Chairing an event for INFRA+

On Tuesday the 1st June I was invited to chair an event forming part of the INFRA+ series, organised by the University of Manchester. [link to events] The overall series of events takes a number of unusual and regional perspectives on the inter-related issues of infrastructure and climate emergency. The session consisted of two talks, presented by Dr. Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay from the University of Oslo, Norway and Dr. Paul Raven from Lund University, Sweden.

Bodhisattva (Bodhi) presented emerging perspectives on the future scarcity of resources in the Global South. The speaker introduced some novels and films from, made in the developing countries. Whilst portraying a rather dystopian outlook, each of the presented works features elements of optimism, creativity and hope. As well as a tool to anticipate and act upon the ‘outsized reality’ of the infrastructural needs, science fiction is a powerful cultural phenomena, a language to talk about future. This perspective resonated with my own views on the future challenges with waste management.

Paul presented a theoretical framework for viewing the totality of the world’s infrastructure as the ‘Big Dumb Object’. When considered through such lens, today’s planners, engineers, politicians and architects striving for rational interventions appear to be ‘playing God’, whereas the actual human wants and environmental needs become tuned down. I understood that the theory of the ‘BDO’ is a relatively new field still in process of being recongised by the wider society. One of the current disadvantages of not being able to conceive the world’s infrastructure holistically is the unacknowledged negative impact of the richer societies on the poorer ones. (eg. waste export to third world countries).

To me, both presentations were instrumental in forming a perspective on the future scarcity of resources and man-made infrastructure, vast concepts challenging to be visaulised without a fictional or a futuristic outlook.