Bugs in the Smart City

3/05/2023, h. 17:00 – 19:15
Politecnico di Milano, Campus Leonardo, Edificio 5, AULA Castigliano
Webex
Per iscriversi inviare una mail a abdallah.jreij@polimi.it 

Going Upstream in Troubled Urban Multispecies Co-becoming

Discourses promoting the “Smart City” claim to offer capacities to monitor, control and modulate complex urban phenomena in real time with the help of cutting-edge technical equipment. In relation to ‘undesirable’ urban inhabitants such as ‘pests’, the technologies focus on automated detection and eradication of existing or emerging ‘infestations’. In this presentation, Professor Metzger (KTH) will use this automated exterminationist approach to other-than-human life as an entry point for thinking critically about the ethico-political ideals that underpin the Smart City concept. He will focus in particular on issues relating to the limits of inclusion in the smart city. What are those existences and phenomena that are deemed to be incompossible, that is: fundamentally unable to co-exist, with the smart city vision? He will problematise who is welcome in the smart city and under what conditions and prerequisites, noting that there will always be certain limitations. Dealing with such exclusions is a tricky ethico-political conundrum. Professor Metzger suggests that an approach of ‘upstream’ investigation into the production of conditions of co-becoming can function as an alternative to established ‘downstream’ pest management practices premised on control and eradication.

Relatori: Metzger – KTH
Discussants: Stefano Moroni and Carolina Pacchi – DAStU Politecnico di Milano

Responsabili: Davide Ponzini, Grazia Concilio, Zachary Jones, Abdallah Jreij, Maryam Karimi