Imagine if we were a school of fish living along the ocean floor, and we could mobilise the power of the solar system to protect and defend the oceans?
And where would we go if we could navigate our futures by the constellations?
On 23 March 2023, Pluto will enter the constellation of Aquarius for the first time in more than 200 years. As the furthest planet in our solar system, Pluto has the slowest orbit around the Sun, and the stories of this planet emphasise power and transformation.
Aquarius is often known as the “water-carrier” and is associated with information systems and technology. Pluto will stay in Aquarius until June 2023, when it will retrograde into the constellation of Capricorn for the remainder of 2023. Pluto will return to Aquarius in January 2024, and stay until 2044.
Our view of the night sky changes as the Earth goes around the Sun each year, and we can observe the orbit of planets in our solar system through visible constellations. Our Earthly ancestors named the constellations and used them to navigate, thus creating stories. While only a few stories have passed into the dominant culture of astrology, the practice of engaging with cosmic geographies offers an invitation to understand ourselves in a wide universe.
The transit of Pluto through Aquarius between March and June this year invites us to set intentions for ourselves within the constellations of action towards feminist tech futures.
Tech and biodiversity at MozFest
From 20 to 24 March 2023, MozFest will bring together activists, artists and practitioners to connect, learn, create and collaborate in virtual spaces for a more open, inclusive and just digital world. This year MozFest is hosting a new thematic space called Tech & Biodiversity: Legado 2060, inviting its community to imagine and create narratives for our planet’s future.
APC and Sursiendo are responding to this call by hosting a workshop called Cosmic and Earthly: Weaving Our Feminist Tech Futures, which will begin the process of weaving a digital quilt for feminist, just and sustainable tech futures for the Earth.
We invite you all to join our workshop on 22 March at 16:00 UTC, where we will reflect on the transformative power of Pluto in Aquarius and the intentions that we set for ourselves in response.
The questions we posed at the beginning of this post are an invitation to shift our perspectives, and build the narratives and tools that we need to shape feminist and sustainable tech futures for the Earth. To help build this digital quilt, we will start the workshop by inviting each participant to undertake a creative process in response to a series of prompts. We invite you to use any form or medium of creativity that feel comfortable for you, such as writing, painting, sculpting or movement. We will invite a slowness to this process, and as we move through the workshop we will hold space to share stories, hopes and dreams of feminist tech futures that connect us to the planet, each other and ourselves.
A draft Feminist Principle of the Internet for the environment
Our Mozfest workshop is inspired by a draft Feminist Principle of the Internet for the environment, and we invite you to consider how this principle resonates with you and the futures that we imagine and create together.
In 2019, APC’s Women's Rights Programme embarked on a collaborative process to develop a Feminist Principle of the Internet for the environment, building on the 17 Feminist Principles of the Internet that were first developed in 2014.
The development of a Feminist Principle of the Internet for the environment has been deeply informed by conversations hosted by Sursiendo in 2019 at a hackfeminist gathering in Chiapas, Mexico to explore technology and affection, and imagine a principle for a feminist internet that centres collective care, weaving together policies of co-responsibility and interconnections between all life, and land. In this process, a draft principle was formed:
“A feminist internet respects life in all its forms; it does not consume it. Our proposal for a feminist internet principle in relation to the environment resignifies care towards an ethics of collective care in choices around design, extraction, production, consumption and disposal of the technologies involved.” [1]
Weaving a digital quilt for the planet
Our stories are powerful, and they shape the futures that we create. A digital quilt for the planet is an invitation to share our stories and weave them into the organisations, coalitions, and movements that we create.
The digital quilt will continue to expand over the next few months, stay tuned for how to contribute. We invite you to follow @APC_News and @Sursiendo on social media and contribute to the discussion with the hashtag #CosmicFemTech.
[1] More readings on this process are available here and here.