DEMATERIALIZATION

The emission targets agreed in Paris require a radical reduction of material extraction, use and disposal. The core claim of this article is that a radical dematerialization can only be part and parcel of degrowth. Given that capitalist economies are designed to grow, this raises the question of whether, and under what circumstances, the inevitable 'degrowth' can become socially sustainable. Three economic policies are discussed in this direction: work-sharing, green taxes and public money. This article is part of the themed issue 'Material demand reduction'.

This essay examines the split function of Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules as both research archive and unrealized art project. It suggests that the Time Capsules epitomize Warhol’s career-long preoccupation with consumption and waste (a concern animating much of his art production), and that the extreme materiality of the 610 Time Capsules is a complicated response to dematerialization in conceptual art practices and the post-war global economy. Finally, the essay reports on his on-site research of the Time Capsules, analyzing contradictions in the Warhol Museum’s maintenance of the project as both art and archive.

Public sector entities face huge challenges, with a view to meet the objectives of a more competent, softer, effective and efficient Public Administration, regarding its services to citizens and firms
The change resulting from public policies in the framework of e-gov, oblige to rethink the way organizations interact with one another, the way they perform their processes, with whom and with what kind of competencies.
Dematerialization became inevitable and the implementation of transversal document, content and process management systems gain relevance as well as all the issues related to the document lifecycle. The complexity of these projects requires a very strict project planning and management, in order to help the organization to fulfill the established objectives.
Assuming that these projects transform the organization, all the matters related to the people become a key aspect to manage. The way people is involved in the change process is decisive to their commitment with the common objective that the project aims to attain. Professional training, as well as the development and emergence of new competencies make the change easier and contribute to individual and collective learning.

These quotations from the artist, Hanne Darboven, and the philosopher, Srećko Horvat, each assert in the context of their time a valid concept of dematerialization. Darboven conceives the process of dematerialization in its completed state of an assumed immateriality as a characteristic quality of the idea-the idea of the individual that is exchanged, that is stimulating communication, underlying an artistic process or inciting a revolution-it is fleeting, impalpable; it can withdraw. Horvat, by contrast, describes a mechanism of virtual economy underlying global finance capitalism. The gesture, possibly precisely controlled, the rumour put into circulation, occasions a fluctuation in profits and losses located likewise in virtuality. These profits and losses, however, are transposed with effects on the material existence of the individual through accumulation or debt. At this point it is important to differentiate the notion of dematerialization from immateriality. While dematerialization describes a process of reducing materiality, which does not necessarily end up in immateriality, but instead addresses the implications of material and the abandonment of it and allows for a critical reflection on the status of things and objects. In more current approaches of media theory, the concept of immateriality is clearly rejected. 1 This is particularly relevant, when we talk about the materiality of digital technologies, which is indeed below the radar of human perception. Although there is no innate digital materiality-code and electrical signals have no physical tactile matter-strictly speaking it is not immaterial either, because information is on the one hand mediated by hardware and on the other hand it consists of the fluid materiality of bits and bytes. 2

Abstract. This introductory chapter provides definitions of sustainability, sustainable development, decoupling, and related terms; gives an overview of existing interdisciplinary research fields related to ICT for Sustainability, including Environmental Informatics, Computational Sustainability, Sustainable HCI, and Green ICT; introduces a conceptual framework to structure the effects of ICT on sustainability; and provides an overview of this book.

[in English]
This paper analyzes the paradox of the visible and the visual in currency design, which highlights the complexity of money as a medium of sociocultural communication in the process of mon- ey dematerialization, showing that money always has not only economic but also ideological significance. As Simmel states in his Philosophy of Money, money might be considered first as an abstract idea, meaning that money is a mechanism of economic relations. And second, it is a material form, meaning that, em- bodied in certain substance, or designed in a specific way as a currency, it signifies the idea of money, tending to gain more and more symbolic features throughout the centuries once economic relations become more complicated. In this vein, currency design allows to find a more detailed approach to the investigation of money dematerialization as it is important to see money as a form in two different aspects: visible (or material) and visual (or representational).

