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Julia Velkova

Associate Professor, Docent

I am an associate professor (docent) of media and communication studies. My research explores the cultural practices and socio-material relations that emerge when media infrastructures are being built, maintained, bundled, or dismantled.

Presentation

I am interested in questions that concern the materialities of digital media and related to them socio-political and cultural practices. I study the politics of emergence and dismantling of media infrastructures such as data centers, software or larger communication networks; as well as how these entities intersect with and relate to other infrastructures such as energy grids, military shelters and others.

For an overview of my publications and current research see www.juliavelkova.org

Research

My research revolves around digital infrastructures, and questions of temporality and politics of value. I have explored these major themes with empirical objects ranging from computer-graphics software, search algorithms and social media, to data centres. In my most recent work I have focused on the converging relations between data and energy infrastructures, but I have done detours to think and write about agency in relation to algorithms, metric cultures in the digital everyday life, as well as infrastructural work in data centres. I have a growing interested in digital ruins, and practices of infrastructural dismantling.

Research Projects

Publications

2023

Julia Velkova (2023) Retrofitting and ruining: Bunkered data centers in and out of time New Media and Society, Vol. 25, p. 431-448 Continue to DOI
Julia Velkova, Jean-Christophe Plantin (2023) Data centers and the infrastructural temporalities of digital media: An introduction New Media and Society, Vol. 25, p. 273-286 Continue to DOI
Vicki Mayer, Julia Velkova (2023) This site is a dead end? Employment uncertainties and labor in data centers The Information Society Continue to DOI
Nathalie Ortar, A.R.E. Taylor, Julia Velkova, Patrick Brodie, Alix Johnson, Clément Marquet, Andrea Pollio, Liza Cirolia (2023) Powering 'smart' futures: data centres and the energy politics of digitalisation Energy Futures: Anthropocene Challenges, Emerging Technologies and Everyday Life, p. 125-168 Continue to DOI

2022

Julia Velkova, Dick Magnusson, Harald Rohracher (2022) Smart Thermostats and the Algorithmic Control of Thermal Comfort Everyday Automation: Experiencing and Anticipating Emerging Technologies, p. 171-183

CV

CV in short

  • 2021
    Docent (associate professor) of media and communication studies, Linköping University
  • 2018
    PhD in Media and Communication Studies, Södertörn University, Sweden
  • 2011
    MA in Communication for Development, Malmö University, Sweden
  • 2007
    MPhil in Eastern Philosophy and Culture, University of Sofia, Bulgaria 
  • 2005
    BSc in Communication Technology and Engineering, Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria
 

Teaching 

  • Planning for a Sustainable Information Society
  • Special Readings in Strategic Urban and Regional Planning
  • Research skills in environmental science
  • Bachelor's programme in Urban and Regional Planning
  • Master in Strategic Urban and Regional Planning
  • Strategic Urban and Regional Planning, Master's Programme

 

Network

Research affiliate of the Global Media Technologies and Cultures Lab led by Prof. Lisa Parks, at the University of California Santa Barbara

Member of the network Re-Humanizing Automated Decision Making (RJ Research initiation grant)  


Forum: DATA LAB

3D particle system that's built by a flow of strings, generated in wave.

Tema's DataLab

The DATA LAB is a forum for collaborative co-creation and experimentation with diverse forms of doing and communicating academic knowledge.

Organisation

Bilden visar byggnadsarbetare. The picture shows workers.

Technology and Social Change (TEMAT)

So much of our lives depend on technology. The development and use of technology creates possibilities as well as social, ethical and political dilemmas. That’s what we study at Tema T – Technology and Social Change.
Temahuset Temabuilding

Department of Thematic Studies (TEMA)

In an increasingly complicated world, there is a need for researchers that can handle both breadth and depth, and can collaborate across disciplinary borders. Major societal questions are studied from an interdisciplinary perspective at TEMA.
Studenthuset on Campus Valla in Linköping

About LiU

Linköping University, LiU, offers innovative education and boundary-crossing research. The students are among the most desirable in the labour market and international rankings consistently place LiU as a leading global university.

News

Julia Velkova smiling.

LiU researcher admitted to cutting-edge humanities research programme

It has now been announced who has been admitted to the “Pro Futura Scientia Fellowships” – a five-year research programme in the humanities and social sciences. One of them is Julia Velkova, assistant professor at LiU.

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