EA 173 PZ -Digital Environments

This seminar considers the material and environmental implications of digital media and contemporary tech industries. Thinking beyond the screen and its projections, this course examines the often out-of-sight spaces and populations most impacted by the growth of digital networks, algorithmic processes and automation. We will consider both the material extraction required to sustain the demands of tech “innovation” and the way algorithmic processes are reorganizing urban and rural geographies. Some of the topics covered include: internet infrastructures (data centers, undersea cables, etc.), global supply chains and extractivism, networks and sovereignty, and environmental questions in techno utopian discourses. At the more local level, we will interrogate the proliferation of warehouses in the Inland Empire and engage with activists working to reconcile environmental concerns with growing “digital” economies.