As part of the project, an international synposium is being organized on 26 and 27 August, 2026, at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
What are the planetary burdens of media technology?
What cultural and aesthetic frameworks shape how nature is depicted on screen?
The international symposium media/environment: Screens and Streams in the Age of Climate Crisis confronts the question of how media both represent and materially transform the natural environment in a warming world.
Prominent speakers from three continents will present the latest research on topics ranging from the materiality of film and the finitude of resources to images of extraction, film archives, the colonial and environmental history of photochemical cinema, media’s role in the environmental transformations of the Great Acceleration, and the ecological footprint of digital screen culture and artificial intelligence.
A roundtable brings together perspectives from the media industry, cultural institutions, and archives on how these sectors are responding to the concrete environmental challenges of media tech.
In collaboration with Rialto VU Griffioen, the symposium also features a short film program exploring the extractive history of celluloid, food production, and oceanic dead zones.
Are you interested in media studies, environmental humanities, science, technology, history, or the arts? Whether you are a scholar, student, practitioner or simply curious, this symposium invites you to join us in rethinking media’s planetary footprint from the archive to the algorithm, from screen to stream.
The symposium is jointly organized by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam’s Chair in Media and Culture and the Environmental Humanities Center Amsterdam as part of the CINEAGRI project.