CRUNCH: The Nature of Media: Between Media Archaeologies and Ecomedia

“There is a lot of potential in past and often forgotten knowledge and technologies when it comes to designing a sustainable society. Interesting possibilities arise when we combine old technology with new knowledge and new materials, or when we apply old concepts and traditional knowledge to modern technology.”  - Low-Tech Magazine  

In this discussion, Prof Jussi Parikka, author Prof Antonio López and chairs Jessica In and Dr Fiona Zisch will explore how architectural approaches to ecomedia, media archaeologies and ecologies can offer exciting new possibilities – including how studying natural elements such as air and water as ‘media’ can help us understand and visualise flows of data and resources, and the ways in which tech can be ‘hacked’ or reinvented to solve urgent environmental issues.  

Taking inspiration from Low-Tech Magazine – a physical and online publication that has run on a solar powered server since 2018 – the conversation will explore how combining traditional methods with modern technology can help create a more sustainable future. 

This event is part of the flagship CRUNCH Series at The Bartlett School of Architecture, replacing the International Lecture Series.

Please note this event is first-come, first-served and is limited capacity. 

Speaker biographies

Prof Jussi Parikka is Professor in Digital Aesthetics and Culture at Aarhus University in Denmark where he leads the Digital Aesthetics Research Centre (DARC). He is also visiting professor at Winchester School of Art (University of Southampton) and at FAMU at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague where he leads the project Operational Images and Visual Culture (2019-2023, funded by the Czech Science Foundation). In 2021 he was elected as a member of Academia Europaea. His published books include Insect Media (2010), Digital Contagions (2007/2016), A Geology of Media (2015), and A Slow, Contemporary Violence (2016). Recently, he co-edited Photography Off the Scale (2021) and is the co-author of The Lab Book: Situated Practices in Media Studies (2022). His book Operational Images was published in May 2023. Parikka’s books have been translated into 11 languages including Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Czech, Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese. He has also worked as a curator, including as part of the curatorial team of transmediale 2023 and Helsinki Biennial 2023, as well as the co-curator of the forthcoming Motores del Clima (Laboral, Gijon, 2023). His last co-authored book is Living Surfaces: Images, Plants, and Environments of Media (2024). 

Prof Antonio López is a leading international specialist in media literacy education. With a research focus on bridging sustainability with media literacy, he is currently one of the top global experts in the field of ecomedia literacy. As an authority in media literacy, he is regularly interviewed in the media about ‘fake news’. He has written three books, Mediacology: A Multicultural Approach to Media Literacy in the 21st Century (Peter Lang, 2008), The Media Ecosystem: What Ecology Can Teach Us About Responsible Media Practice (Evolver Editions, 2012), and Greening Media Education (Peter Lang, 2014). He has published numerous journal articles and book chapters about media education, youth media and ecomedia literacy.  

Dr Fiona Zisch studied architecture at the University of Innsbruck, Austria and Lunds Tekniska Hogskola, Sweden. After a brief excursion first into the world of design for outer space at NASA and then into film architecture and production design, Fiona practised as an architect, working in offices in Vienna and London; she was also active as a freelance architectural writer in Vienna and Innsbruck, before taking up a lectureship at studio2 at the University of Innsbruck. Fiona gained her PhD at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL and the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience under the supervision of Prof Stephen Gage and Prof Hugo Spiers.  

She is programme director of Design for Performance & Interaction MArch at The Bartlett, where she also runs Design Research Pathway 2 and leads the programme's Contextual Theory strand. Fiona is co-chair of the UK chapter of ANFA (Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture). 

Jessica In is an architect, creative coder and designer, with experience as both practitioner and university educator. Her design specialisations and interests lie in computation, interaction and fabrication methodologies for architecture, with a particular emphasis on the expressive potential of technology as a means to explore bespoke design. She currently freelances independently and in collaboration across architecture, design and installation projects while teaching at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where she is also a PhD candidate. Her research work explores the role of programming and machine learning in architectural drawing. She can also be found coding visuals for music videos, creating virtual environments for string marionettes and making industrial robots dance with light.  

More information

Image: Geocinema, The Making of Earths, 2020