Cultural Technologies Lab: Exploring Cultural Networks together
Following our Asia timezone meet-up (a summary can be found here), we held the North America timezone informal introduction session for the Cultural Technologies Lab (CTL). With participants joining from Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington, and beyond, we dove into questions that sit at the heart of our work: What is culture? What makes technology "cultural"? And how do we build networks that support cultural adaptation and transformation?
What We Explored Together
Defining Culture in Our Context
Our conversation began with each participant sharing their perspective on culture itself. The definitions that emerged painted a rich, multifaceted picture:
Culture as shared means of interaction through language, material artifacts, and concepts
Culture as tradition and practice — the attempt to understand through doing
Culture as community and accessibility, manifesting in both physical and digital spaces
Culture as something deeply shaped by place — one Toronto participant noted how the reopening of a local venue completely shifted their neighborhood's cultural dynamics
Cultural Technology: Beyond the Digital
When we turned to "cultural technology," the conversation opened up fascinating territory. We explored how this concept encompasses far more than digital tools:
Digital Cultural Technologies include platforms like WhatsApp that shape how we communicate and collaborate, but also the collaborative tools that enable distributed cultural work.
Analog Cultural Technologies are equally vital — archives, museums, and traditional practices that shape cultural formation and national consciousness. These "technologies" of cultural transmission have been with us far longer than computers.
One participant introduced a compelling framework: the distinction between holistic and prescriptivetechnologies. Cultural technology, they suggested, involves moving elements from the prescriptive domain (rigid, extractive) into the holistic domain (adaptive, generative).
This led us into nuanced territory around art, propaganda, and cultural influence — recognizing that the line between cultural technology and cultural manipulation isn't always clear, making our critical engagement with these tools all the more important.
The CTL Framework in Action
For newcomers to our network, we reviewed the Cultural Technologies Lab's three core pillars:
Cultural R&D — Documenting and developing localized approaches to cultural production
Public Imagination — Supporting cultural practitioners in addressing uncertainty and volatility
Translocal Strategy — Building networks that facilitate knowledge exchange and adaptation to environmental and political changes
What excites us is seeing how these pillars came alive in our conversation. Participants naturally began identifying cultural technologies in their own communities and considering how translocal connections could strengthen local cultural work.
Moving Toward Distributed Leadership
One of the most significant outcomes of our session was the decision to evolve from a centrally-organized model toward more participant-driven conversations. Rather than UKAI Projects setting the agenda, we're encouraging members to host discussions within their areas of expertise and interest.
This feels aligned with our broader mission of supporting distributed cultural systems — we want to practice what we're researching.
What's Next
Here's how you can engage with CTL moving forward:
Join Our Signal Group
We're transitioning our community conversations to Signal for more intimate discussion. If you'd like to join, simply email us with your Signal username and we'll add you to the group.
Host a Conversation
Have expertise or burning questions around cultural technologies? We'd love for you to lead a discussion. Topics we're already excited about include:
Methods for creating distributed cultural systems
Cultural technologies in specific sectors (policy, arts, community organizing)
Case studies of successful translocal cultural networks
The role of physical spaces in cultural technology
Toronto Meetups
For our Toronto-based community members, we're exploring InterAccess as a potential venue for in-person gatherings. Stay tuned for details.
Share Resources and Ideas
In response to the growing interest in domain-specific themes and discussions, we will be scheduling skill-sharing sessions covering the basics of planning an online event and facilitating a small-group conversation that can be adapted to other realms of community organizing beyond our meetups. Send us an email if you are interested in attending one, or volunteer as an instructor to lead one.
Thank you to everyone who joined our first set of conversations. We're excited to see where our distributed leadership model takes us next.
