Deserted Devices and Wasted Fences Everyday Technologies in Extreme Circumstances

In Deserted Devices and Wasted Fences, artist and cultural critic Dani Ploeger examines everyday technologies found in places and circumstances that are usually unforeseen by their designers, manufacturers, and marketers. He travels through second-hand markets in sub-Saharan Africa, the frontline in the Russo-Ukrainian War, desert landscapes in the Middle East, anti-immigration fences on the EU border, and many other sites of turmoil, disruption, and surprising convergences. Examining the ways in which technologies that were intended for use in everyday consumer culture start to (mal)function, gain new meanings, and are appropriated in these liminal spaces can give us hints at what alternative techno-cultures could look like. This collection of essays provokes unusual perspectives on how technologies might be developed, used, and re-appropriated in support of people’s personal, local, and regional lifeworlds and lifestyles.

Dani Ploeger is an artist and cultural theorist who explores situations of conflict and crisis on the fringes of the world of high-tech consumerism. His artwork has been exhibited in museums, galleries and festivals worldwide, including ZKM Karlsruhe, Venice Architecture Biennale, transmediale, Nairobi National Museum and The New Institute in Rotterdam. He holds a PhD from the University of Sussex, UK, and is currently a Research Fellow at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London and a Fellow at V2_Lab for the unstable media in Rotterdam.