The so-called ghost photography, in which, supposedly, the appearance of a being from a different world or dimension (from the realm of the dead or other variations) is captured in the negative or the plate, is one of the most successful subgenres and with one of the longest traditions in photography. We can trace it back almost to point zero of its creation and it stretches up until now. However, despite its enduring appeal, it has not received much academic study, maybe due to a prejudice related to its origin in popular magic beliefs. Nonetheless, that is a paradigmatic example of the idiosyncrasy of the photography itself, often regarded as a trace of a happening and, consequently, a ghost image. On the other hand, the spectral subgenre has been instrumental in investigating the ontology of photography and taking it to its limit, with dematerialisations of the objects presented. Besides, in the article I will defend how this visual motif, related to spectres in some of its variations, ended up moving to the artistic domain. Photography manipulated with ectoplasmic material seduced many artists, especially those belonging to avant-garde movements, such as surrealism, which was already programmatically interested in the supernatural, as well as later artists who were inspired by this artistic movement.
RESUMEN: La denominada fotografía de fantasmas, en la que supuestamente queda fijado en el negativo o en la placa la aparición de un ser que proviene de otro mundo, otra dimensión, del reino de los muertos u otras variantes similares, constituye uno de los subgéneros de mayor éxito de público y de tradición más longeva en el medio fotográfico. Se encuentra prácticamente en el punto cero de su creación y se extiende hasta el presente. Al mismo tiempo, y pese a causar tan perdurable atracción, apenas ha merecido el estudio académico, quizá por un prejuicio respecto a su valor, teniendo en cuenta su origen en las creencias mágicas populares. Sin embargo, resulta un ejemplo paradigmático de la idiosincrasia de la propia fotografía, considerada a menudo como huella de un suceso y, en consecuencia, imagen fantasmática; igualmente, el subgénero espectral ha servido para investigar la ontología del medio fotográfico o para llevarlo a su límite, con desmaterializaciones de los objetos presentados. Además, en el artículo se defiende que ese motivo visual, relacionado con los espectros en algunas de sus variantes, acabó trasladándose al ámbito artístico. Las fotografías trucadas con material ectoplasmático fecundaron a muchos artistas, en especial a los pertenecientes a las vanguardias, como al surrealismo, que programáticamente ya se manifestaba interesado por lo sobrenatural, así como a artistas posteriores inspirados por la corriente.

This introductory chapter provides definitions of sustainability, sustainable development, decoupling, and related terms; gives an overview of existing interdisciplinary research fields related to ICT for Sustainability, including Environmental Informatics, Computational Sustainability, Sustainable HCI, and Green ICT; introduces a conceptual framework to structure the effects of ICT on sustainability; and provides an overview of this book.

The immaterial dimension of our reality, powered by our computational and medialized prostheses, is becoming ever wider and more powerful. This article suggests that the so-called “dematerialization” hides away the material conditions that are necessary to its dominance. It inquires into the role played by logistics in this systematic repression of the articulation between the material and the immaterial. By allowing commodities magically to “appear”, and trash no less magically to “disappear”, the logistical organization currently in place rests on a unique mix between transparency and opacity.

La dimension immatérielle de notre réalité, grâce aux prothèses informatiques et médiatiques, est devenue de plus en plus étendue et puissante. Cet article suggère que la prétendue « dématérialisation » comporte le recel des conditions matérielles nécessaires à son propre essor. Il examine le rôle joué par la logistique dans ce processus de refoulement systématique de la jointure entre matériel et immatériel. Permettant que la marchandise puisse « apparaître » presque magiquement sur les rayons des magasins ou directement chez nous, et que les déchets puissent « disparaître » tout aussi magiquement, l’organisation logistique actuelle repose sur un mix unique de transparence et d’opacisation.

