Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. His latest book is “The Lost Cause”, a solarpunk science fiction novel of hope amidst the climate emergency. His most recent nonfiction book is “The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation”, a Big Tech disassembly manual. Last April, he published “Red Team Blues”, a technothriller about finance crime. He is the author of the international young adult “Little Brother” series. He is also the author of “Chokepoint Capitalism” (with Rebecca Giblin), about creative labour markets and monopoly; “How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism”, nonfiction about conspiracies and monopolies; and of “Radicalized” and “Walkaway”, a science fiction for adults, a YA graphic novel called “In Real Life”; and other young adult novels like “Pirate Cinema”. His first picture book was “Poesy the Monster Slayer” (Aug 2020). His next novel is “The Bezzle” (February 2024). He maintains a daily blog at https://craphound.com. He works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is an MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, is a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University, a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles.

In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. In 2022, he earned the Sir Arthur Clarke Imagination in Service to Society Awardee for lifetime achievement. York University (Canada) made him an Honourary Doctor of Laws, and the Open University (UK) made him an Honourary Doctor of Computer Science.

Cory Doctorow’ will talk about “Overcoming the Enshittocene: Why Everything is Terrible and What to Do About It” on May 8, 2024, at the University of Tartu Library.

Précis:

Overcoming the Enshittocene: Why Everything is Terrible and What to Do About It

The rapid, precipitous decline of every digital service we depend on isn’t a coincidence. It’s the result of specific known, policy choices made by specific, named individuals. We can reverse those decisions (and we can determine what sized pitchfork those individuals wear).

Enshittification wasn’t inevitable: it was the foreseeable outcome of a plan to encourage digital monopoly platforms and turn them loose to extract unimaginable value from both their users and business customers, leaving behind a homoeopathic residue of utility to keep us locked in.

This talk will explain what enshittification is, how it works, why it’s happening now – and, most importantly, how we can reverse it, by seizing the means of computation and building a new, good internet suitable to serve as the digital nervous system of a connected world confronting environmental collapse, genocide and rising fascism.

The Preiļi Conceptualists (Preiļu konceptuālisti) is a literary group of Latvian poets founded in 2016, the members are Anna Auziņa, Elvīra Bloma, Raimonds Ķirķis, Aivars Madris, Artis Ostups, Einārs Pelšs, Ivars Šteinbergs, Kārlis Vērdiņš and Arvis Viguls. Along with publishing poetry that is written using conceptual, uncreative, and experimental techniques, as well as theoretical and critical work, the group has participated in exhibitions (2019, 2022), arranged performances (2019, 2022), engaged in mixed-media and interdisciplinary activities, and cultivated a mythology that blurs the boundaries between artistic practice and publicity stunts. 

The Preiļi Conceptualists explore metatextual and paratextual possibilities, questioning the notions of original expression and art as an institution. A Manifesto was written in 2020 and published in 2021. In preparation for the publication of the anthology of Latvian conceptualism in Estonian (2024), translated by Contra, delegates from the group formed a committee of experts who will visit Prima Vista to conduct a formal, independent accreditation of Tartu, Estonia, therefore determining whether the city meets international standards and can responsibly carry out specific tasks associated with the status of a European Capital of Culture. 

“The Accreditation of Tartu by the Preiļi Conceptualists” will take place at the The Grand Futurological Congress on the 10th of May starting 18.00 at the University of Tartu Library.

Opening remarks will be given by the Latvian Ambassador to Estonia, Kristīne Našeniece.

During the event, the freshly published poetry anthology „Alfabeedi sünnimaa. Läti kolmanda aastatuhande kontseptuaalse luule esimene valikkogu” will be available for purchase, containing texts by the poets of the group of Preiļi Conceptualists. The editor and translator Contra will be also present.

Event is in English and Latvian with translation into Estonian.

The event will be followed by a vin d’honneur hosted by the Embassy of Latvia.

Tõnis Tootsen is a freelance writer who has primarily focused on translating as well as text, sound and video editing.

Living as a recluse in rural Southern Estonia, Tootsen’s writings often evoke dystopian landscapes and revolve around dreams and altered states of consciousness while addressing conflicts between nature and civilization, personal freedom and societal norms.

His handwritten and lushly illustrated debut novel, “The First Day”, paints a haunting picture of a future Estonia and was awarded a literary prize by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia in 2016.

His second novel, “Pâté of the Apes”, published in 2022, is a satirical sci-fi memoir with autobiographical undercurrents, purporting to be the world’s first book written by an ape. Ergo the chimp’s childlike perspective on human life reveals its absurdity with crystal clear clarity. The novel was one of five special mentions at the European Union Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for the best prose book of the year award by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Tootsen has also published short stories and poems.

Josh Sawyer started in the gaming industry in 1999 at Black Isle Studios, where he worked on the Icewind Dale games. Since 2005, he has been at Obsidian Entertainment, where he has directed Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, and the 2022 narrative adventure game Pentiment. He is currently Obsidian’s studio design director.

Penny Boxall won the 2016 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award with her debut, “Ship of the Line”. “Praise of Hands”, with woodblock artist Naoko Matsubara, was published by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (2020). A new book, “The Curiosities”, is forthcoming in June 2024, featuring poems she wrote in Tartu. She has received UK fellowships at Gladstone’s Library, Hawthornden Castle and Cove Park, as well as in Poland and Switzerland. “Replaying the Tape”, with palaeontologist Frankie Dunn and composer-percussionist Jane Boxall, premiered in New York in 2023. She is writer-in-residence at Wytham Woods, University of Oxford, following a Visiting Research Fellowship in the Creative Arts at Merton College (2019). She has held Royal Literary Fund Fellowships at the Universities of York and Cambridge. Her debut children’s novel, written with support from Arts Council England, is forthcoming. She is working on a poetry project around hiking cabins for Bodø Capital of Culture 2024.

Liis Ring defines herself as a musician, (sound) artist, photographer, observer and wanderer who divides her life between the west coast of Sweden and the southeast corner of Estonia. Her works are often site-specific, questioning notions of time, place, language, belonging and home. Her works, no matter the medium, often rely on different analogue techniques, emphasising the relations between material and motif, the present and the past.

Liis has a BFA in music production (2017) and photography (2023) from the University of Gothenburg.

https://www.instagram.com/liisring/