Presentations, programs, and news from the Smart Forests community.
17/11/2021
With a focus on Smart Forest technologies, Jennifer Gabrys will consider the social consequences of environmental technologies in a keynote presented as part of this series of Cambridge Zero Research Symposia.
17/11/2021
As part of the Humlab’s 20th anniversary conference at Umeå University, Jennifer Gabrys will give a keynote that explores the digitalization of forests, and how forests become media.
29/10/2021
Max Ritts presents “Social and Political Consequences of Acoustical Monitoring Networks,” at the Anthropology and Conservation Conference (25-29 October). He reviews some of the general trends exhibited in the “sonic eco-surveillant” turn in conservation, drawing on examples from around the world.
21/10/2021
As part of the event, “Human Entities 2021: Culture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” Jennifer Gabrys will present work on “Sensing Smart Forests.” The talk will be presented online, but held in the open-air environment of Palácio Sinel de Cordes, Campo Santa Clara 142-145 in Lisbon, Portugal.
08/10/2021
As part of the “Sense Ecologies” panel, Jennifer presents “Re-constituting the Sensory Infrastructure of Smart Forests” at this year’s 4S virtual conference in Toronto (6-9 October). She discusses forests as sensorized environments. Whether in the form of camera traps to monitor organisms or Internet of Things to detect wildfires, there are an array of sensor technologies that observe and constitute forests in relation to scientific inquiry, Indigenous land claims, environmental governance, and disaster prevention and mitigation. This presentation asks how sensory infrastructures materialize as distributions of power and governance while considering the sensory practices that transform and potentially re-constitute dominant regimes of perception.
08/09/2021
Surveillance technologies such as drones, camera traps and long-range thermal cameras used for conservation monitoring are increasingly also used to control and repress local communities. In Trishant Simlai’s plenary talk at the Drone Ecologies workshop, he discusses the socio-political implications that these surveillance techniques are having on the different communities who live near the Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand, India. You can view the talk here.
07/09/2021
Michelle Westerlaken talks with The Animal Turn host Claudia Hirtenfelder about her research on multispecies design. Michelle reminds us that “forests are more than trees. They are multi-species ecologies that can be looked at from all the different species above the ground, under the ground.” The conversation can be listened to here.
06/09/2021
In this talk, Jennifer Gabrys gives an overview of the Smart Forests project. Jennifer’s talk was part of the panel, “Data, AI, Ethics and the Environment,” as part of the “Just AI” event series. The talk can be viewed here.
23/08/2021
This year, Jennifer Gabrys gave a lecture titled “The Internet of Trees,” for the summer school course “The Posthuman and New Materialism,” (16-27 August). The annual course is organised by Professor Rosi Braidotti at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.
05/07/2021
Is conservation surveillance a means for state repression? Trishant Simlai considers this topic in his plenary presentation to an international audience at Drone Ecologies at the Cabot Institute for the Environment (5-6 July 2021). The event addresses questions about environmental justice, the rights of rural communities and surveillance from the proliferation of monitoring technologies.
24/06/2021
As part of this investigation into technical-natural milieus, Jennifer Gabrys will present work on the sensory infrastructures of smart forests. This virtual symposium contributes to re-thinking the ecological across art and media studies, including by engaging with how sensation and technologies generate milieus and inform earthly inhabitations. The event is hosted by the University of Oslo and Kunstnernes Hus in Norway on 24 June 2021.
22/06/2021
In this conversation on data, AI and the environment, Jennifer Gabrys will discuss how Smart Forests contribute to the challenges of digital technologies that would manage environmental crises, while also contributing to them. The event is hosted by the Ada Lovelace Institute and the JUST AI network on 22 June.
26/04/2021
On 26 April 2021, Smart Forests researcher Michelle Westerlaken will participate in The Animal Turn podcast to talk about her research on multispecies design. Host Claudia Hirtenfelder invites scholars from the Humanities and Social Sciences to explore the increasing research interest in animals other-than-humans as individuals in their own right, who have their own stories, histories and geographies. We will share the recording as soon as it’s out.
29/03/2021
The Smart Forests research group is taking part in the Digital Ecologies workshop at the University of Cambridge from 29 to 30 March 2021. The event features work that engages with digitalization and more-than-human geographies. From the Smart Forests group, Michelle Westerlaken will explore how open world digital technologies enable us to explore monstrosity in less anthropocentric ways. Max Ritts will discuss the role of ecoacoustics and bioacoustics in environmental conservation and their potential impact on governance. Trishant Simlai will address surveillance technologies and forest labour in the Corbett Tiger Reserve (India). Jennifer Gabrys will present work on the Smart Forests project in a keynote lecture. Register and tune in for these and many other talks at the intersection of digital technology and environments.
01/01/2021
We are delighted to announce the appointment of new Smart Forests research associates Danilo Urzedo, Michelle Westerlaken, and Max Ritts, as well as research assistant Trishant Simlai. Learn more about their research areas on our People page.
15/10/2020
How is it possible to “sense” the planetary? It is now not uncommon for the planetary to be invoked in discussions of technology. How might it be possible not to remake the pretensions of globality and globalization through planetary media projects, but rather begin to unsettle figures of totality and regulation in order to attend to the incommensurate, the unjust, and the yet to be recognized?
01/10/2020
The Smart Forests project is hiring 3 Postdoctoral Research Associates. The positions are each 3.5 years in duration. Researchers will be based in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Applications were due 11 October 2020. We will announce news of our expanding research group soon.
22/05/2020
Jennifer Gabrys discusses the role of sensors in composing and responding to environmental conditions as part of this Critical Zones exhibition launch event at the ZKM in Karlsruhe.
14/02/2020
Published in Big Data & Society in February 2020, “Smart forests and data practices: From the Internet of Trees to planetary governance” provides a conceptual overview of the Smart Forests project.