Lunch Lecture by Anne Pasek: An Energy History and Future of Computing

During this lecture Anne Pasek surveys two trajectories for computing in the Global North.

Two trajectories

The first, grounded in an energy history of major players in the tech sector, explores how energy efficiency has been both a driving economic force of our digital present and an insufficient means to mitigate its rapidly growing environmental impacts. 

The second, drawn from artists and hackers experimenting in degrowth computing, 'small tech,' and solar-powered networks, explores how energy constraints are producing an alternative and dissonant path. Thinking these trajectories together, the talk will outline a politics and practice of digital energetics.

Anne Pasek

Anne Pasek is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies and the School of the Environment at Trent University, as well as the Canada Research Chair in Media, Culture and the Environment. She works at the intersections of climate communication, the environmental humanities, and science and technology studies. She studies how carbon becomes communicable in different communities and media forms, to different political and material effects.

This event is organized by the Environmental Humanities Center Amsterdam and the Special Interest Group Greening the Digital Society, part of the focus area Governing the Digital Society.