Our Networks 2047 Redistributing the Future
November 14–27, 2022
Online, Distributed
Drawing inspiration from our favourite sci-fi authors we’re headed to a future for Our Networks 2022 2047. Join us over two weeks to call into the present an artefact from an Our Networks more than 20 years ahead. We will collectively narrate the history of the steps that allowed us to get there from here in order to understand where and how we can focus ourselves in the present.
We’ve all been living through these weeks where decades happen. Looking back on our past we find neither dystopia nor utopia. Instead, our history winds in-between, with setbacks and sudden leaps toward the internet and web we want. In order to even try and get there we’ve had to fight to transform the entire world. While there have been great strides in remaking where we live, work, and play as we tackle the interleaved crises of climate, capitalism, and co-option. There are still looming challenges and lingering concerns.
For an event that has been held alongside these struggles, Our Networks has been a place to share victories and defeats together. Out of a sense of large-scale ruin ⤴, we have kept inventing hope, the kind that isn’t optimism, but rather a discipline we practice every single day ⤴. In 2047 it feels like we are at another critical juncture, just like we were in 2022 and 2035.
So once again, what will we make of our futures? How do we learn from our pasts? How do we strengthen and extend our forms of redistribution and accountability in our spaces, movements, collectives, and institutions that have been our inspiration and home the last decades?
We’re excited to announce our keynote speakers, check back for more details closer to the event:
- Counsul Renata Jones from Open Space Initiative, an extrastate nonprofit organisation that supports research and development of space exploration
- Edie Watson, Slow Network Operator speaking about “Federation over slow networks: Reflections, challenges, and opportunities from”
- Feral computation, a feral committee archival collective, speaking on “liminalithic protocol”
To participate all you need is an internet connection to join us during the event annotating the wiki of this future conference. Please Note: We are not hosting a conference, but instead facilitating the creation of a wiki about a conference that could take place in 2047. We will pre-seed the wiki with submissions made here as a “conference schedule”. Between November 14–27, 2022 we will host a series of online writeathons where you may introduce your idea and expand on it yourself or with others, you will also be able to participate and edit the wiki fully asynchronously.
We are seeking session leaders to spend at maximum a couple hours writing abstracts and pitches for the hypothetical conference programming. To declare your interest, please submit a character’s name and bio, area of interest or talk by October 15 October 30, 2022 here as a GitHub issue (we have a template with prompts to help you). A week before the event we will share instructions and a registration form for those who want to receive a material artefact from the future after the event. If you don’t want to “lead a session”, you can still participate: registration for wiki-editors will stay open until the event ends. The event is going to be between November 14–27, 2022.
FAQ
How will the event take place?
There is no conference. The call is to invite people to contribute to a wiki (set in 2047) about a conference (that is happening in this sci-fi future). We’ll be hosting a series of writathons during November 14–27, 2022, but async contributions will be possible too. After Nov we will produce some swag (stickers, maybe a poster) inspired by the wiki writings to send out by post to people who registered.
Is the conference online or IRL?
All participation will happen asynchronously or live at online writeathons during November 14–27!
To “submit a character’s name and bio” – should I submit as myself, my future self, or a totally new character from the future? (or any of the above?)
Any of the above! You could write a talk you’d like to imagine your real self giving in 2047, or create a character, or create many characters!
Is the “artefact” the conference? Or will we create a different kind of artefact to capture a conference from the future?
The artefact will be the wiki we collectively contribute to during the conference period of November 14–27, 2022. After November, we will produce a physical record (mayber stickers, maybe a poster) inspired by the wiki writings to send out by post to people who registered.