The idea of Slow Media refers more to a process than to an object. Slow Media aims to exercise the brain, slowly taking in and digesting ideas. As outlined in the Slow Media Manifesto. Slow Media links media use today (which often comes with a feeling of the disconnectedness of connected technology, as represented in the internet of things) to the Slow Food movement. The concept of Slow Media builds on the idea of slow violence. The term was coined by Rob Nixon,11Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. who considers the way in which violence and suffering can be masked and seem as “not newsworthy” because they occur slowly over long periods. Place and timing can affect people’s understanding of “global” events.

Does the local become planetary in scale? For seminar leader Libby Robin, the global imaginary of the Anthropocene demands a sense of global citizenship and a consciousness that includes an observer’s great-grandparents and their great-children. One way to make the idea of slowing down both concrete and accessible is through extending our understanding of the museum as a place that exhibits and preserves art objects. One way of doing so is Ellie Irons’ “A Slobjects Exercise: ‘What’s in Our Pockets?’”; another is Ally Bisshop and Yesenia Thibault-Picazo’s exchange on the ways of mapping Slow Media, “Mapping: An Exercise on Cartography”. To understand how to situate oneself within the Anthropocene, the group Soren Dahlgaard, Judith Dobler, Paz Guevera, John Moran, Isabel Pérez, and Hugo Reinert take off from a strong image of industrialization, colonialization, and agriculture: the fence. The resources, practices, infrastructures, and means that evolve around fence-building are revealed by several contributions gathered under “Deconstructing Fences”. In her reflection “Alternatives to Global Challenges,” Stella Veciana addresses the topic of destabilizing effects on long-standing concepts, narratives, and assumptions, while Anna Åberg and Hugo Almeida focus on new perspectives on the Anthropocene that are revealed by other media such as “Comics and Graphic Novels.” Helmuth Trischler’s contribution describes an exemplary exhibition: “Inside the Museum: A Curator’s View on the History of the Anthropocene” demonstrates the exhibition architecture he curated. What would a “Museum Library” look like in an imaginary museum that dedicates itself to the Slow Media practice? John Moran lists an exemplary network of vital categories. The imaginary museum opens up a speculative space for engaging, and reflecting on how to engage aesthetically with the Anthropocene, assembling different approaches from the arts and sciences. One imaginary example of addressing the Anthropocene is the project “Anti Cyclones: A New Investment Paradigm” by the Fair Weather Foundation, which offers a model merchandise of sustainable products.