Events
This workshop, organized by the project B02 “Control/Space” at the Collaborative Research Center 1265 at TU Berlin, explores different spatial changes and dynamics of the Internet infrastructure using the notion of refiguration, which presents a concept of tensions between four key spatial figures and spatial logics: the place, the territory, the network, and the route. These tensions allow for the explanation of key conflicts in contemporary modernity.
The thesis of a refiguration of Cyberspace ties in with recent debates about the (re)territorialization, fragmentation, pluralization and/or splintering of the internet. As an increasingly conflicted infrastructure influenced by different actors and organizations in the field, the materiality and spatiality of the “network of networks” is continuously shaped by strategic actions, spatial imaginaries, representations, and corresponding material figurations that assert forms of spatial control over parts of the internet infrastructure: whether by standard-setting organizations, governments, internet service and content providers, internet exchange points, or hardware availability. Refiguration of Cyberspace seeks to challenge monocausal and one-sided explanations and diagnoses of changes of “the” internet by focusing on the simultaneity and superimposition of different, often conflicting spatial logics and dynamics regarding digital infrastructures and their contemporary meanings.
Participation in the workshop is free of charge.
Venue:
TU Berlin | BH-N 230,
Ernst-Reuter-Platz 1
Berlin,
10587
Deutschland
Contact:
SFB 1265
- This event has passed.
Workshop Re-Figuration of Cyberspace
Program
Thursday, 18 April 2024
13:00
Welcome and Introduction
Hubert Knoblauch (Berlin) & Silke Steets (Erlangen-Nürnberg)
13:30
Panel I: Digital Sovereignty
Georg Glasze (Erlangen-Nürnberg)
The Rise of the “Digital Sovereignty” Discourse and the Question of a Geopolitication of the Internet
Ewa Dabrowska (Berlin)
Between “Splinternet” and the “Open Internet”. Sovereign Internet and Digital Economy Regulation in India and South Africa
15:00
Coffee Break
15:30
Panel II: Between Territorial Spaces and Network Spaces
Farzaneh Badiei (Atlanta/Berlin)
Sanctions and Their Impact on Internet Development and Human Rights
Andreas Baur (Tübingen)
Reaching European Stars with American Clouds: Rooting European Digital Sovereignty in Gaia-X
17:00
Coffee Break
17:30
Panel III: Regions and Markets
Sezgin Sönmez (Berlin)
Regionalization of Cyberspace: The RIRs and their impact on Internet Governance
Stefan Kirchner & Simon Pohl (Berlin)
Selling out the City
19:30 Dinner
Friday, 19 April 2024
09:30
Panel IV: Geographies of Cyberspace
Boris Michel (Halle)
Mapping Geographies of Cyberspace –Geography’s Mapping of Cyberspace
Finn Dammann (Erlangen-Nürnberg)
Political Geographies of Digital Infrastructures. Implications of Geopolitical Tensions and Conflicts on Internet Traffic
11:00
Coffee Break
11:30
Panel V: Network Topologies
René Tuma (Berlin/Vienna)
Network Figures: Reconfigurations of the Internet as a Refiguration of Spaces
Till Straube (Frankfurt)
Stack Trace: Topologies of Digital Infrastructures
13:00
Lunch Break
14:00
Panel VI: Global Networks
Daniel Voelsen (Berlin)
Internet from Space. The Impact of LEO Satellite Constellations on the Techno-political Configuration of the Internet
Maxigas (critical infrastructure lab)
Media ecologies, infrastructures and environments: Infrastructure walk as a methodological approach
15:30
Closing Remarks
