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    The Question Concerning Technology in Ireland?: Art, Decoloniality and Speculations of an Irish Cosmotechnics


    Putnam, EL (2023) The Question Concerning Technology in Ireland?: Art, Decoloniality and Speculations of an Irish Cosmotechnics. Arts, 12 (3). p. 92. ISSN 2076-0752

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    Abstract

    In this article, the process of speculating an Irish cosmotechnics is instigated by taking a decolonial approach to technics and technology in Ireland with a focus on three artworks: Assembly by Shane Finan, Interlooping by EL Putnam, and Entanglement by Annex. Each work relates to a different aspect of Irish technological history, from its national beginnings to its current role in global cloud computing networks, engaging with the materialities of technologies with a focus on technologies of communication, agriculture, and digital infrastructures. Countering a colonial narrative of modernist progression, where the implementation of technologies through the cultivation of land and society is put in the service of economic “development”, these three artworks treat technologies with ambivalence, placing emphasis on their material qualities and impacts. This ambivalence, where it is implemented critically yet also functions as the means of producing artistic works, enables what Catherine Walsh refers to as decolonial cracks, introducing a means of working and thinking otherwise with technology in ways that diverge from current practices of coloniality.
    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: digital art; Irish art; cosmotechnics; decoloniality; data centres;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > School of English, Media & Theatre Studies > Media Studies
    Item ID: 19848
    Identification Number: 10.3390/arts12030092
    Depositing User: El Putnam
    Date Deposited: 21 May 2025 11:56
    Journal or Publication Title: Arts
    Publisher: MDPI
    Refereed: Yes
    Related URLs:
    URI: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/19848
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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