Presentations, programs, and news from the Smart Forests community.
28/11/2023
Jennifer Gabrys discusses the concept of a ‘smart’ forest, shares her insights into Chile’s pluralistic approaches to preventing and managing forest fires, and discusses the inclusion of Chile as a case study in the project. The interview occurred during Jennifer’s fieldwork visit in November 2023 and is available to read on the Fundación’s website.
20/11/2023
Drawing on work from the Smart Forests project, Jennifer Gabrys considers the shapeshifting relationship between forests and technologies–where forests increasingly perform as technologies, and how forests and technologies are reconstituted as they are deployed to address environmental change. The talk takes place on 20 November 2023 as part of the EGENIS seminar organised by Exeter University.
18/11/2023
In her online talk “Forest that Compute”, Jennifer Gabrys considers how computation takes place across digital, organismal, and ecological processes; and discusses examples of how smart forests and vegetalised technologies materialise through field observations, new collectives and vegetal policies for flourishing forest environments. This talk is part of the symposium “The Only Lasting Truth is Change” organised by Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (BEK) and takes place on 18 November 2023. The talk is available on Vimeo.
06/10/2023
On 6 October, Jennifer discusses spatial figures of digital networks in her talk “Animating Digital Infrastructures: From Networks to Phygitalities” as part of the symposium and annual conference of the CRC 1265, “Spatial Figures in the Anthropocene”, in collaboration with the ICI-Berlin.
12/09/2023
As part of the upcoming symposium “The Only Lasting Truth is Change 2023”, BEK invites artists, scholars and foresters to the workshop “Forests as Environmental Media: Vegetalizing a Smart Forests Atlas” led by researcher, writer, and practitioner Jennifer Gabrys.
11/07/2023
Trishant Simlai will be joining a discussion on how to monitor and protect biodiversity through responsible drone use. The event is organised by the University of Bristol and takes place on July 11.
27/06/2023
As part of POLLEN 2023, the Political Ecology Network’s 4th biennial conference taking place in South Africa, Trishant Simlai presents the paper, “Assertion and subversion through digital technologies: rights, sovereignty and counter-mapping by Indigenous pastoralists in India,” co-authored with Pranav Menon and Jennifer Gabrys.
21/04/2023
On April 21 and 22, postdoc Michelle Westerlaken participates in a workshop on environmental media and more-than-human infrastructures organized by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and De Waag Society (NL). The event is organized by dr. Marek Jancovic, dr. Sebastian Scholz, and dr. Jolanda Veldhuis. The event includes a field day to explore environmental sensors and a presentation day where Michelle will discuss work on biodiversity monitoring technologies and multispecies design.
02/03/2023
Michelle Westerlaken will deliver a guest lecture on more-than-human and sustainable technologies at City University London. This lecture is part of the module on Design Justice. It takes place on 2 March 2023.
This event might be affected by strike action
17/01/2023
As part of Congreso Futuro (Regiones: Valparaiso), Jennifer Gabrys presents Smart Forests research, with a focus on wildfires and digital technology.
07/12/2022
As part of the 4S/ESCOCITE second joint meeting in Cholula, Mexico, Jennifer Gabrys will participate in the panel, ForeSTS. She will present work on “Carbon Workers in Smart Forests.”
28/11/2022
Kate Lewis Hood will respond to Martina O’Brien’s of ephemeral measure, which is rooted in image making, phenology, and the activation of communities. The ongoing project involves installing and maintaining digital cameras at multiple sites in County Kildare to counter the lack of phenological monitoring in Ireland. Kate will discuss the project as part of a network of smart forest practices and phenological technologies. This publication launch and discussion will be held on Monday 28 November 2022 from 6pm GMT as part of Dublin Art Book Fair.
23/11/2022
Trishant Simlai will discuss his work on conservation surveillance for this STS Research Seminar at University College London (UCL).
27/10/2022
The question of what is a forest runs through numerous environmental research and policy discussions. This Smart Forests symposium at the University of Cambridge will attend to the “forest multiple” (cf. Mol, 2002) to consider the pluralistic mobilizations and inhabitations of forests across varying contexts, and in relation to digital technologies.
07/10/2022
For this Future of Forests hybrid event, Jennifer Gabrys gives an overview of the Smart Forests research project and discusses examples of digital technologies as they contribute to different forest worlds and livelihoods. “RegTech, Governance and the Future of Forests” is hosted by Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and Food and Agriculture Organization for the United Nations (FAO). Tune in on 7 October 2022 for one or multiple sessions from 2-5pm CEST.
23/09/2022
5G promises to bring ‘physical’ and ‘digital’ worlds closer by enabling more rapid and extensive communications through Internet of Things networks and devices. This keynote presentation by Jennifer Gabrys will examine how urban infrastructures and forests become newly and doubly animated by the promises of 5G working with AI.
22/09/2022
To promote scholarly exchange around data, governance and ethics, Big Data & Society is holding a Colloquium, featuring a series of panel discussions with experts from around the globe. Jennifer Gabrys will contribute to a session addressing issues of computing and the environment, from waste and pollution to the materiality of data. Join this online talk on 22 September at 15:30 BST via Zoom here.
23/08/2022
During the Participatory Design Conference 2022, Michelle Westerlaken will present a co-authored paper that details the development of the Smart Forests Atlas. The Atlas expands open-data research platforms toward pluralistic and participatory practices, and works with the under-examined practice of ‘digital gardening’ to reconfigure the open-data research platform into a dynamic and participatory space for cultivating ideas and generating content.
15/06/2022
The Smart Forests project is hiring a full-time postdoctoral researcher to join our team. The position is for 24 months and is based in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. The deadline to submit your application is Friday, 22 July 2022. It is anticipated that interviews will take place during the week commencing 1 August 2022.
05/05/2022
Jennifer Gabrys will present “Sensing Smart Forests” as part of the NordAI seminar series “AI and Environment” on 5 May 2022. The series is curated by Tirza Meyer and Adam Wickberg from the research project “The Mediated Planet” by the Environmental Humanities Laboratory at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. Running February and June 2022, the series features contributions from leading scholars working with AI at the interface between the human and non-human world, exploring the question: what constitutes the environment through the lens of artificial intelligence?