Three days of discussions, screenings and a guided tour in Marseille on November 8, 9 and 10, 2024, to analyze issues, organize collectively and fight against the takeover of our territories and our lives by digital infrastructures.
This festival is an initiative of the Marseille-based collective “Le Nuage était sous nos pieds” (The Cloud Was Beneath Our Feet”), made up of three entities: le collectif des Gammares, a popular education collective on water issues; Technopolice, which analyzes and fights against surveillance technologies; and La Quadrature du Net, a French digital rights group. Since 2023, this collective has been investigating, analyzing and fighting against the social, ecological and political impacts of dominant digital infrastructures, and the world they entail
EDITO
For a long time, we felt like data flew through the air. Just like if clusters of bits coming from the ether of the cloud imperceptibly turned into e-mail or video once the computer was switched on. At some point, we started looking under our feet. The cast-iron plate on the sidewalk. The trapdoor in the asphalt – a “manhole” – stamped “telecom”, where the cables transmitting data on a global scale are coiled. A wire with a glassy core to send out data at the speed of light. The terrestrial extension of great undersea cables, these highways connecting and bypassing continents, landing on our beached in juncture points called “landing chambers”.
At the crossroads of these “information highways” are data centers. These warehouses made of concrete are in fact mega-computers house thousands of servers that make technocapitalism possible: high-frequency trading, advertising and personal data tracking, smart cities, connected agriculture, algorithmic surveillance via artificial intelligence. All of these “services”, imposed, merchandised, marketed, designed to better monopolize our territories and our lives, under the aegis of the world’s largest multinationals.
Then there are the servers themselves. Millions of chips and electronic components, chips made of minerals: silicon, gallium, gold, copper, coltan, lithium, cobalt… Under our feet, the earth is being torn apart to extract what has long been dormant. An extraction that comes at a bloody price, tainted by the conflicts it triggers in countries where the digital industry re-enact an endless process of colonization and appropriation. These minerals will become the chips, gadgets, weapons and other instruments at the service of political and industrial powers.
There is no inevitability to everything becoming digital. We can regain control. We must get organized, resist and put an end to the socio-environmental destruction caused by the dominant trajectory of digital technologies. Together, we can imagine other possible worlds.
PROGRAM
Friday, November 8: The concrete-made, overheating mega-computer
6:30 pm – 10:00 pm
Cinéma le Gyptis – 136, rue Loubon 13003 Marseille
Free admission, all audiences
6:30 pm – Welcome and info booth.
7:00 pm – Opening of the festival by the collective Le Nuage était sous nos pieds
7:30 pm – Excerpts from the documentary film “Les Lumières d’une ville” by Julia Rostagni, followed by a discussion with the director.
8:15pm – Screening of the essay-film “World Brain” by Gwenola Wagon and Stéphane Degoutin (73mn, France, 2015).
Saturday, November 9: Stroll along Marseille’s digital infrastructures
From La Calade to La Joliette, a guided tour of the socio-ecological impact of digital infrastructures on our neighborhoods and our lives.
Speakers: Agnès Jouanaud, Bernard Genêt, Rémi Grisal, Julia Rostagni, Le Nuage était sous nos pieds. Walk in partnership with the Bureau des Guides du GR2013.
9:30am – 6pm
Departure Bar du Terminus, 2 boulevard Paumont 13015 (bus 70 and 235, Lycée La Calade stop)
Registration required, link coming soon.
Free, all publics. One-day, 7km pedestrian walk in an urban environment. Bring suitable clothing and footwear, water and lunch. For people with mobility constraints, please contact us at lenuageetaitsousnospieds@riseup.net.
9:30 am – Start of the Bar du Terminus walk. First part of the walk: La Calade, Cap Janet, Grand Port Maritime.
12:30 – Picnic at Parc du Chemin du Littoral 13002 Marseille. Bring your own lunch. Shopping available nearby.
2:30 pm – Second part of walk: Galerie à la mer, La Cabucelle, Les Crottes, Smartseille, La Villette.
6 pm – Arrival and end of walk near Hôpital Européen, Métro Désirée Clary.
Sunday November 10: Fighting for other possible worlds
From Marseille to Grenoble, from Spain to the Democratic Republic of Congo, struggles are coming together to imagine desirable futures.
10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Cité de l’Agriculture, 6 square Stalingrad, 13001 Marseille
Free admission, all publics.
Welcome and coffee at 10:00.
10:30 – Round table, workshops and discussions: Fighting here and there.
12:30 – Lunch provided by La Chaude Bouillante, free of charge.
2:00 pm – Round table, workshops and discussions: Other worlds are possible.
Invited collectives in attendance:
Tu Nube Seca Mi Rio (Talavera de la Reina, Spain), Atelier Paysan* (France), Paris Marx – from the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast (Montreal, Canada), Génération Lumière* (RdC,Lyon), StopMicro (Grenoble), StopMine (Echassières, Allier), the Gammares collective, La Quadrature du Net, and many other local and international collectives.
* subject to confirmation