Panel discussion: Ecology and technology – doom or gloom?

Panel discussion: Ecology and technology – doom or gloom?
Thursday, 7 December 2023 at 5 p.m.
MMC KIBLA

On Thursday, 7 December 2023 at 17:00, we invite you to a panel discussion at MMC KIBLA in which we will explore an intimate tension between technology and ecology through the eyes of ecologists, artists and political economists from our region. Over the last three centuries of industrial capitalist development, the extraction of matter and the burning of fossil fuels have destabilised Earth's ecosystems at a pace and scale unprecedented in human history. Technologies are at the centre of that destabilized metabolism of capitalist societies within the planetary nature. However, technologies are also at the centre of our deepening scientific understanding of the planetary ecological crisis and could provide a means to develop novel, mutually sustaining rapports with non-human nature. Our panellists will provide us with insights from their practices: how old-school mining is presently polluting the ecosystems of Bosnia and Hercegovina, how the green transition was in discussion already in the Socialist Yugoslavia and is presently driving the extractivist destruction in Serbia, and how hacking of technological systems can foster empathetic strategies toward marine and riverine ecosystems.

Presenters:
Safet Kubat (BA) – PhD student in political ecology. Founder and leader of the environmental movement "Rivers of BiH – Be the change" ("Rijeke BiH — Budi promjena") with more than 61.000 members. Safet combines digital and eco-activism with scholarly research.

Aleksandar Matković (RS) – a political activist and researcher from Serbia, currently employed at the Institute for Economic Sciences in Belgrade, at the Department of economic history. He runs a blog called "Research & Alternatives" and leads a small ecological NGO called "Societal Action" (Društvena akcija). He is also a member of the Green Left Front (Zeleno-levi front), an oppositional party in Serbia.

Robertina Šebjanič (SI) — an award-winning artist-researcher, delves into the intricacies of aquatic environments, intertwining the biological, geopolitical, and cultural dimensions, using terms like "aquatocene" and "aquaforming" to illuminate humanity's impact on marine life. https://robertina.net/

Moderator:
Tomislav Medak (HR) – researcher with a PhD on technopolitics and planetary environmental crisis. Member of the theory and publishing team of Multimedia Institute/MAMA and a co-instigator of the Pirate Care project.