Smartphones are one of the most essential electronics in our lives. Almost everyone has one or more old smartphones in their cabinets, collecting dust. We should have already broken up, but we can't let them go. Because they contain personal information, the unusable phones were left somewhere but cannot be recycled. Also, relying on or overusing digital devices such as smartphones may raise health and social problems.

Now is the time to let them go and give them a new life as a recycled object. We will discuss how these abandoned or stacked smartphones affect the environment and share ways to dispose of them safely. This workshop covering technology and society offers an opportunity to think about the dynamics of the power surrounding smartphones, including how to engage with smartphones healthily, following the circulation and movement of resources and e-waste in the global era, from production to disposal.

Mina Kim is a media artist and artist-researcher who has presented her work between Korea and the Netherlands, and is currently based in Seoul. She is interested in what is left behind by the development of digital technologies and investigates how human life can coexist with digital debris through the medium of art. She is currently working on art and research on the relationship between the infrastructure of digital technology and the environment. She presents her work through various media and modes of expression including installation, video, web, sound, performance, workshop, and zine. She works with sound under the name Vitamina and has been leading Re#sister Korea, a community for women and queer people interested in experimenting with various sounds, playing and learning together, since 2022.