Environmental DH Panel
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Community Engagement and Empowerment through Environmentally Focused Digital Humanities at Florida International University
- FIU is a large public research university located in southern Florida with over 55,000 students.
- FIU has a strong focus on environmental research and is ranked as having the 4th highest research activity in the Carnegie classification system.
- The university is located near major areas of environmental concern, such as the Everglades and Big Cypress, which directly impact water quality, endangered species, and climate change.
- The library collaborates with various departments and centers on environmentally focused digital humanities and GIS projects.
- The library supports research in digital humanities through its GIS Center, which provides data analysis, visualization services, and online applications.
- The library's Digital Collections Center digitizes special collections and cultivates partnerships with museums, archives, and local municipalities to host their digital collections.
- The library also offers workshops, equipment lending, and software resources through the Digital Scholar Studio.
Projects on Climate Change and Community Engagement in Miami
- Lecture and community conversation at the Hampton House Eco Theatre on African diaspora, culture, politics, water, and Everglades.
- Graduate student's digital exhibit on the South Florida community of Opa-locka and its vulnerability to climate change.
- Journalism department's ongoing project on sea level rise, including documentaries, digital exhibits, and virtual reality experiences.
- Collaboration with the Digital Collections Center to provide support and resources for student projects.
- Creation of a sea level rise visualization application by the FIU GIS Center to inform South Florida citizens about the potential impact on their neighborhoods.
Encouraging Students to Think about Hidden Infrastructure
- The project aims to encourage students to think about the hidden infrastructure that supports their lives.
- The focus is on both physical infrastructure (such as trash and recycling containers) and digital infrastructure.
- The digital infrastructure, although hidden, plays a crucial role in our daily lives.
- The material basis of our digital lives is enormous and often overlooked.
- Tracerouting can be used to visualize the path of internet connections and highlight the numerous smashable components involved.
- The project involves creating 360-degree videos of various campus experiences to help students understand infrastructure better.
- Examples of videos include showing how a library book gets from a mysterious annex to the library.
Creating 360 Videos to Explore the Material Basis of Everyday Experiences
- The goal is to create 360 videos that take users through various experiences, such as ordering items and seeing them show up the next day at the circulation desk.
- Another example is a 360 video that explores what happens to food when it is composted in the dining hall.
- A big ambitious idea is to create a whole water journey, starting from the Cumberland River and following the path of water from the shower to the drain and back to the river.
- The team started with a more manageable project, tracing how power, IT, steam, and water get from the power station on Vanderbilt campus to the digital humanities center.
- There are a series of 360 videos that showcase the journey, including going through underground tunnels.
- The team is interested in the problems that arise from this setup, such as how the form of the video may undermine the message about the weighty consequences of digital technology.
- They are considering ways to address this issue, such as incorporating content that highlights the infrastructure behind the VR experience.
Challenges and Criticisms in the Academic Profession
- The speaker discusses the idea of using cast-iron skillets to create a painful experience with Google Cardboard.
- The keynote by Lisa Nakamura raises awareness about unexplored problems with sending students on certain experiences.
- The speaker highlights the complaints and challenges faced by professors in universities, such as conflicts of interest, labor practices, and resistance to digital or interdisciplinary scholarship.
- The speaker emphasizes the need for professors to take collective action and make changes within the academic profession.
- The limitations of traditional tenure portfolios and the resistance to online scholarship are discussed.
- The speaker questions the effectiveness of the current academic system and its impact on society, citing the national debt as an example.
- Criticisms are raised about the relevance and appeal of certain academic book titles in the field of environmental humanities.
Exploring the Intersection of Literature, Ecofeminism, and Digital Humanities
- Titles from the field of digital humanities and eco d-h are more accessible and inclusive.
- Examples of projects that have received tenure and promotion include "Feminist in a Software Lab" and "Public Secrets Surfacing."
- Collaboration and saying "yes" to working in a university setting have played a crucial role in the success of these projects.
- Funding for projects, such as "Surfacing" on undersea data cables, often comes from external sources, like grants from companies.
- "Exploiting Tongues" is an innovative approach to the flipped classroom, allowing students to write and combine texts using media scalar.
- Eco critical work is an important aspect of digital projects, such as the "Tenants in Action" app for reporting housing violations.
- The game "Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand-Grenades" is relevant to eco critical and digital humanities discussions, despite its gun-related content.
The Importance of Maintenance in Digital Games and Google's Role
- Digital maintenance is crucial for the continuity, preservation, and renewal of complex systems like digital games.
- Maintenance involves repetitive and ongoing functions that are often hidden from view.
- Google, as one of the largest producers of computer hardware, plays a significant role in the maintenance of digital networks and machines.
- Google's server farms showcase the aesthetic of maintenance with single point perspective, symmetry, and a sense of infinitude.
- The images of Google's server farms communicate a vision of a ceaseless and unobstructed flow of usable data.
- The bright colors and neat arrangements in the images represent the invisibility of maintenance.
- Understanding the hidden aspects of maintenance is essential for maintaining digital infrastructures effectively.
The Hidden Realities of Google's Data Centers and the Environmental Impact of Electronics
- Google's data centers are largely operated by a minimal number of staff, mainly janitors, technicians, and security personnel.
- The images of Google's data centers often portray a pristine environment, hiding the massive inputs and outputs of the global infrastructure it connects.
- The disposal of user data involves drilling holes in drives to destroy the data, but the massive e-waste generated globally is a growing concern.
- In 2014, 42 tons of e-waste were generated worldwide, with a quarter of it produced in the United States. The projected figure for 2018 is close to 50 million tons.
- Environmental watchdogs criticize the recycling practices of e-waste, as they are often offshored to countries with exploitative labor practices.