This essay addresses the traditions, challenges, and potentials of the hugely influential, yet highly controversial concept of ‘dematerialization’, as it was introduced by the critics Lucy R. Lippard and John Chandler in 1968. It identifies the continuities that link dematerialization and the related notion of ‘art as idea’ to classical aesthetics as well as traditional models of intentionality and authorship. Drawing on works and writings by key Conceptual artists such as Robert Barry, Mel Bochner, Douglas Huebler, Sol LeWitt, and Lawrence Weiner, it argues for an alternate understanding of Anglo-American Conceptual art that is not so rigidly “anti-materialist”, and also for a more holistic view on the wider phenomenon of a ‘global conceptualism’ in other parts of the world. 
By shedding light on earlier conceptions of ‘dematerialization’ in Lippard and Chandler’s writings and elsewhere, this essay will arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of this important yet problematic term, its surprisingly heterogeneous traditions, its heuristic potentials, and its limits. These findings will demonstrate that the Argentine art theorist and psychoanalyst Oscar Masotta’s roughly concurrent considerations around dematerialization were by no means the only model that Lippard could have turned to when she postulated ‘the dematerialization of art’. At the same time, Masotta and other Latin American proponents’ media-oriented, politicized version of dematerialization resonates with Lippard’s revised account of the political and communicative value of so-called dematerialized art practices since about 1969.
For Lippard and other critics, the new conception of art as information that Conceptual art allowed for, and which she tried to capture with the notion of ‘dematerialization’, held a critical potential toward the economic and political power structures in an age of social unrest and increasingly heated political protests. However, some of the leading historians of Conceptual art have denied this assumption. Instead they described Conceptual art as a mere reflection of the postwar postindustrial consumer society and have also contested its significance more broadly. Thus, given these questions and their fundamental importance for the assessment of Conceptual art and its legacy, the third part of this essay will identify some of the agendas that guided these critical accounts and, as a counterpoint, will uphold the socio-political potential of a ‘dematerialized’ Conceptual art in its historical moment.

The purpose of this article is to show the dynamics of currency design in a socio-historical context, from antique coins to electronic payment transactions. Currency design visualizes the symbolic features of exchange depending on the types of money circulating in certain historical periods. Therefore, the visual aspect of money is important here, which at the level of the visible concerns the material features of money, and at the level of the visual characterizes the specifics of representations used in currency design. It is crucial to analyze the relationship between the visible and the visual in currency design from the point of its functionality, which makes it possible to conceptualize money not as an object, but as a process approached through the material and political systems that create and control money. Hence, currency design highlights the perspective of multidisciplinary potential of money as an object of research, which can be assessed without separating economics fr...

This is one of a number of papers/articles leading to my monography "Mythos Netz" (2005), concentrating on the widespread confusion of data with knowledge, a concept of knowledge society based on false premises and cloudy criteria, and false promises of productivity gains and dematerialization.

Paroles de chercheurs avec Etienne-Armand AMATO, Samuel BIANCHINI et Anca BOBOC, en écho à leur journée d’étude PraTic 2015 "A distance : quelles conditions technologiques". La rencontre propose une réflexion sur la transformation de la notion de distance par les technologies du numérique, ses conséquences pour l’action et les débats que cela suscite.

This introductory chapter provides definitions of sustainability, sustainable development, decoupling, and related terms; gives an overview of existing interdisciplinary research fields related to ICT for Sustainability, including Environmental Informatics, Computational Sustainability, Sustainable HCI, and Green ICT; introduces a conceptual framework to structure the effects of ICT on sustainability; and provides an overview of this book.

