Introduction
This course explores the environment as a scene and technology design as a tool for improvisational political action. We will trace the work of artists, designers, and programmers who are expanding the role of information technology (IT) from a modernist tool for representing and controlling the environment to an open-ended medium for situated consciousness-raising, networking, and reflecting about the environment. These systems aim for a new relationship to the environment: rather than containing and controlling the environment or environmental problems, they make room for more flexible, improvisational interactions between humans and the natural environment and its inhabitants.
We will analyze the cultural and political issues involved with the environment and their potential for IT-based interventions using a variety of on-the-ground strategies. The course will include a collaborative group project leveraging students from different disciplinary backgrounds to develop an environmental intervention of their own.
No experience with computers or other technologies is required.
If you have questions, please contact the instructor, Phoebe Sengers, at sengers @ cs.cornell.edu.