From discussions about “disaster capitalism” to the embrace of a world after humans, the idea that some environmental, economic, or security catastrophe has arrived, or will arrive, is almost unquestioned. In response, there has emerged a new paradigm of high technology infrastructure development obsessed with “smart”, “ubiquitous”, “algorithmic”, or “automated” infrastructures. These infrastructures are imagined as resilient, optimal, efficient, and sustainable; solutions to a world that must simultaneously always expand economically while facing seemingly insurmountable resource and security constraints. Design and technology have come to be posited as solutions to a public and political sphere seemingly incapable of dealing with problems at infrastructural and even terran scales.

This conference will engage the rise of ecologies of automation and their impact on human life, habitation, agency, sovereignty, and imagination. We want to ask how the turn to “smart” and automated systems is historically related to changes in governmentality, politics, and economy, while considering the future of “intelligent” and smart design, habitats, economies, and polities.