Filtering Legacies – Filtering Wasted Environments

Filtering Technologies are at the center of many current processes of our transformational age as they can alleviate the impact of industrial societies in their planetary dimension. We understand the process of filtering as a scalable environing technique that differentiates and maintains symbolic and material environments alike. Filtering is a process that matters in a twofold way: It is a material process and a symbolic activity. Applying filters means negotiating between the wanted and the unwanted, between the polluted and the untouched environment, and between what is considered dangerous or safe.

Yet filters themselves produce and accumulate wastes of condensed toxicity that are in desperate need of a sink. At the same time, many sinks from past have not been able to contain the wastes they were supposed to contain. Alternatively, imaginaries of a »natural«, harmless dissolution of hazardous residues through soil, water or air have proven to be elusive. The persistence of toxicity and toxic residues highlights the fundamental asymmetry and irreversibility inherent in most filtering processes.

This workshop analyzed the interconnectedness of environment, filtering technologies and waste legacies in its historical dimension and explore how hazardous waste has been a target as well as a result of human filtering activities. The workshop aimed for a better understanding of the ecologic economy of wastes, sinks and waste legacies which resulted from the hope to unmake the adverse byproducts of filtering activities. What have been the challenges and pitfalls of the past – and what can we learn for the future design and technology of filters?

The workshop was a cooperation between the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« and Technische Universität Berlin. It is organized by Alwin Cubasch, Vanessa Engelmann, Ronja Quast, Heike Weber and Verena Winiwarter.

Schedule

Thursday 11 November

12:30 pm
Get together

2:30 – 4:00 pm
Session 1

Moderation: Alwin Cubasch

Simone Müller (Rachel Carson Center): Contested Boundaries of Hazardous Waste. Filter Technologies and the Controversy on Waste Incineration in 1980s USA from a Global Perspective

Manuel Harms (TU Dresden): The ›Reverse‹ and ›Productive‹ Toxicity of Antimicrobial Resistance

4:30 – 6:00 pm
Session 2

Moderation: Heike Weber

Elena Kunadt (TU Berlin): Technische Lösung oder Anwendungsverbot: Lässt sich Atrazin aus dem Wasser filtern?

Paulina Grebenstein (urban:eden lab): Urbane Naturfilter

6:15 pm
Keynote

Moderation: Claudia Mareis

Verena Winiwarter (BOKU): Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials: A Borderline Case

8:00 pm
Dinner

Friday 12 November

9:30 – 11:00 am
Session 3

Moderation: Christian Kassung

Khashayar Razghandi (ExC MOA): Rethinking Filter: An Interdisciplinary Inquiry into Typology and Concept of Filter

Léa Perraudin (ExC MOA): Leakage and Accumulation. A Field Test for Environing

11:30 am – 1:00 pm
Session 4

Moderation: Verena Winiwarter

Sabine Loewe-Hannatzsch (TU Freiberg): Waste Legacies of Uranium Ore Mining by the SAG/SDAG Wismut, 1946–1991

Stefan Guth (Universität Tübingen): Unfiltered Reality. Facing the Legacies of Uranium Mining and Plutonium Production in Western Kazakhstan

1:15 pm – 2:00 pm
Conclusion

2:30 pm
Lunch