Imagining Sustainable Digital Futures

The project Imagining Sustainable Digital Futures: Outlines for Eco-Digital Citizenship (Research Council of Finland 2022-2025) studies the social and ecological unsustainability of our digitalised society. Digitalisation and technology have often been put forward as solutions to address climate change, environmental pollution, and biodiversity loss. Nevertheless, the latest technologies, such as artificial intelligence, are only partial and perhaps deceptive solutions to the planetary crises if their sustainability is not addressed.

In the project, the concept of eco-digital agency is developed to meet the need for creative and radical imagination that challenges and resists the taken-for-grantedness of the injustices and unsustainabilities in the digitalised society. At their best, images of alternatives can spark action toward futures that are sustainable and fair. Although the ability to imagine alternatives is crucial in fostering hope for more just futures, breaking away from the present and the familiar is not easy. In fact, it has been argued that the lack of imagination has prevented finding effective solutions to the urgent planetary crises, and our time is characterised by the decline of political and utopian imagination pressingly needed to challenge capitalism. By tackling these issues, the project contributes to nascent research that explores and experiments with so-called speculative methods in the field of critical media and infrastructure studies.

In the project, alternative futures are imagined together with young people. Their perceptions, hopes, and fears about the future matter because the future concerns them particularly. Yet, their voices often remain unheard in politics, and strategy or urban planning despite the growing recognition of their anxiety associated with climate change and environmental problems. The core of the project are experiments in which art-based methods are used to imagine sustainable digital futures. These include, for example, workshops with generative AI, creative writing, and design fiction. The project has been organising Alternative Futures movie series at Turku Book Café in since January 2024 together with Turku Book Café and Cultural Interaction Researcher Network (Kultva). As part of the project, a repair café has been initiated in Turku in the winter 2024. The main event of the project, Sustainable Digital Everyday Life theme week was organised in Turku in May 2024.

Suomeksi

Publications

Ketonen-Oksi, S. & Vigren, M. (2024). Methods to imagine transformative futures. An integrative literature review. Futures 157, article number 103341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2024.103341
Vigren, M. & Ketonen-Oksi, S. (2024). Kuvittelu transformatiivisia tulevaisuuksia rakentamassa. Futura 2/2024.
Vigren, M. (2024). Imagining alternative mediated futures: Critical speculation as a method. In SAGE Research Methods: Diversifying and Decolonising Research. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529692563
Vigren, M. (2024). Mediakasvatus ekokriisin aikakaudella: Eko-digitaalisen toimijuuden suuntaviivat. Teoksessa E. Airola ym. (toim.) Mediakasvatus hyvinvoinnin ja osallisuuden tukena. https://medialukutaitosuomessa.fi/mediakasvatus2024.pdf
Vigren, M. (2024). Alternative futures! Fostering eco-digital agency in generative AI workshops with young people. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research, 2024.
Olsson, T., Pyyhtinen, O., Laaksonen, SM, Vigren, M., Ylipulli, J., Rantasila, A., Sawhney, N. (2023). A user-centered lens into digital excess: Exploring the superfluity and environmental burden of the digital world. In Limits’23, June2023, Everywhere All at Once. ACM, New York, USA. https://trepo.tuni.fi/handle/10024/151588
Ylipulli, J. & Vigren, M. (2023). From skilled users to critical citizens? Imagining and future-making as part of digital citizenship. In D. Radovanović (ed.) Digital Literacy and Inclusion (pp.15–31). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30808-6_2
Presentations
Vigren, M., Karppi, T. & Pyyhtinen, O. (2024). Tackling digital excess in the broken world. In Living in the Broken World: Fostering Repair, Maintenance, and Care. Tampere University, Finland, 12.-13.12.2024
Vigren, M. (2024). Imagining alternative futures in times of planetary crises. Talk at Enriched Realities Assembly seminar 29.11.2024.
Vigren, M. (2024). Sparking action through imagination? Reflections from method experiments during Sustainable Digital Everyday Life theme week. YHYS colloquium, LUT University, Finland, 28.11.2024.
Vigren, M. (2024). “Why digital sustainability matters?” in What Does a Good Internet Look Like, and How do we Get There? (roundtable), Association of Internet Researchers' conference, Sheffield, UK, 31.10.2024 .
Vigren, M. (2024). Alternative futures! Fostering eco-digital agency in generative AI workshops with young people. Association of Internet Researchers’ conference, Sheffield, UK, 2.11.2024.
Vigren, M. (2024). Radical pedagogies for imagining alternative futures. 10 YEARS OF KULTVA anniversary seminar, University of Turku, Finland, 10.10.2024 .
Vigren, M. (2024). Exploring alternative futures with AI-enhanced imagination. Generative AI as a method in social sciences workshop, Melbourne, Australia, 27.6.2024.
Vigren, M. & Ylipulli, J. (2024). Eco-digital agency and imagining sustainable futures in times of planetary crises. Annual International Communication Association Conference, Gold Coast, Australia, 21.6.2024.
Vigren, M. & Sutela, E. (2024). Kuvia vaihtoehtoisista tulevaisuuksista: feminististä ja radikaalia pedagogiikkaa nuorten tekoälytyöpajoissa. Sukupuolentutkimuksen päivät, Tampere University, 3.5.2024.
Vigren, M. (2024). Suuntaviivoja eko-digitaaliselle toimijuudelle. Median ja viestinnäntutkimuksen päivät, Tampere University, 13.4.2024.
Rantasila, A., Vigren, M., Olsson, T. & Sutela, E. (2024). Designing safer online discussion spaces. Median ja viestinnäntutkimuksen päivät, Tampere University, 12.4.2024.
Vigren, M. & Ylipulli, J. (2023). Eko-digitaalinen toimijuus ja eettisemmän tulevaisuuden kuvittelun taito. Kulttuurintutkimuksen päivät 2023, Aalto University, 14.12.2023.