Portfolio
Playing with the Format of Predictions
The Elon Musks of the world abuse #sf, #AI companies push eerie next-word predictors into our lives, and prediction markets accelerate corruption.
So…, how about reclaiming the format of predictions? As critical thinkers? Can it work?
Welcome to our Predictions project:
www.matteringpress.org/books/pre…
We assembled a wonderful collective of writers, from STS scholars to poets. Read the pieces and check out our introduction to get a sense of our thought process; it has been quite a ride.
Thanks to Mél, Edward, Hollis, the folks at Mattering Press, and, most importantly, the crowd of predictors who have been part of the process. In a few weeks, we will follow up with a second volume and an even wider collective that has shaped this project.
Collectively troubling timescapes is one of the sweetest aspects of thinking through predictions.
“We invite you to engage with Predictions as openings: opportunities to read generously and wander thoughtfully. To let go of extractivist habits of reading; to resist the pull to mine for definitive conclusions. Instead, we invite you to trace the threads that resonate with you, even if they fray at the edges.”
Rethinking reading and writing in academia is a key task, a helpful intervention. Related contributions are zines, a sci-fi story about overcoming excessive data infrastructures in the university, a speculative dictionary discussing virtuality, among other things.
Semiconductor research in Taiwan and Vietnam
Happy to share that my article is live: enjoy some #semiconductor industry dynamics in #Vietnam and #Taiwan.
I draw on ethnographic fieldwork at industry fairs in Taipei and Hanoi to make sense of a global frenzy. Follow me on a trip.
This is just one contribution of my work in a data center research project, and it also hints at further research on the planetary entanglements of the semiconductor industry, some of which is being done in the German-Taiwanese collaboration on “Silicon Urbanism”.
Stay tuned for more contributions, a panel I co-organize at the EASST Review, a research project that’s in the pipeline. And reach out if you’re interesting in knowing things or exploring avenues for collab.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/…
Publication formats: Maybe you need do decide what side you're on, GenAI or Zine?
Thinking like a waste scholar
Waste is often lingering in the back of my mind, although the theme might not always take centre stage in every research project.
Engagement
Current Project
My main research theme right now is data centres: their local arrangement, material legacies, building procedures, and global production networks enabling its operation. I have been living and working in Asia-Pacific for a longer period to follow actors.
I’ve put a focus on dynamics in the semiconductor industry, expanding and making trouble in Vietnam and Taiwan.
Several articles are under review (see the CV), and about to finalise a monograph on the matter.
Check this workshop report to get a sense what this is a about.
The study is conducted in the collaborative research centre 1567 Virtual Life Worlds, in subproject A02 led by Estrid Sørensen.
Train Infrastructures
Based on my (now concluded) work in the collaborative research centre in Siegen I contribute to the discussion on mobility transitions.
Network valuation studies
I am part of the research group On the path to the valuation society? funded by the German Research Foundation. With Emma Greeson and Olli Pyyhtinen, I’ve co-edited a Special Issue on ‘Dis/Assembling Value’.
We’ve been meeting for several years and are preparing a handbook on Valuation and Society (Routledge).
Ethnography
E-Waste Research
Global and interdisciplinary research on e-waste: ethnographic studies in Germany, India, and across social media platforms.