The conference focuses on the ideological implications of technology and hybrid cultural infrastructures in creating communities and public spaces. Today, the Baltic region is buying into the possibilities of communication technologies and the “internet of things.” These purported trends are in contradiction to pressing other realities within contemporary society, such as “industries of crisis” which within regimes of global capital, have generated entirely new forms of human-made disaster. Yet these industries of crisis have also fomented new forms of resistance, dissent, and civic engagement using network technologies to enable globally synchronized protests. These trends have also engendered a new, diverse aesthetics of dissent wherein cultural and artistic influences have found ways to amplify these emergent forms of civic engagement for greater impact.
Participants: Saskia Sassen (Columbia University, USA), Rick Lowe (Artist/Founder of Project Row Houses, USA) Doina Petrescu (University of Sheffield, UK/ Atelier d’architecture autogeree, France), Jodi Dean (Hobart and William Smith College, USA), Sasha Costanza-Chock (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA), Gintautas Mažeikis (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania), Skaidra Trilupaitytė (Lithuanian Culture Research Institute, Lithuania), Andrius Bielskis (Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania), Rasa Baločkaitė (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania), Marina Otero Verzier (Het Nieuwe Institute, The Netherlands), and others.
