The ambient infrastructure of generators

Watch recording of webinar here

Infrastructures shape how we sense and feel our environment. The soundscapes of the city, the quality of the air we breath, the speed of our movement. Understanding the actual operations of infrastructures, we can analyze how they come to constitute the worlds within which we live.

At this webinar, Brian Larkin talks about how we can think analytically about infrastructures through the example of generators. Generators ingest things – petrol – and expel things: electricity, heat, sound, fumes. As they do so they technologize the world around them so that the felt world we move through, breathe in, hear, is constituted by machines. Larkin analyses how generators shape the technologized, ambient milieu of urban Nigeria and the way that milieu constitutes felt political life. He thereby explores the production of ambient environment as a means of inquiring into the relations between technology, politics, the body and urban life.

The webinar kicks off the Infrastructure as analytical approach series where we explore the potential and implications of infrastructure analysis through state-of-the art talks by leading scholars.

Programme
15.00-15.05      Welcome and introduction, Nauja Kleist
15.05-15.25      The ambient infrastructure of generators, Brian Larkin
15.25-15.45      Q&A - chair Nauja Kleist

Speakers
Brian Larkin, Professor of Anthropology, Barnard College, University of Columbia
Nauja Kleist, Senior Researcher, DIIS

Brian Larkin is Professor of Anthropology, Barnard College, University of Columbia and the co-founder of the Center of Comparative Media. He has published extensively on infrastructure and urban space, breakdown and disrepair, and the global circulation of cultural forms.

Practical information
The webinar will be held in English. Participation is free of charge, but registration is required.

Recorded on Tuesday 29 September 2020, 15.00-15.45 at DIIS