Technology's Deep Time

Recorded May 18, 2023 An in-person 'in conversation' event
featuring Prof Genevieve Bell (Australian National University),
Andrew Meares (Australian National University), and Prof Chris
Morash (TCD), organised by the School of English. Learn more at:
https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/ When we look forward to
possible technological futures, we often do so from the perspective
of a very foreshortened present. But what does it mean to think
about the future of large technological systems in a much deeper
timescale? In their work at the School of Cybernetics at the
Australian National University (ANU), Genevieve Bell and her
colleagues became fascinated with an early technological project –
the Australian Overland Telegraph of 1872 – which in turn is
embedded within a landscape that challenges any sense of measurable
historical time. Over the past few years, Genevieve and her
colleague, photographer Andrew Meares, have put together a
remarkable photographic record of their engagement with this unique
site from which it is possible to re-imagine our understanding of
the relations of technology, humans and the environment. In
“Technology’s Deep Time”, Genevieve and Andrew discuss their
project with Chris Morash, who accompanied them into the Outback in
2022. Genevieve Bell is the Director of the School of Cybernetics,
Florence Violet McKenzie Chair, and a Distinguished Professor at
the Australian National University (ANU) as well as a Vice
President and Senior Fellow at Intel Corporation. She is a cultural
anthropologist, technologist and futurist best known for her work
at the intersection of cultural practice and technology
development. Andrew Meares is the Cybernetic Futures Lead at the
School of Cybernetics at the Australian National University (ANU).
Andrew began work as a press photographer in 1991, and was made
chief photographer of the Sydney Morning Herald in 1998. He has
covered politics, protests and portraits to bushfires, coups and
war zones, won a Walkey Award for Best Online Journalism in 2010
and curated the Australian Cybernetic 2022 exhibition. Chris Morash
is the Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing at TCD. He has
published widely on Irish literature and culture, and recent books
include Yeats on Theatre (2021) and Dublin: A Writer’s City (2023).
He has also published on media history in Ireland and contributed
an article on the transatlantic telegraph to Entanglement,
Ireland’s entry in the Venice Biennale.