The Weight of the Cloud: Navigating Digital Mediation, Human Meaning, and Planetary Responsibility
Friday 10 April 2026
Vrije Universiteit Brussel – Auditorium I.2.02
The Centre for Ethics and Humanism (EtHu) warmly invites faculty members, researchers, and Master and Research Master students to the 2026 EtHu Research Day: The Weight of the Cloud: Navigating Digital Mediation, Human Meaning, and Planetary Responsibility.
This research day brings together philosophical, ethical, ecological, and technological perspectives to reflect on the implications of contemporary cloud-based technologies. While digital life is often imagined as light and immaterial, the infrastructures that sustain it—from data centres to global resource extraction—carry significant existential, social, and ecological weight. The event offers a space for critical discussion on how digital mediation reshapes human meaning and responsibility in a computational world.
The programme features keynote lectures by Prof. Dr. Vincent Blok (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Prof. Dr. ir. Johan Stiens (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), as well as paper presentations by Aaron A. Bernstein (Georgia College & State University), Deborah Marber (De Montfort University), Massimiliano Simons and Joe Litobarski (Maastricht University), Amanda Platek (University of Copenhagen), Daniel Bjorklund (Western University), and Agostino Cera (UniversitĂ di Ferrara).
The research day is open to faculty members, researchers, and Master and Research Master students. We warmly encourage you to share this invitation within your network.
Register here
More information is available via the EtHu website.
We hope to welcome many of you on 10 April.
