of science and technology, infrastructure studies, environmental criticism, research-based art and speculative design. The project outputs <https://againstcatastrophe.net/about> include an edited volume, offline and online art/design exhibitions, and a series of online publications.
As we were conceptualizing the project, Russia invaded Ukraine. Faced with the resulting humanitarian and geopolitical crisis, we felt a need to respond to the unfolding tragedy. With ‘Dispatches’ – a short-form, multimedia, online publishing format – we hope to move past the news cycle-based temporality of contemporary catastrophism, but faster than traditional academic publishing, to shed light on the longer-term structural causes and implications of catastrophes.
In the first dispatch, on Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, our intention is not to offer a single response to the immediate human tragedy, but to explore the war in and beyond the multiple catastrophes it has wrought. The six collected dispatches here – by Asia Bazdyrieva <https://againstcatastrophe.net/dispatch-1/of-brushwood-reeds-and-foil>, Anna Engelhardt <https://againstcatastrophe.net/dispatch-1/adversarial-infrastructures>, Krolikowski Art <https://againstcatastrophe.net/dispatch-1/start-over>, Katarzyna Nowak <https://againstcatastrophe.net/dispatch-1/mourning-a-forest-road>, Oleksiy Radynski <https://againstcatastrophe.net/dispatch-1/nord-stream-studies>, and Jonathon Turnbull et al. <https://againstcatastrophe.net/dispatch-1/the-dogs-that-survived> – are products of war, but focus on its causes and effects in infrastructure and non-human nature. You can read the full editorial statement here: https://againstcatastrophe.net/editorial <https://againstcatastrophe.net/editorial>
‘Against Catastrophe’ is led by Dr. Orit Halpern, Lighthouse Professor and Chair of Digital Cultures and Societal Change at Technische Universität Dresden. The core project team <https://againstcatastrophe.net/ac-team> is based out of Concordia University (Montreal), MIT, and TU-Dresden.
‘Against Catastrophe’ is funded by Fonds de recherche du Québec and the Swiss National Science Foundation, and is part of the larger Governing Through Design research cluster.
[Our apologies for crossposting]
Kind regards
Johanna Mehl
__
Research Associate | PhD Candidate
Chair of Digital Cultures and Societal Change
TU Dresden
Institute of Language, Literatures, and Cultures
Zellescher Weg 21
01217 Dresden
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|