Navigating Technosocial Challenges Together – A platform for discussion and exchange of ideas

TechTalk project by Sociality Cooperative aims to popularize and raise awareness about the major challenges that arise at the intersection of technology and society. The goal of the project is to provide a platform for discussion and exchange of ideas, where people from different backgrounds can come together to understand and address these challenges. The project aims to educate the public about the latest advancements in technology and their potential impacts on society, and to make technology accessible and understandable for everyone. Through this project, we hope to empower individuals and communities to make informed decisions about technology and its role in our lives. Our main goal is to raise awareness and educate people about the importance of technosocial issues, and to promote a technosocial-inclusive future.

OLA is responsible for the TechTalk co-design workshops that will be used as a case of participatory action research with technology and grassroots organizations that contribute to the development of ethical socio-technical innovations. Workshops worked as a collective reflection on everyday challenges that posed by technological progress in order to form specific questions, problematics and fields of interest to be discussed in the podcasts. In addition to that, OLA Team curates the graphic identity of the initiative and will edit a dedicated volume to disseminate the experiences and the material produced during the project.

Ioannina 29th May | Workshop 1: Collective mental mapping of our digital realities.

Based on the methodology of collective emotional mapping, OLA will designed and implemented the first workshop by changing the focus of the method from the investigation of social/psychological dimensions of urban space, to the analysis of the impact of our digital realities on the subjectivity. The workshop was organized with the following distinct parts (each accompanied with a corresponding canvas):

  1. mapping of the everyday interaction routines with new technologies, platforms and digital services, as well as the technological material means,
  2. mapping of the corporeal and psychological effects of those routines
  3. analysis and reflections on how these new types of subjectivities transforms the form of the society

A typical day. 24 hours of interaction with technological devices and digital tools (Data in Greek)

Thessaloniki, 20th of June | Workshop 2: Projections, challenges and dead ends. Re-thinking techno-social reality through potential futures

The second workshop was based on the methodology of speculative design and the analysis of the data collected during the workshop in Ioannina. Through two future fictional scenarios the participants discussed, co-analyze and question the implications of specific technologies in order to delve into challenges and dangers of digital transformation of our lives. The results of the first two workshops defined the themes of two podcasts in order to answer some of the posed problematics, but more importantly to expand when possible the framework and the reflections of the ongoing discourse in the field.

What if a brain implant is obligatory to enter work market? | Canvas with the main points discussed (Data in Greek)

 

The project is funded by Heinrich Böll Stiftung Greece | Thessaloníki