Publication of the Technē Logos, Care and the (Neg) Anthropocene
The second ECT Lab+ annual conference took place in the East Quad building of the Grangegorman campus of TU Dublin in January 2023, and the Technē Logos, Care and the (Neg) Anthropocene publication is an edited collection of papers, keynotes, and artistic interventions that were delivered over the three days of the conference. As the first iteration of the conference was forced to be held online due to the public health restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic, this was the first annual conference to take place in person.
A total of 40 speakers presented work over the course of the conference. Despite the return to in-vivo modalities, the conference was not a return to a pre-pandemic normality. Instead, the conference occurred in the shadow of the pandemic both in form and content.
Building on the success of the integrated format from the previous conference the 50+ daily in-person delegates were joined by an average of 20+ online delegates each day. Each format has its advantages and disadvantages, which have been extensively rehearsed in the past few years.
The conference was privileged to have Luck Clancy from Culture File on RTÉ radio broadcast a selection of interviews with delegates. These can be accessed on rte.ie as podcasts. Given that the explicit goal of the ECT Lab+ is to foster lasting research relationships, it is vital that the community fosters strong connections both in person and online.
Similarly, the presence of the pandemic can be seen in the thematic for the conference. Where the first conference, explicitly inspired by the work of Bernard Stiegler, sought to discuss the social impact of contemporary technologies, the second conference deliberately inserted concerns of care into these debates. This also mirrors the later development of the question of care within Stiegler’s last publications and points to the development of care as a legacy of Stiegler’s thought.
