DIGITAL SUSTAINABILITIES

DIGITAL SUSTAINABILITIES
A conference inaugurating THE MAKERS project & accompanying the exhibition by Pakui Hardware

September 26, 2026, Arsenal Gallery, Białystok, Poland

A conference will be held in English

The ecological crisis and the digital transformation of capitalism are unfolding simultaneously – yet, quite surprisingly, they are rarely thought about together. The aim of this conference is twofold. First, we want to examine the hypothesis that this separation stems from an impoverished understanding of digitality and sustainability in governance and managerial discourse. Second, we want to explore ways beyond this impasse through a dialogue between new media art, contemporary philosophy and post-normal science.

Central to our inquiry is Félix Guattari’s expanded notion of ecology – environmental, social, and mental – as a framework for rethinking what digital sustainabilities could actually mean: not as a set of technical fixes, but as a recovery of the human capacity to imagine and build otherwise. This capacity, which we call dreamability, is both what is most at stake in the current digital transformation and what the arts, philosophy, and education are uniquely positioned to cultivate as a seedbed for a technopolitics of human flourishing.

What kind of long-standing institutional alliances are needed to foster digital sustainabilities? How should the very notion of artificial intelligence be revisited in order to protect the irreplaceable link between three ecologies and recognize it as a central concern of any genuinely “ecological transition”? We do not expect to answer these questions. But we believe that asking them together is itself a form of dreamability in action.

9:45–18:15  MAIN BLOCK

VENUE: Arsenal Gallery power station
Białystok, 13 Elektryczna Street (entrance from Świętojańska Street)

9:45–9:50  Opening Remarks

Michał Krzykawski, Rafał Rudnicki (Deputy Mayor of the City of Bialystok), Monika Szewczyk (Director of the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok), Eliza Urwanowicz-Rojecka

9:50–10:30  Exhibition Pakui Hardware. Clearview

Artist Talk and Tour with Neringa Černiauskaitė and Ugnius Gelguda (Pakui Hardware)

10:30–12:00  Digital and Other Sustainabilities in Practice

Chair: Ernest Ženko

• “Transformative Sustainability Science: Toward Knowledges That Open a Space for Collective Action”
  ► Agata Stasik (Kozminski University)
  
  
• “Pointing to the Threshold of the ‘Un-World’: Ecotechnics and Environmental Hospitality in This Is Not a Good Sign’”
  ► Arnaud Regnauld (Université Paris 8)
  
  
• “Territorializing the Digital: Sustainability and Dreamability as Companion Concepts”
  ► Michał Krzykawski (Centre for Critical Technology Studies, University of Silesia)

Discussion

12:00-13:00  Keynote

• “What Is the Future for You?”
  ► Pierre Cassou-Noguès (Université Paris 8)

13:00–14:00 Lunch

14:00–16:00  Political Ecologies of AI: Dependence, “Poiesis”, Protention, Care

Chair: Arnaud Regnauld

• “Artificial Intelligence and Its Metaphors: Towards a Political Ecology of Digital Dependence”
  ► Ernest Ženko (Center for Responsible AI, University of Primorska)
  
  
• “Crisis of Human Creation: ‘Poiesis’”
  ► Alžbeta Kuchtová (Albin Kuchta) (Institute of Philosophy, Slovak Academy of Sciences)
  
  
• “Sustaining Protention: Dreaming Futures Without Enemies”
  ► Piotr F. Piasek (Centre for Critical Technology Studies, University of Silesia)
  
  
• “(Health)caring Technologies. Refusing Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare”
  ► Jose Luis Guerrero Quiñones (Center for Environmental and Technology Ethics – Prague, Czech Academy of Sciences)

Discussion

16:00–16:15 Coffee Break

16:15–17:15  Dreamability in the Making: Grounding a Concept

Chair: Michał Krzykawski

• “Dreamability Within Limits”
  ► Maria Roszkowska (DISNOVATION.ORG)
  
  
• “Across Silos. Building the Conditions for Collective Imagination”
  ► Katarzyna Janota (The Working Group)

Discussion

17:15–18:15  Why Must We Dream? Open Assembly

moderated by Karolina Lebek (Institute of Literary Studies, University of Silesia)

18:45–19.45  WELLNESS AND MEDITATION BLOCK

VENUE: Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, 2 Adam Mickiewicz Street

18:45–19.15  Exhibition “Agnieszka Polska. Demon’s Brain”
Guided tour with the exhibition curator Eliza Urwanowicz-Rojecka

19.15–19.45  Respite Break

30-minute mindfulness and gentle movement session designed to relax, refresh your focus, integrate new insights and restore comfort in body, guided by Ksymena Wojtkowska (Arsenal Gallery in Białystok)

The Makers: Mobilizing Arts, Knowledge, and Education to Reclaim Human Agency. Strategies for the Age of Machine Thinking (Odzyskiwanie ludzkiej sprawczości poprzez sztukę, wytwarzanie wiedzy i edukację. Strategie na epokę myślenia maszynowego).

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.