- The geographic displacement from consumers of electronic products to the toxic beginning of the life cycle is mirrored in the energy consumption of data centers, which accounted for 2% of total energy consumption in 2014.
Maintenance Processes in Moderating Online Discourse and the Role of Content Moderation
- Content moderation plays a crucial role in maintaining online discourse.
- Facebook's algorithmic moderation processes, known as the "invisible eyes," work to moderate Facebook feeds.
- The perspective API, used for evaluating statements, has faced issues in evaluating statements related to race, gender, and sexual orientation.
- Public feedback has been encouraged to improve the ranking models of the perspective API.
- Machine learning applications often face problems of bias and discrimination, which can be seen as a maintenance problem.
- The issue of garbage in, garbage out is prevalent in machine learning applications.
- Digital humanists can help shed critical light on the problem of maintenance in online discourse and analyze cultural reproduction and biases.
- Digital metabolism and eco-critical DH highlight the interconnections between digital technologies and their environment.
- Eco-critical DH can address environmental issues through digital interventions and foster change through outreach, participation, education, and organization.
Eco-Critical Digital Work and its Impact on Environmental Awareness
- Eco-critical digital work focuses on the material effects of digital tools and documents real environmental issues.
- It serves as a platform for exploring and publicizing the inhuman and intra-main aspects of severe environmental issues.
- Examples of eco-critical digital projects include digital archives, digital activism, and digitally-based research projects.
- Augmented reality projects educate and compel users to adopt more sustainable behaviors.
- Eco-critical DH projects digitize and archive historical environmental media, map the relationship between poverty and pollution, and provide public updates on air and water quality.
- These projects can be easily incorporated into classrooms to educate students and promote environmental activism.
- Eco-critical digital work reconfigures our perception of technology and uses digital tools for education, outreach, and cultivation of new behaviors within the ecosystem.
- The goal is to add metabolic awareness to technology use and reflect on our environmental entanglements.
Evolution of Art Practice and Exploration of Digital Themes
- Multivalent art practice that includes traditional object-based works, digital video projects, film-based projects, and sculptural projects.
- Shifted towards subversion, intervention, workshops, and social and collaborative practice.
- Theme of convenience and critiquing invisible assumptions about our digital selves.
- Early project focused on bathymetric data of the Beaufort channel and created a sculptural project illustrating the continual need for dredging.
- Interest in data-based projects, including a smart device ingredient label project and sticker bombing campaign.
- Further exploration of digital lives and materiality, collaborating on a project to distribute sneakernet devices and discussing the ecological impact of the Internet.
- Use of engaging workshops and familiar approaches to connect with students.
Media Archaeology Lab and Digital Humanities Projects
- Conducted workshops and repair clinics at the Media Archaeology Lab in Boulder.
- Organized "Take It Apart" parties to teach students about the inner workings of their devices.
- Collaborated on a class where undergrad students built plastic recycling machines from the Precious Plastics project.
- Engaged in digital humanities tools and brought them into the art world.
- Currently working on a project called "Voluntary D-Convenience" which explores the trade-off between smartphones and flip phones.
- Aims to discuss convenience, psychological impact, and ecological consequences of continuous data use.
FIU's Environmental Research and Digital Humanities Projects
- FIU is a large public research university in southern Florida with over 55,000 students.
- FIU has a strong focus on environmental research and is ranked 4th in research activity.
- The university is located near major areas of environmental concern, such as the Everglades and Big Cypress.
- The library collaborates with departments and centers on environmentally focused digital humanities and GIS projects.
- The library supports research in digital humanities through its GIS Center, providing data analysis and visualization services.
- The library's Digital Collections Center digitizes special collections and hosts digital collections from museums and archives.
- The library offers workshops, equipment lending, and software resources through the Digital Scholar Studio.
- Projects include "Fragile Habitat" on African diaspora and Everglades, a graduate student's exhibit on Opa-locka and climate change, and a journalism department's project on sea level rise.
- The FIU GIS Center created a sea level rise visualization app to inform South Florida citizens about potential impacts.
- The projects aim to raise awareness about hidden infrastructure and the role of digital infrastructure in our daily lives.
- The team is creating 360-degree videos to showcase various campus experiences and highlight infrastructure.
- The speaker discusses challenges faced by professors, such as conflicts of interest and resistance to digital scholarship.
- The limitations of traditional tenure portfolios and the need for collective action within the academic profession are emphasized.
- Criticisms are raised about the relevance and accessibility of academic book titles in the field of environmental humanities.
- Projects like "Feminist in a Software Lab" and "Public Secrets Surfacing" have received tenure and promotion.
The Importance of Digital Maintenance and its Environmental Impacts
- Maintenance is crucial for the continuity, preservation, and renewal of digital systems.
- Google's server farms represent the aesthetic of maintenance and the invisible flow of usable data.
- Understanding the hidden aspects of maintenance is essential for maintaining digital infrastructures effectively.
- The disposal of user data and e-waste generated globally is a growing concern.
- Data centers often locate in areas with cheap and dirty energy sources, contributing to environmental issues.
- Content moderation plays a crucial role in maintaining online discourse, but issues of bias and discrimination can arise.
- Digital humanists can shed critical light on the problem of maintenance in online discourse and analyze cultural reproduction and biases.
- Eco-critical digital work addresses environmental issues through digital interventions and fosters change through outreach, participation, education, and organization.
- Augmented reality projects and digital archives can educate and promote environmental activism.
- Multivalent art practice can critique assumptions about our digital selves and explore the ecological impact of technology use.
- Engaging workshops and repair clinics can teach students about the inner workings of their devices and promote sustainable behaviors.
- Digital humanities tools can be brought into the art world to explore the intersection of technology and the environment.