Bodies of Planned Obsolescence: Digital performance and the global politics of electronic waste

联合王国是欧洲电子废物(电子废物)的主要生产国之一。尽管欧盟制定了严格的法规和控制计划，但英国有很大一部分电子垃圾出口到发展中国家，在那里，它们往往通过有害环境的方法回收利用，或倾倒在不受保护的地区，造成严重的环境破坏，并伴随着一系列社会文化问题。尽管如此，在英国和其他后工业国家，关于数字技术的公开辩论主要集中在技术创新的经济和社会效益上。数字表演艺术实践在很大程度上参与了这一叙事。一方面，他们的主要兴趣一直是探索和展示最先进的创新；另一方面，该领域的批判性实践仅限于西方后工业文化框架的政治。数字表演艺术从业者很少接触到技术的物质和社会经济方面的生产，以及他们作为电子垃圾的“来世”。计划淘汰的身体是一个为期一年的国际研究网络项目，在该项目中，行为艺术家、艺术策展人、科学家和文化理论家将交流和发展基于表演的方法，研究数字艺术以及全球电子废物经济的文化和环境方面。通过重新使用电子垃圾材料，数字艺术实践将使经济和生态问题变得显而易见。通过与其他学科的同事互动，艺术家们的影响将因科学和社会经济发现而扩大。该网络总体上将与来自英国的研究人员开展创新的国际研究合作，英国是一个出口相当大一部分电子垃圾的国家，还有两个进口电子垃圾的国家：尼日利亚和中国。该项目将包括以下主要内容：-在伦敦维多利亚和阿尔伯特博物馆举办的发布会-在香港和中国举行的研讨会和研讨会，将纸张和表演演示与参与电子废物回收设施的劳动程序相结合。-在尼日利亚拉各斯举行的研讨会和研讨会，包括对电子废物倾倒地点的基于实践的探索。-在英国伦敦沃特曼艺术中心举行的公开会议/艺术活动它将学术演讲与创作新的表演作品与从尼日利亚重新进口的电子废物结合在一起。对计划淘汰机构中数字表演做法的关注是因为这样一种概念，即表演艺术中的批判性做法可以构成对围绕对技术的理解和参与的更广泛的文化表演做法的干预。《计划淘汰的身体》的创新之处在于其以实践为基础的研究方法论，它建立在人类学家蒂姆·英戈尔德的见解之上，即不仅艺术，而且人类学、考古学和建筑学都应该作为通过制造来思考的实践，而不是专注于将一个外在的世界理论化。因此，数字表演艺术的实践性研究不仅被设想为建立在学术和科学理论的基础上并对其做出回应，就像科学与艺术合作中经常发生的那样，而且还构成了一个‘蓝天’实验过程，可以在其他学科的话语和研究中发挥启动作用，并在学术之外建立关于电子垃圾的科学和人文研究的替代传播模式。

The United Kingdom is one of Europe's main producers of electronic-waste (e-waste). Despite strict EU regulations and control programmes, a substantial part of British e-waste is exported to developing countries, where it is often recycled through environmentally harmful methods or dumped in unprotected areas, causing severe environmental damage accompanied by a range of socio-cultural problems. Despite this, public debate on digital technologies in Britain and other post-industrial countries has been primarily focused on the economic and social benefits of technological innovation.Digital performance arts practices have largely been complicit in this narrative. On the one hand, their primary interest has been in the exploration and showcasing of state of the art innovations; on the other, critical practices in the field have been restricted to the politics of a western, post-industrial cultural framework. Digital performance arts practitioners have rarely engaged with the material and socio-economic aspects of technology in terms of their production, and their 'afterlife' as electronic waste. Bodies of Planned Obsolescence is a one-year international research networking project in which performance artists, art curators, scientists and cultural theorists will exchange and develop performance-based approaches to digital arts and the cultural and environmental aspects of the global economy of electronic waste. By re-functioning e-waste materials, digital arts practices will make the economic and ecological issues visible. By interaction with colleagues from other disciplines, the artists' impact will be augmented by scientific and socio-economic findings. The network overall will develop innovative international research collaborations with researchers from the UK as a country that exports a substantial part of its e-waste, and two countries that import e-waste: Nigeria and China. This project will include the following key elements:-Launch event at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London-Workshop & symposium in Hong Kong and Guiyu, China, combining paper and performance presentations with participation in labour processes at an e-waste recycling facility.-Workshop & symposium in Lagos Nigeria, including practice-based explorations of e-waste dumping sites.-Public conference/arts event at Watermans Art Centre in London, UK, which combines academic presentations with the creation of new performance work with electronic waste re-imported from Nigeria.The focus on digital performance practices in Bodies of Planned Obsolescence is driven by the notion that critical practices in performance arts can constitute an intervention in broader cultural performative practices around understandings of - and engagement with - technology. An innovative aspect of Bodies of Planned Obsolescence is its methodological approach to practice-based research, which builds on anthropologist Tim Ingold's insight that not only art, but also anthropology, archaeology, and architecture should be practiced as 'thinking through making', instead of a focus on theorizing an externalized world..Bodies of Planned Obsolescence seeks to extend Ingold's approach into collaborative work in the field of science and arts. Thus, practice-based research in digital performance arts is not only conceived as building on - and responding to - academic and scientific theory, as is often the case in science-arts collaborations, but also constitutes a process of 'blue-sky' experimentation, which may play an initiating role in discourse and research in other disciplines, as well as establish alternate modes of dissemination of scientific and humanities research on e-waste outside academia.