Replacements are not mere substitutions. They remind us that data, knowledge, technologies, sites, objects, and people have lives and entanglements beyond their present conditions. Whichever places they arrive into, something else was there earlier, and something else will take the places where they once were.
The theme of replacements extends beyond mere material substitutions or physical relocation but refers to the renegotiation of meaning, value and relation. Replacements includes transformation and rearrangement, as well as regrowth and replenishment. Where something is gained, something may be lost.
This summer’s theme started with RUSTlab’s own journey of replacement. Relocated to the main RUB campus, we find ourselves in a state of flux in which we will have to re-place and re-situate ourselves among new colleagues and infrastructure, and re-grow in a new place.
From the previous semester, themed best futures, we learned how global expansions of Big Tech using the entire planet and its resources as a reserve to stand-in and re-place (see our comment), to the cloud reshaping of everyday practices and our own obligations to replace it with healthier and more sustainable techno-logics (see our comment). Maybe through juxtaposing seashells and software shells that is re-piecing, stringing and weaving one thing into another (see our comment)?
With the motif of replacements we are keen to explore the webs between places, things and beings beyond their current manifestations. Whether it’s the decentralization of computation, the adoption of new standards, or the reconfiguration of social structures, each replacement brings with it new presences, histories and trajectories, we are eager to know more about.
