The Social Life of Xg - SOLiXG (CHANSE), Basel Academy of Art and Design

How are imaginations of politics and community shaped through digital infrastructure? New technologies, and the Internet in particular, have long been associated with increasing individual freedoms, breaking down borders and paving the way for a “global village”. Such euphoria for digital media seems long gone. In the face of planetary crises and geopolitical conflicts, digital technologies have taken on new meanings and new imaginaries. States, international institutions and multinational corporations see digital communication infrastructures as tools for resilience, security and, above all, sovereignty.

National governments are investing heavily in infrastructure to become “science and technology superpowers” and to “level up” their countries after the pandemic. At the European level, the EU Commission plans to create a “more digital and resilient Europe”, whose investment in digital technology is “about Europe's digital sovereignty, on a small and large scale”. Digital infrastructures, from cables and antennas to technical standards and material components, are now seen as crucial to the economic prosperity, political sovereignty and social cohesion of states.

The Social Life of XG (SoLiXG) brings together researchers in anthropology, political science, queer technoscience, sociology and cultural studies from four countries to explore the imaginaries that guide the development, production and maintenance of digital infrastructures, and how they shape and reconfigure dominant notions of politics and community.

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