Ghost Mines—Sensing Pasts, Casting Futures

Ghost Mines—Sensing Pasts, Casting Futures investigated the spectral legacy of abandoned mines and extractive landscapes, probing how these sites inform our understanding of resource-driven histories and speculative environmental futures. The research studio developed the concept of “ghost mines”—understood both as literal sites of abandonment and as metaphorical figures of ecological trauma and contested temporalities. Drawing on environmental sciences, media theory, and science and technology studies, participants examined how the material remains of extractive infrastructures mediate cultural memory, articulate political struggles, and illuminate global economic shifts. Emphasizing sensory ethnography, environmental mapping, and experimental data practices, the studio traced the entanglements of human and ecological histories embedded in these unsettled terrains.

The studio was organized by the Chair of Digital Cultures (Michaela Büsse, Orit Halpern), Kristiane Fehrs, and Özgün Eylül Iscen at TU Dresden, June 2–6, 2025.