Reclaiming the Planet / Orit Halpern

Canada, and in particular Northern Quebec, is the site of vast extractionary infrastructures in agriculture, forestry, and mining. These regions have histories of colonialism, inequity, violence, and environmental degradation and contamination. Currently, these industries are also being radically reformulated through new information and computational technologies. Quebec’s situation is both local and global. All over the world, humanity faces the question of how to inhabit post-industrial and toxic landscapes, and how to contend with the planetary scale impacts of extractionism, new information technologies, and industrial agriculture. In response to this contemporary situation, this project results from a one and a half year research-studio, Reclaiming the Planet, that was a collaboration between researchers at Concordia University, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Université de Montréal School of Architecture, and the Departments of Geoengineering and Environmental Science at Université de Quebec, Abitibi-Temiscamingue. The studio’s central question was how to reclaim and reimagine infrastructures for the future? The studio approached this problem in two directions; examining histories of the industry and the impact of new information technologies while engaging with how information technology and design will shape the future. We ask critical questions such as: how do we wish to live? And what worlds do we want to build?  How do we imagine more egalitarian, just, and sustainable infrastructures? What shall we do with the ruins of extractionary and industrial infrastructures? How will information technologies impact these futures? In the course of this video and website you will see some of our responses. And can download a booklet of the final projects. https://www.reclaimingtheplanet.net/ 

Bio: Orit Halpern is Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University in Montréal. Her work bridges the histories of science, computing, and cybernetics with design. She has also published widely. Her first book Beautiful Date: A History of Vision and Reason (Duke UP 2015) investigates histories of big data, design, and governmentality. Her forthcoming book with Robert Mitchell (MIT Press December 2022) is titled the Smartness Mandate. It is a history and theory of “smartness”. She is also the director of the Speculative Life Research Cluster and D4: The Disrupting Design Research Group, both are laboratories bridging the arts, environmental sciences, media, and the social sciences.