What, exactly, IS a “Slow Network”?

iLAND recently announced that the theme of its spring symposium this year will be Slow Networks: Discovering the Urban Environment Through Collaborations in Dance And Ecology. The theme is clearly focused on two popular but rarely paired ideas. First, we have the idea of slowness, a pace that has captured the imagination of everyone from sustainable food advocates to poets in recent years. Mashed up against slowness is that ubiquitous 21st Century phenomenon: the network. From telecommunications to the tools we use to keep tabs on our friends, we look to networks for efficiency and speed. So what are these slow networks? And what do they have to do with iLAND’s devotion to productive collaborations between art and science in the realm of the environment?

Let’s start talking, shall we?