Contribution short abstract:

"Between Chronos & Kairos" is a method of AI-assisted participatory storytelling that interrogates the exploitative sourcing practices of minerals for the green energy transition. The result is a wall of images along branching timelines visualizing stories towards more promising, just futures.

Contribution long abstract:

In researching “the dark side of green”–the many hidden externalities, contradictions, and exploitations behind the material sourcing of the green energy transition–one is left to wonder: If the nickel, lithium, and cobalt needed for zero-emission technologies frequently results in environmental degradation, child labor, and indigenous dispossession, are we to just throw up our arms and brace ourselves for planetary climate collapse?

Between Chronos and Kairos picks up the threads–the many, splitting, tentacled, often fraying threads–where the research of existing conditions leaves off. In employing artificial intelligence (AI) in the generation of images and ideation of narratives through textual prompts around critical mineral mining, indigeneity, and ecological systems, collective storytelling can challenge systems perpetuating the status quo. The future can be just, beautiful, and based in socio-ecological reciprocity. A roadmap of branching trajectories and possibilities is thus co-created by material author and AI assistant. AI computation is both tool and method to uniquely interrogate multivalent interpretations of time (from linear sequence to narrative to opportune moment) for the purposes of mapping future directions and materializing desirable futures. Such a visual collaboration enables rapid iteration of timelines and physical presentation to engage with as a group. The participatory workshop format ultimately results in a wall of images along branching timelines that visualize stories towards a better future, a powerful tool in activist praxis.