We are so excited to announce that we are going to have the next Digital Naturalism Conference in July 2022, in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka with our friends at Dreamspace Academy!
Please share this with anyone who might be interested in joining us!
This is our own, homebrewed, experimental unconference where we basically just try to get people from many communities involved in science, technology, art, and design together in remote places to explore nature together.
We have had two previous Dinacons, Thailand in 2561, and Panama in 2019, and we are really hoping to be able to pull off this next one in Sri Lanka in 2022. This one is being hosted by the awesome people at Dreamspace academy https://dreamspace.academy/
The conference has a really simple structure, which is focused on just having participants work together and openly share their projects.
There are only 3 basic requirements for participating:
Make something
Document and Share it Publicly
Get at least two other participants to provide you with recorded feedback
These conferences have a different schedule than many in that the organizers are usually there for 5-8 weeks, and participants come for rolling durations (mimicking the generations you get in a biological field station, and helping accommodate people from different backgrounds and fields who have very different schedules). So we will be there all of July, while people come in and out.
So if you can just let anyone know who is interested in Field Biology, Design, Art, Technology, or interacting with nature in any way, that would be fantastic!!
The Chairs of Dinacon 2022,
Lee, Sid, Andy
More Information about the Conference:
We have created several resources to provide you with information about Dinacon, the location, our Partnership with Dreamspace Academy, and other details you might be curious about!
Dreamspace and Sri Lanka:
For this upcoming Dinacon, we will be partnering with the amazing folks at Dreamspace Academy. They were started as a war reconciliation center that evolved into a fantastic endeavor for helping the local society and environment. In their words:
“DreamSpace Academy is a non-profit social enterprise tackling local socio-economic and environmental challenges through challenge-based learning, grassroots innovation and impact venture building. Three decades of civil war in Sri Lanka caused a massive impact on socio-economy and environmental ecosystems International aid provided significant support,
but imported solutions couldn't solve fundamental local problems sustainably. Our mission is to achieve sustainable development goals in Sri Lanka by empowering underserved communities, protecting environmental ecosystems, facilitating peacebuilding and fostering sustainable startups”
Dreamspace is located on a peninsula bordering a lagoon and ocean in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. Batticaloa is located on the eastern side of Sri Lanka and home to many incredible creatures (including Blue Whales nearby).
Housing
There are varying housing options ranging from Luxury resorts to camping on the beach. Our main housing we anticipate renting out for participants in general will be at The Riviera resort on the lagoon and walking distance to dreamspacehttps://www.riviera-online.com/ (it's quite pretty and has a pool! check out the photos!)
Your Duration (5-18 days)
We will be in Sri Lanka running this event during the entirety of July 2022. Dinacon is a rolling event where people come and go to fit people's wildly varying schedules.
The limits for staying at dinacon will be the same as all the participants. There is a 5 day minimum stay and a 18 day maximum stay. The recommended stay is about 7-10 days :)
The Digital Naturalism Conference (Dinacon) combines interaction design and field biology. It has an “unconference” format where the daily activities are led by the participants. It is open to scientists, artists, technologists, designers, and anyone else interested in finding new ways of interacting with other living creatures.
There are only 3 basic requirements for participating:
Make something
Document and Share it Publicly
Get at least two other participants to provide you with recorded feedback
There have been two previous Dinacons, one in Thailand, May-July 2561, and one in Panama, August 2019. The work of the participants was collected and freely shared in these nice books we made for each conference:https://www.dinacon.org/2018/11/02/book
You can also review our website for more information about people and events from past conferences: www.dinacon.org
Dinacon was created in reaction to many traditional academic conferences which fail to connect the participants to the interesting locations they visit (or even to each other). It draws inspiration from other gatherings and unconferences like PIFcamp (pif.camp), SignalFire Artists Residency (http://www.signalfirearts.org/), and the Gathering for Open Science Hardware (https://openhardware.science/gatherings/).
Team: Three Chairs + Dreamspace + 20 Node Leaders
The team setting up Dinacon 3 consists of 3 chairs, Andy Quitmeyer, Lee Wilkins, and Sid Drmay. We are hiring Dreamspace Academy to help us host, document, and facilitate the event and thus are lucky to get joined by many of the wonderful folks working there.
In addition to this team, we have budgeted 20 slots for Node Leaders.
Node Leaders:
Node Leaders provide the tiniest amount of preordained structure to the open, evolving format of our events. Node Leaders are experts in many fields hosting public projects that participants can join in with.
The basic requirements for node leaders are that they:
Host a public workshop during your time at dinacon on a topic of whatever you want
Be around during dinacon as a friendly cool person
Send us a short Bio, Headshot, title of a workshop you want to run, approximate dates you will be there
Timeline
Due to Covid, this event has been delayed at least 2 years. We anticipate running this event for the entirety of July 2022. We aim to be able to post a general call for applications by the end of November 2021.
Covid Protocols
Participant safety is a very high concern for us, and so all participants will be required to have a Covid Vaccine. Fortunately the vaccine situation in Sri Lanka is developing well and already has a higher vaccine rate than the USA, for instance.
We all now know that there is a risk that due to unforeseen circumstances, the entire world can shut down quite suddenly. Things will be tricky, but we will do our best to make it happen safely!
