Spectral Desire Paths was a project that aim to expand the imagination and imaginative capacity of possible futures to open up new (spectral) pathways, build anti-stereotypical models and unexpected orientations towards desired technological futures.

Spectral Desire Paths was a collaboration between an arts organization (Constant), a technology company (Sensolus) and a research group (Urban Species). Constant connects collective artistic work with free software and intersectional feminist thinking. Sensolus makes geolocative tracking tools for globally based companies. Urban Species develops action research on participation and urbanity.

The collaboration explored the potential of lower power networks and tracking technology by making space for artistic, technical and scientific exchange, speculation experimentation and critical analysis.

Satellite and 5G wireless communication infrastructure is developing rapidly. Geolocation tracking technologies are benefiting from this. They are applied, for example, in transportation and urban planning and for improving mobility management. Technology and the world mutually shape each other and exist in a problematic relationship with each other. Without minerals, hardware does not work, politics drives implementation, and transnational companies cultivate habits of users. Technology generates e-waste. Tracking technologies are also associated with precarious working conditions and with disproportionate appropriation of public space for corporate purposes. The result of this tension is a sense of disconnect that is growing between industry, society and citizens. This raises new questions: In whose interest are new technologies being rolled out? How does infrastructure affect life, the city and the environment? What is the place of citizens and civil society in the adoption and application of technical standards ?