“Digital policy(ies)” ‣ Chapter 3 – Ambivalences #3 – Nantes

Ambivalences #3 – Political Mutations

The progressive digitization of our societies is bringing about profound transformations in many aspects of our lives: access to information, knowledge, culture, changes in social and economic relations… How are these changes modifying the balance of power in the social field? What are the political implications? How do today’s artists look at these changes and in what ways do they use these technologies in their work to convey a political discourse and reveal their emancipating, alienating or subversive dimension?

Chapitre 3 – Digital policy(ies)

Thursday September 14, 2023 – 2:00 PM
 La Cantine – HALLE 6 EST – Nantes

Like all technology, the digital products and services we use on a daily basis are not neutral and carry a political vision of our world and our relationship with technical objects. But what is this vision? Libertarian and emancipatory, like the one that seems to have prevailed in the early days of the Internet? Or centred on productivity, efficiency, the quest for automation and control, and opposed to any form of regulation, like the one that seems to dominate at the moment, at least in the digital mainstream?

Explaining and questioning the ideological underpinnings of digital technologies now seems more necessary than ever, given the extent to which they are increasingly affecting our daily lives and our relationship with others and the world. Just as it is necessary to seek to bring into existence ‘digital others’, who can offer alternative political visions to those developed by the giants of the sector – if that is even possible…

By way of conclusion to the third and final cycle of Ambivalences, dedicated to political change, this afternoon of lectures and round table discussions will seek to describe the political projects driven by the digitisation of our societies, and to explore the political changes in the digital world itself, from its beginnings to the present day. More broadly, it will also look at the ways in which artists, researchers and activists are helping to inform our thinking about what the digital is – or could be – and at the ways in which they are contributing to our understanding of the digital world.

Speakers

Pauline Briand, journalist, editor and consultant

Olivier Alexandre, sociology researcher and author

Anna Longo, philosopher and author

Felix Luque Sanchez, artist

Ambivalences is based on the festivals Maintenant in Rennes, Scopitone with the Labo Arts & Tech in Nantes and ]interstice[ in Caen. It emanates from an inter-regional dynamic carried by Electroni[k] (Brittany), Stereolux (Pays de La Loire) and Oblique/s (Normandy). It is part of the reflections carried by the national network HACNUM, around the stakes specific to the actors and the sector of the hybrid arts and digital cultures.

Graphic design: Studio Triple