about: university course
where: Department of Interface Cultures, Linz University of Arts
when: wintersemester, since 2021.

The aim of this class is to analyze current models of sustainability within different IT branches and to explore their potential and limits through artistic practice.

In the last years much has been said about the environmental impact of the internet, yet there are still many gray areas that obfuscate both the processes of material construction and the disposal of technologies, alongside the almost endless variation within general use of devices, systems and platforms. “Sustainability” is a very popular yet undefined term, whose meaning should more often be considered in the specific context in which it is used.

The various forms of sustainability – environmental, economic and social – accompanied by the domains of sustainable development – cultural, technological and political – can be used as tools to unpack and re-discuss the contemporary media landscape, as well as to discover areas and methods of intervention for artistic practice.

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How much water does a Google search take?
Did you know how much electricity it takes to train ChatGPT?
How many fish are affected by water-cooled data centres?
Are you sceptical about the whole self-driving car thing?

So how do we resist the constant urge to go higher,\\
with more connectivity, more pixels, more data and more computing?

Within the course of Sustainable IT we developed artistic research in the field of information technology, with a focus on the sustainability – or lack thereof – of contemporary technology. We asked how complicit we are in the environmental impact of the internet, what models are there for grounding and imagining less impactful, or even regenerative, community-oriented network technologies. We looked at permacomputing and rural computing, as well as the right to repair, low-tech networks and the small-tech art world. And, last but not least, how we can make our own practice more sustainable and support the development of new forms of internet through our work.

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Over the semester, each participating student is invited to develop a own research path within the wide context of sustainable IT.

Link: Interface Cultures (https://www.kunstuni-linz.at/studium/studienrichtungen/interface-cultures/masterstudium)
Link: course-wiki: https://unsustainabil.it/ikiw (content visible upon registration only)