Croatian crossroads: identity, tech, cooperation
What is the answer to any angst at the crossroads of technology, identity, cooperation? How do we deal with postdigital uncertainty? These problems and ideas – like others like it – are easy to bandy about but incredibly hard to solve and put into practice.
It is easy to minimize the work involved in creating networks for productive exchange among highly different communities, including the technological vs. the human. Such thoughts were addressed at the CUC2022 conference, generously hosted by CARNET in Šibenik, a beautiful Dalmatian city in Croatia. The conference had a section dedicated to postdigital research thanks to the vision and immense personal investment of Petar Jandrić.
My own presentation, departing from the work of Bernard Stiegler, was about how the exteriorization of knowledge through the technical tool continues to evolve around the universifying powers of science. As mnemotechnics becomes increasingly abstracted from the social body, who or what will the postdigital researcher be?
The late 19th and 20th century benefitted from epistemic cross-fertilization, but what about now? Are we any closer at overcoming the Cartesian evil demon, which computational thinking is to redress? The slides are below.
The postdigital section included questions of how to decolonize edtech (cf. Sarah Hayes), the question of data-driven inequities, and how it is not possible to talk about value without interrelation, which is to say, without acknowledging the problem of what is ‘in between’. Also mentioned was Stafford Beer’s privileging that which is within in lines not boxes.
As we live in a post-cybernetics age, and given that cybernetics is a form of management, it is worth mentioning that the conference was immaculately managed. The venue was stellar, the keynote speakers presented on par with TED Talk expectations. The wealth of ideas presented was tribute to the democratic view of the organizers, among whom was Klara Bistrić Mestrić.
I met some wonderful people at that conference which was testimony to how care for technology can promote human gatherings that spread good will and the free exchange of ideas. Thank you to the conference organizers, contributors, and participants.
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