International del febbraio 1968, due critici d'arte, Lucy Lippard e John Chandler, scrivevano di un futuro svincolato dalla necessità di produrre (anche) oggetti. Un futuro ultra concettuale dove la produzione industriale (ed artistica) non avrebbe più richiesto progetti e luoghi dedicati alla effettiva produzione fisica. Lippard e Chandler definirono questa trasformazione radicale come dematerializzazione, un termine che da allora in poi è divenuto matrice applicabile in molti ambiti, compresi architettura e design. Il concetto di dematerializzazione si innesta profondamente in tutta la cultura dalla fine degli anni '60: si pensi al dibattito sulla fisica delle particelle e alle opere scomposte e ricomposte di John Cage (ed è del 1966 la prima serie di Star Trek). Tuttavia è soltanto oggi che i fondamenti di questa dematerializzazione-che riguarda beni servizi e funzionalità-si realizza concretamente. Viviamo e utilizziamo quotidianamente tecnologie come le reti distribuite ed il cloud, il peer to peer e le blockchain che rendono tangibile per tutti l'essenza stessa dell'immateriale (dove hai messo le foto? Su Google! E dove è Google?). La dematerializzazione del design può del resto essere osservata e descritta con approcci diversi e assume identità variabili da ambito ad ambito. Da prodotti che si dissolvono nei servizi che offrono, tanto da perdere una loro identità univoca per assumere via via quella del servizio che rendono disponibili (le tecnologie digitali sono in genere utilizzabili per una molteplicità di scopi diversi), sino ai nuovi prodotti franzfume Oct 25, 2018 · 3 min read

Abstract: Professor Lorenz Hilty, Leiter der Empa-‐Abteilung«Technologie und Gesellschaft», erklärt, warum wir mit effizienteren Geräten nicht automatisch umweltfreundlicher werden, warum sich die immense Abhängigkeit der Computer-‐Hardware von seltenen Metallen noch verschärfen dürfte und weshalb die Sicherheit durch digitale Technologien ein zweischneidiges Schwert ist.

[in Russian] The purpose of this article is to show the dynamics of currency design in a socio-historical context, from antique coins to electronic payment transactions. Currency design visualizes the symbolic features of exchange depending on the types of money circulating in certain historical periods. Therefore, the visual aspect of money is important here, which at the level of the visible concerns the material features of money, and at the level of the visual characterizes the specifics of representations used in currency design. It is crucial to analyze the relationship between the visible and the visual in currency design from the point of its functionality, which makes it possible to conceptualize money not as an object, but as a process approached through the material and political systems that create and control money. Hence, currency design highlights the perspective of multidisciplinary potential of money as an object of research, which can be assessed without separating economics from cultural significance. Using the concept of evidence by M. Engelke, this article analyzes the symbolic complex of money functions in the context of the ideological implications shifting with the transformations of currency design. In addition, money is classified according to its visual typology, which demonstrates, in the process of dematerialization, the changes in the symbolic aspect of exchange, which stimulates restructuring of social relations. It may seem that in the conditions of digitalization, social relations are simplified, becoming more free and transparent as once the money becomes invisible, the possibility of ideological manipulation through currency design is vanishing. But, in reality, social relations acquire a more complex and asymmetric features, since the power that controls money not only becomes invisible and, as a result, elusive, but transfuses the very processes associated with the functioning of money. Also available at: https://www.inter-fnisc.ru/index.php/inter/article/view/5901

The circular economy is a spontaneously appealing metaphore, but phyically impossible. So is the bio-based economy. Although closing loops and promoting renewables is important, it will not solve our problems unless we go for massive dematerialisation, and a change of world views from productivism to reproduction, and from society and environment being a part of the economy to the opposite. This affects values, rules and policies significantly. Some conlusions are drawn.

3.1 Background Dematerialization is a popular environmental slogan these days. The notion that dematerialization is desirable follows directly from the idea that large mass flows are environmentally harmful as such (Schmidt-Bleek 1993a, 1993b, 1994; Adriaanse et al. 1997). It would follow almost automatically that less harm must follow from reduced mass flow. We argue that this is a misleading and essentially false proposition. There is a widespread impression, even among sophisticated economists, that the economy of ...

The technological challenges have led the bank sector to actively bet on technological innovation strategy including the provision of applications for mobile devices. However, the development of mobile tools has had a greater expression for customers than for commercial managers of banks. This paper aims to present an architecture that supports the desmaterialization of transactions at the counters of bank branches. The main goal is to foster the relationship between banks and their customers, giving flexibility to managers to conduct banking transactions from any mobile device, anywhere. This architecture is a results of a dissertation carried out under a master's degree in Information Systems. Full Text Available at: