The 22nd conference of the Disruption Network Lab, “HATE NEWS vs. FREE SPEECH”, explored polarization and pluralism in Georgian media, opening on 12 December 2020 in partnership with the Regional Democratic Hub – Caucasus. 

Introduced by Tatiana Bazzichelli and Lieke Ploeger, the Programme and Community Director of the Disruption Network Lab, the two-day-event brought together journalists, activists and experts from based in Georgia and Germany to look into the manifestations as well as the consequences of information manipulation and deliberate hate speech within the Georgian media landscape. 

The conference, held at Kunstquartier Bethanien in Berlin as a combination of online and on-site formats, investigated a hyper-polarised system, in which exploitative manipulation of facts and orchestrated attempts to mislead people through delivering false information are dangerously eroding media independence, pluralism and freedom of speech. In the context of deliberate technology-fuelled disinformation, spread by news outlets of religious and political influence, hostile countries and other malign sources, the work of independent Georgian journalists is often delegitimised by public authorities and denigrated in a wave of generalisations against media objectivity, to undermine independent information and stifle criticism. 

As Bazzichelli stressed in her introductory statement, independent journalists reporting on information that is in the public interest are targeted because of the role they play in ensuring an informed society. At the same time, a global process of mystification is progressively blurring the boundary between what is false and what is real, growing to such a level that traditional media seems incapable of protecting society from a tide of disinformation, and becomes part of the problem. 

POLARIZATION AND MEDIA ETHICS IN GEORGIA 

Opening the first panel, “Polarization and Media Ethics in Georgia”, the moderator Maya Talakhadze, Co-Founder of the Regional Democratic Hub – Caucasus explained that, similar to other former Soviet Union countries, the political environment in Georgia has been polarized since the independence of the country. This has led to highly partisan media and to a marked divergence of political attitudes to ideological extremes within the around 3.7 million Georgians. Although the widespread of the internet guaranteed access to new media outlets and social media opened the way to a more pluralistic media environment, Georgian society soon faced the new challenges of widespread online disinformation, ethics violations and hate speech. 

Professor Tamar Kintsurashvili, Executive Director of the Media Development Foundation and Associate Professor at Ilia State University, referred to Georgia as the country with the most pluralistic and free media environment in South Caucasus region. Nevertheless, according to Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders, its information system appears weaker and weaker, public broadcasters have been accused of favouring the government and lawmakers have repeatedly attempted to restrict freedom of expression. 

Professor Kintsurashvili stressed how such an environment cannot be considered independent and negatively contributes to the polarization of the country. In her critical analysis, Georgian media pluralism could be described as the product of competing political interests, rather than a sign of strong freedom of expression and an independent press in the country. Despite this, Georgian civil society is widely praised for its diversity and strength. 

In Georgia, most media have a political affiliation and align themselves with the agenda of a candidate or a party. This results in the actual instrumentalization of mainstream media and the concentration of ownership of TV stations, online media outlets and newspapers in the hands of the dominant political parties, which are shaping the overall media environment. 

Professor Kintsurashvili recalled that in 2017 the ownership of pro-opposition Georgian TV channel Rustavi 2 was transferred to the businessman Kibar Khalvashi, its previous owner, after a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The case is instructive of the complexity of the Georgian media landscape. Khalvashi’s opponents accused him of having close ties to the government and warned that the new ownership could not guarantee freedom of expression and independence for journalists and broadcasts. Following the ECHR ruling, two new opposition broadcasters emerged. 

Professor Kintsurashvili highlighted that, to come to a full understanding of the country, one must consider the possible sympathies of the Georgian politicians toward the Russian Federation, despite the 2008 war and its continuous interferences in domestic affairs. 

Many critical voices and independent investigations observe that Russia is supporting a galaxy of media outlets active all over the Caucasus, characterised by a lack of transparency and accountability. These actors promote anti-Western propaganda and are partially responsible for the radicalisation and antagonization of the Georgian society, leveraged to disrupt social cohesion and push the country away from the EU’s Eastern Partnership with the six countries of its Eastern neighbourhood –Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. 

Professor Kintsurashvili points out that while outlets such as Sputnik or Russia Today are openly funded by the Russian government or by Russian oligarchs, the ownership structures of dozens of online platforms remain unclear, and many vanish after a few weeks of activity. 

In addition to this, the panellist considered that economic resources for independent media are limited and a lack of transparency of financing – especially in online media – which poses a serious problem for the independence and impartiality of many media outlets, as they are not accountable to the Georgian public but to their owners. Neutral newsrooms with no political affiliation are not self-sufficient and manage to have a small impact on the overall environment; nothing compared to big TV channels, which remain the major source of information in the country. 

Taking a step from such a polarized environment shaped by domestic and foreign actors with a political agenda, the second panellist Nata Dzvelishvili, Executive Director at Indigo Publishing, focused on the current state of media ethics in Georgia and the lack of media literacy among Georgians. She considered that, in such a polluted disinformation ecosystem, the majority have almost no reliable instruments to orientate and discern good independent journalism, fake news and poor-quality reporting, which means also that the capability to identify verifiable information in the public interest, and information that does not meet precise ethical standards, is limited.

Dzvelishvili is the former Executive Director of the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics, the self-regulatory body of media in Georgia. She pointed out that by decoding the authenticity of online news we can see how, alongside with the so-called fake news, there is also an alarming degree of laxity and journalistic errors arising from poor research and superficial verification. She listed a few frequent unethical behaviours and violations, from the lack of accuracy to unprofessional coverage of facts reported to arouse curiosity or broad interest through the inclusion of exaggerated or lurid details. In Georgia, this last aspect is mirrored in an unfair and hyper-partisan selection of facts, too. 

The Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics – a body composed of 400 member journalists, which processes complaints and makes decisions on issues regarding ethical standards and principles – warned that Georgian media too often spread news based on unverified facts, or even simple errors, generating misinformation. Bad information undermines the credibility of media, and unprofessional journalism opens the way for widespread disinformation and misinformation. 

Dzvelishvili explained that in Georgia the most critical topics subject to manipulation due to political interest are those related to religious sentiment, LGBTQI identities, migration and nationalism. In her intervention she presented examples of campaigns fuelling homophobia, racism and reopening historic traumas, fruitful ground for the growth of ultra-nationalistic, conservative, and pro-Russian narratives. 

Many of the media outlets accused of spreading anti-Western and pro-Russian propaganda acted all over the Caucasus to disseminate disinformation about Georgia’s position on the Karabakh conflict, and thus foster hostility between ethnic Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian populations. Rumours and fully fabricated stories about Georgian Muslims ready to gain independence led to the concrete risk of a conflict between ethnic Georgians, the religious orthodox and Muslims, and represented a new pretext to call for Russian intervention to resolve the conflict. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic was used to fuel anti-Western feelings, provoke mistrust in science, discredit Western democracies and divide the country. 

Nini Gvilia, Project Assistant for Social Media Monitoring at the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), focused on social media in Georgia, which – she explained – 20 percent of the population use as their main source of information. Political activities have strongly shifted to Facebook and other social media, with the support of agencies such as The Marketing Heaven, which enables a more pluralised information environment but also sharpens the risk of misuse by malign actors.

News Front, a Georgian-language website, is one of these. Facts can be irrelevant against a torrent of abuse and hatred towards journalists and opponents, made possible by algorithms, fake accounts, coordinated bots and trolls, that generate viral postings on social media. News Front has also been active on Facebook since 2019. Analysing the interactions of its audience, it is observable that manipulation also arises by weaponizing memes to propel hate speech and denigration or creating false campaigns to distract public attention from actual news. Marginal voices and fake news can be disseminated by inflating the number of shares with automated or semi-automated accounts, which manipulate public opinion by boosting the popularity of online posts and amplifying rumours.

Many Georgians are still anchored to very traditionalist and conservative beliefs. Groups of right-wing extremists offer appealing online spaces filled with redundant rhetoric, gossip columns, sport blogs, and other apparently harmless content, which actually underpins anti-liberal, misogynistic, racist and homophobic views, pushing for a new authoritarian turnaround. Too often, mainstream TV channels and newspapers pick up staged news from such a disinformation ecosystem, enforcing a revisionist narrative built on manipulated facts and fake interactions, arrogance and violence.

MISINFORMATION ON SOCIAL MEDIA DURING ELECTIONS 

Eka Rostomashvili, Advocacy and Campaigns Coordinator at Transparency International, moderated the panel “Misinformation on Social Media during Elections”. The opening contribution by Varoon Bashyakarla, Data Scientist at Tactical Tech’s Data & Politics Project, focused on how the ‘digital influence industry’operates. In addition, Bashyakarla dissected some of the dynamics that allow personal data to be weaponised for political purposes. 

As he recalled, personal data of potential electors is being used constantly for political purposes – even without a precise agenda, just to spread disinformation. Hundreds of companies around the world profile people to influence and predict their political choices. Working with journalists, academics, and civil society organisations, Bashyakarla underlined how these tech firms exploit personal information as a political asset and source of political intelligence. 

Many countries traditionally hold voter rolls containing basic information of their electors. Voters’ data is at the heart of modern campaigning and many of the companies working in consumers tech have opened new divisions dedicated to political technology – a term commonly used in the former Soviet states for a highly developed industry of political manipulation – to build statistical models that spy on voters to learn from their preferences and characteristics. Cambridge Analytica was just one of the many entities collecting and misusing intimate personal data to target and manipulate the electorate.

Last year, personally identifiable information of 4.9 million Georgians from 2011 appeared online. Many suspected that the leak was triggered to undermine voters’ faith in elections. However, a leak consisting of 200 million US-American voter files, with personal data including ethnicity and religion, had already demonstrated in 2017 – illustrating how risky election tech can be. The same happened in the Philippines, where the website of the government was subject to a cyber-attack and 340 gigabytes of the personal details of 55 million voters appeared online, and in Turkey, where in 2016 a leak of a 6.6 gigabyte file made available information of 50 million voters. 

Bashyakarla discussed then how the extraction of value from political data works and explained the logic behind A/B testing, deployed to compare the performance of two competing advertisements. He warned that societies around the world are exposed to an unprecedented volume of testing. During the last US elections, for example, on the day of the third presidential debate a single online content could be shared in up to 175,000 different variations to test the reaction of the electorate. 

Politicians test their postings, images, headlines and slogans to learn in which areas voters are more sympathetic to their messages; what causes in different regions of the country they care more about; and what topics are more likely to be appreciated by a specific audience. As Facebook suggests in one of its advertisements, these techniques allow you to “find the perfect match between your ad and your audience.”

In Georgia, the volume of unsolicited texting and even phone calls spreading political messages that electors receive before elections is overwhelming. Both pro-government political parties and opposition parties deploy similar tactics, which reach their peak point during elections. Coinciding with this very intense activity, the number of online pages spreading fake news triples, with hatred campaigns amplifying differences and fuelling polarization. 

Mikheil Benidze, Chief of Party for the new Georgia Information Integrity Program at the Zinc Network, shared his observations on how social media platforms have been weaponized for electoral purposes and how Georgian civil society has risen to the challenge. In the next few years, the Georgia Information Integrity Program, run by the Zinc Network, is going to look into the activities of online users, to research why certain narratives are successful and what their actual impact is. 

Benidze recalled that the web is full of traps, like fake news websites that look like the online version of mainstream newspapers, and TV channels, which deceive readers. These fake websites are used to co-ordinate campaigns and networks of political influence, propagate nationalistic, xenophobic, and homophobic content and to undermine the development of a multicultural liberal democracy. The panellist considered that algorithms amplify those messages even more, and praised Georgian civil society organisations for constantly debunking, exposing and analysing facts to protect a free, democratic and open debate. People get spontaneously together and mobilise to strengthen independent fact-checking initiatives and encourage the co-operation with social networks to monitor and delate online harmful content. 

The panel was concluded by the contribution of Rafael Goldzweig, Research Coordinator at Democracy Reporting International, an independent non-profit organisation based in Berlin, which promotes political participation of citizens, accountability of state bodies and the development of democratic institutions worldwide. Goldzweig compared the trends observed in Georgia described throughout the first day of the conference with what happens in other countries. He offered an overview of regulatory approaches and initiatives – particularly those debated in the European Union – for making the online environment more resilient against disinformation, hate speech and other challenges. 

The digital sphere and its interactions proved to be able to determine the course of elections and host activities, which can undermine the stability of a fragile institutional system. The researcher pointed out that, all over the world, social media has become subject to electoral observation, too, to monitor the rights of candidates and of the electorate. 

Goldzweig is confident that more organisations and actors around the world can replicate the monitoring activities of Democracy Reporting International. He suggested that transparency and monitoring are fundamental to understand what happens online, and that we are facing a multi-stakeholder responsibility, since tech companies are asked to provide solutions and governments to maintain a central role. These actors must facilitate the monitoring by civil society and implement tech that enforces community standards able to guarantee individual and collective rights.

The first day’s guests presented a clearer image of the complex situation in the Georgian media landscape, in which disinformation and propaganda seek to animate people into becoming conduits of divisive messages and violence. All panellists expressed concern about the alarming levels of homophobia and xenophobia. Several contributions suggested that journalistic self-regulation and a respect for precise ethical principles appear to be the only way to guarantee strong and free information systems, keeping in mind that Georgian democratic institutions are still fragile and that lawmakers will try to implement new regulations as a leverage to limit freedom of expressions.

HATE SPEECH & HUMAN RIGHTS 

The conference’s closing panel, “Hate Speech & Human Rights”, was moderated by performer and journalist Azadê Peşmen. The talk opened with a focus on hate speech, violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in Georgia.

Giorgi Tabagari, Co-Founder and Director of Tbilisi Pride, gave the audience the chance to learn more about LGBTQI rights in the country. Georgian legislation directly prohibits discrimination against all LGBTQI people, nevertheless – as set out in the previous panels of the conference – there is a high level of hostility against queer people everywhere in Georgian society. Gay and transgender people, along with Jehovah Witnesses, Muslims and Armenians, are publicly presented as national enemies and homosexuality is considered an inexcusable moral corruption. 

In Georgia the simple existence of LGBTQI people is a taboo. The mainstream media do not consider sexual and gender identity outside the binary representation of heterosexual men and women. Queer people appear to be the most despised group in the society, which is a fact taken for granted as a normal aspect by most Georgians. Tabagari recalled that an effective way to inflict a damaging insult and to ruin the reputation of a Georgian is to accuse that person of being homosexual: a moral corruption, worse than being a criminal. 

The Georgian Orthodox Church has played a defining role in this. Not only does it condemn homosexuality as a sin, but it is also the front line of a violent mobilisation of individuals against queer people. For years, homophobic views have been encouraged by public officials and deployed to delegitimise and discredit political opponents. Investigations found that far-right and hate groups behind these actions were often linked to official parties sitting in the institutions. 

By and large, Georgia is a conservative, homophobic country. Many participants of the conference could confirm that less hateful content has been hosted on traditional media in these last two years, whilst social media has been used to build a network of hateful content and online misinformation campaigns targeting LGBTQI activists. Hate and violence have been increasing for a long time, Tabagari warned. Due to more frightening levels of stigma and hatred, LGBTQI people and activists face constant and enormous challenges in Georgian society. Hate crimes and abuses revealed also to significantly increase the risk of poor mental health, from which many queer people suffer. As of today, no statistics about crimes conducted on sexual orientation or gender identity grounds in the country are available. However, it is obvious that the Georgian law prohibiting hate crimes, alone, is not sufficient.

The second panellist, Nino Danelia, Head of Journalism and Media Research at Ilia State University and Founder of the Coalition for Media Advocacy, discussed the implementation of existing national and international human rights standards to combat online hate speech in Georgia.

As described throughout the conference, the Georgian media landscape appears to be a competitive pluralistic system, but highly polarized. Danelia reported that television remains the main source of news and information for the majority of the country, whilst 25 percent of Georgians use internet – and particularly Facebook – to get informed. 

On paper, Georgian laws meet international standards, as the country sanctions all forms of expression promoting or justifying racial hatred, xenophobia, and religious based intolerance, including aggressive nationalism and hostility against minorities and migrants. 

Hate speech is not criminalised and it is regulated de facto by the Law on Broadcasting and by the Code of Conduct for Broadcasters. Danelia also warned that – in the fragile Caucasian democracy – a new regulation of hate speech could be a threat to media and editorial independence. 

Danelia concluded her intervention by explaining that, in her opinion, the issue of polarised, controlled and impartial media can be tackled by strengthening existing self-regulatory mechanisms and funding professional training for journalists. According to the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics, reporters must exert every effort to avoid hate speech that can cause fragmentation and radicalisation of the society. 

Political leaders are asked to be careful and avoid violent and ambiguous expressions in their public speeches – not to facilitate, incite or justify hatred founded on intolerance and identity-based convincement. A delicate aspect is still represented by those political groups that propose to prohibit “offending the religious sensibilities or feelings”, which would constitute an area of legal uncertainty and arbitrariness, negatively affecting free speech. 

Josephine Ballon, Legal Head at Hate Aid, gave an overview of the German legal perspective on hate speech, beginning from the fact that 78 percent of German internet users have already witnessed hate speech on the internet, whilst 17 percent have been a direct victim of these practices. Researchers calculate that, also in Germany, only 5 percent of users are responsible for almost 50 percent of hateful content.

Balloon recounted an example of neo-Nazis, united under the label “Reconquista Germanica”, and the Austrian Identitarian Movement, pointing out that an official 2019 investigation proved that 70 percent of the hate crimes and hate comments on the internet reported to the authorities were executed by far-right movements. 

Such a violent spread of hate intimidates people. Not just those directly targeted, but the majority of internet users admit to being afraid of expressing their political opinions on the internet, fearing the campaigns targeting those who speak out. More precisely, Ballon reported that more than half of the people interviewed do not dare to express political opinions online, as they are afraid of the possible consequences. 

The lawyer gives counselling to those who are affected by hatred and discrimination online and teaches them how to protect their data. Personality rights can be defended by directly suing the person responsible of the offence.

Georgian far-right and anti-liberal groups are strong enough to try to influence public opinion, backed by Russian propaganda, and this radicalisation seeks to fragment society even more. Both in Germany and in Georgia, journalistic standards are not applicable to social media and to user-generated content. In 2017, Germany introduced one of the most advanced laws regulating online hate speech at the time, the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG), requiring internet companies to remove offensive content within 24 hours, or to face up to 50 million euros in fines. Other countries that tried to regulate the same subject ended up approving unconstitutional laws. 

The importance of tolerance between diverse groups is stressed in the Georgian national Constitution, which guarantees and defends citizens’ fundamental rights and freedoms. Moreover, the law on broadcasting foresees a ‘National Communications Commission’ to regulate telecommunications and broadcast media. The Commission is supposed to be an independent regulatory body accountable to the legislative, but its practices are often criticised, and it is accused of being loyal to the executive branch. 

In Georgia, 80 percent of the population who use the internet have a Facebook account. Zuckerberg’s company is the most popular social network in the country. During the last elections, the tech firm came under a lot of pressure from civil society asking to enforce effective measures to stop hate speech and fake news interfering with the democratic process. Twitter is less popular in Georgia, hosting more international users, who mostly write in English. Recently, social media platforms demonstrated themselves to be able to co-operate with local non-governmental organisations to monitor online content. These activities led to ban, and the shut-down of many pages. However, concerns have arisen considering that, between elections, as civil society lets its guard down, those same groups are free to proliferate and spread their content again. 

Some keywords resonated throughout the conference, as a fil rouge connecting the speakers and debates held during the panels and commentaries by the public. Participants warned that the era of self-regulation of online social media platforms must come to end, as they have proved that their ruthless interest in clicks, interactions and profit comes before democracy and human rights. For almost a decade now, the spread of disinformation and misinformation through websites, social networks and social messaging has been begging the question of the extent of regulation and self-regulation of the companies providing these services.

On the other hand, the executive and legislative interference in the Georgian courts remains a substantial problem in the country, as does a lack of transparency and professionalism surrounding judicial proceedings. For these reasons, self-regulation remains the only plausible option for editors and journalists.

Media literacy and awareness-raising have been widely recognised as effective and reliable tools to oppose the spread of harmful content and, at the same time, tackle the system of disinformation and violence threatening Georgia. Education, together with strong independent journalists, who know and respect journalistic standards. 

On the other hand, we see that economic uncertainties – fear, anger, and resentment – are leveraged to spread campaigns of hatred, attack opponents, discriminate minorities and activists. Conspiratorial, paranoid thinking and violent interactions act like a catalyst, provoking participation and fascinating individuals. Considering that it is all about the benefits of personalised advertising, and ultimately the need for clicks, many observers think that social media will never renounce to such a source of profit.

The collaborative project “HATE NEWS vs. FREE SPEECH: Polarization and Pluralism in Georgian Media” had its first phase between September and October 2020, with two trainings in Georgia on traditional and non-traditional journalism, organised by the Regional Democratic Hub – Caucasus. The announcement of the training triggered high interest, with 120 applications received for 30 places. The first training in Georgia was held in the Kakheti Region involving journalists, (social) media representatives and bloggers from the eastern regions of Georgia. The second training, which took place in October in the Samtskhe Javakheti Region, was held for the students of journalistic faculties with special focus on the regional universities. The training sessions addressed several key areas, among them digital and media literacy, media ethics, hate news and hate speech. 

The project ended with this conference and a workshop in Berlin titled “Anatomy of a Conspiracy Theory”, run on December 13 by researcher, trainer and consultant Alistair Alexander, with participants from both Tbilisi and Berlin. The workshop discussed several conspiracy fantasies from around the world, to understand what makes them work and how to challenge their circulation. 

HATE NEWS vs. FREE SPEECH provided a forum for discussion and on complex issues, with particular attention for different perspectives of the international guests – especially women – who animated the debate. 

For further details of our speakers and topics, please visit the event page: https://www.disruptionlab.org/hate-news-vs-free-speech

The 23rd conference of the Disruption Network Lab, curated by Tatiana Bazzichelli, was titled “Behind the Mask: Whistleblowing During the Pandemic.“ It took place on 18-20 March, 2021.

You can re-watch the panels here: https://www.disruptionlab.org/behind-the-mask

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A list of recommendations, reflecting the dynamic culture we are part of, straddling the fields of art, technology and social change.

Events, Exhibitions, Open Calls, Festivals and Conferences

Auriea Harvey, Year Zero | Bitforms Gallery | March 6–April 24, 2021, | Harvey’s first solo exhibition presenting a diverse mixed-media practice of sculpture, video games, drawing, and mixed reality works steeped in character creation and mythology. A new body of work nested within the legacy of Harvey’s solo and collaborative career. Working online from the beginning of net art’s history, the artist expertly combines her experience in video game and software development with a three-dimensional practice. Year Zero is a continuation of this coalescence, presenting early sketchbooks, webcam broadcasts, and multiplayer games alongside Harvey’s latest sculptural installations and drawing – https://bit.ly/3cHXZFv 

Trans Aesthetics: McKenzie Wark & Shola von Reinhold in conversation with Susan Stryker | April 8 2021 | Price: free – Anyone on or off Facebook | Please join host Susan Stryker, Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women’s Leadership, for a conversation between media theorist McKenzie Wark of the New School for Social Research (The Hacker Manifesto; Reverse Cowgirl) and novelist Shola von Reinhold (LOTE), about Black and femme trans cultural production and world-making. Co-hosted by the Mellon-funded We Are the Voices public arts and humanities series and the Mills College Trans Studies Speakers Series – https://bit.ly/3lU7DHP

Raw Hope of Humanity Rising – Public Dialogues for 2021 | April 14 2021, 6-7:30 pm | Event by Third Space Network, American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. The third upcoming panel in the series is The Internet as a Medium for Activism & Social Change, exploring the Internet as a platform for political action through social media collaboration, virtual community, alternative journalism, and digital forms of artistic media. The panellists include: Jeff Gates, DC artist and writer, founder of the Chamomile Tea Party; Makia Green, Core Organizer, DC Black Lives Matter; Randall Packer, Artist & Creative Director, Third Space Network. Moderated by Monica O. Montgomery of MuseumHue – https://bit.ly/2NYXkWy

Anthropology Lecture: Arturo Escobar – Against Terricide | Free  · Online event | April 14, 2021, | This talk discusses transition design, broadly speaking, as a praxis for re-weaving the web of life on the basis of pluriversality and relationality, from the perspective of current Latin American theoretico-political debates and struggles. Presented by the Anthropology Department at The New School for Social Research. Cosponsored by Critical Perspectives on Democratic Anti Colonialism – https://bit.ly/3lRq7bY

Social Codes | Curated by Casey Reas | March 24 onwards | An exhibition of software art, also called generative art. All of the work consists of code written by artists to create visual experiences. Some works in the exhibition relate to the visual histories of drawing, painting, animation, and video, but all of it is native digital art, in that each artwork is a performance of code choreographed by the artist. Artists have been working with code since the 1960s, and within that time frame, code has evolved from languages written by engineers to run on room-sized computers to artist-created coding languages running inside a web browser. In 2021, artists are writing code in many languages and environments. Each programming language is like a different material to work with – https://bit.ly/2NYTnRI

Open Call: Resident, Art Tech Nature Culture List | The CreaTures project | Deadline for submissions is April 22, 2021. A curatorial & creative residency for an individual with a creative spirit and a passion for community-building to take the lead in nurturing the Art Tech Nature Culture – a global community of practice for creative practitioners across disciplines (from art, architecture and design to community organising and digital development) who care about social and ecological transformation. The selected applicant will nurture ATNC network as it expands beyond a discussion list, into a series of ongoing initiatives that distribute leadership and foster co-creation. Anywhere on Earth Time. Details available here in standard and large format (for people with a visual impairment) – https://bit.ly/3cC1RYq

Call for Applications: Anthropocene Campus Venice 2021 | Water Politics in the Age of the Anthropocene | Deadline: April 25, 2021 | Venice, Italy, October 11-16 2021 | Join a one-week educational event around the theme of Water Politics in the Age of the Anthropocene, organized by Ca’ Foscari University, the Center for the Humanities and Social Change and the Max Planck Partner Group The Water City in the framework of the Anthropocene Curriculum, a long-term collaborative project initiated by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin) and Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin). Over the span of a full week, this forum will provide a space for co-learning, interdisciplinary collaborations, and comparative studies, bringing together environmental scientists, artists, historians of science and technology, geologists, environmental humanities scholars, archaeologists, and architects – https://bit.ly/3uhdJoP

Call for Contributors | A New AI Lexicon: Responses and Challenges to the Critical AI discourse | AI Now Institute | Critical thinking in AI has moved beyond examining specific features and biases of discrete AI models and technical components to recognize the critical importance of the racial, political, gendered and institutional legacies that shape real-world AI systems as well as the material contexts and communities that are most vulnerable to the harms and failures of AI systems. National and transnational, political, economic and racial contexts of production and deployment are integral to the questions of how such AI will operate, and for whose benefit – https://bit.ly/3cwMS23

Symposium: Between Techno-Euphoria and Regimes of Surveillance | Free  · Online event | May 1–3 2021 | Berlin, Zentrum für Netzkunst | Calculating Control: (Net)Art and Cybernetics / (Netz)Kunst und Kybernetik Symposium: Between Techno-Euphoria and Regimes of Surveillance. The location and architecture of Haus der Statistik demonstrates the two-sided nature of the science of cybernetics: On the one hand, the potential of a new organizational model, and on the other, the risks associated with its use as a powerful instrument for surveillance and control – https://bit.ly/3sFrOfa

Critical AI Manifestation in Gent | KIOSK in Gent hosts a Critical AI Manifestation May 8, 2021, | The United Intelligence Lab considers AI to be the most transformative technology of our time that shapes the way we interact, create and think. With C.AI.M we want to study and exploit AI, unmasking its impact. UIL is an ever-growing group of people cooperating on the Critical AI Manifesto exploring the impact of machine learning on culture and society. UIL members are from all walks of life. Whether AI-dominion is something you secretly yearn for or desperately hope to escape from, one thing is for certain, the old vantage points on AI will for nobody suffice anymore. Join us in writing C.AI.M. Anyone is welcome, except if you are an AI – https://bit.ly/31nzbfb

Roger Robinson: Cities Imaginaries Lecture 2021 | The Actuality of Gentrification | May 20 2021 | Writer and T.S. Eliot Prize winner Roger Robinson will deliver this year’s Cities Imaginaries lecture at UCL Urban Laboratory | This event is free | The danger with gentrification is that it breaks up long-held communities and bonds and histories without acknowledging and valuing them. Brixton has resisted gentrification before and it will again but a lot of energy and resources are being placed into the process of its gentrification, far more than the resources that were available to support it’s long time inhabitants – https://bit.ly/31yM4Ds

Call For Papers: In the limits of what is possible: art, science and technology | Artnodes | We are now receiving original work for our 28th issue (July 2021). Deadline for submissions: April 20 2021. When we talk about the intersections between art, science, technology and society (ACTS) we are referring to a set of practices that tend to challenge disciplinary boundaries, entering hybrid territories between the possible and the impossible, the real and the imaginary. Sometimes multidisciplinary, sometimes interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary, and often directly a-disciplinary in an indefinite territory in which what is at stake is the eternal composition of knowledge, of what is yet to be delimited, limited or disciplined in a tremendously fertile magma – https://bit.ly/2Pt3i2m

Books, Papers & Publications

Vera Molnar. Pas Froid aux Yeux | By Francesca Franco | Catalog of the monographic exhibition at the Espace de l’Art Concret from January 30 to May 31, 2021, and then at the Musée des Beaux-arts de Rennes from October 9, 2021, to January 9, 2022, this book presents the work of the artist, Vera Molnar. This exhibition is the first collaboration between two French cultural institutions which have in common a true speciality in the field of abstract art after 1945 and concrete art in particular. A prolific artist still active at the dawn of her 97th birthday, Vera Molnar places her practice between concrete art, constructed art and conceptual art. She is also considered a pioneer of computer drawing, having contributed to the digital art movement since the 1960s – https://bit.ly/2PqnRMZ

Hyperemployment – Post-work, Online Labour and Automation | !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Felix Stalder, Silvio Lorusso, Luciana Parisi, Domenico Quaranta | Co-published by NERO and Aksioma | 24/7. Algorithmic sovereignty. Anxiety. Artificial intelligence. Automation. Crowdfunding. Data extraction. Entreprecariat. Exploitation. Free labour. Free time. Gig working. Human-in-the-loop. Logistics. Machine vision. Man-machine complexity. Micro-labour. No future. Outsourcing. Peripheral work. Platform economy. Post-capitalism. Post-work. Procrastination. Quantification. Self-improvement. Social media fatigue. Time management. Unemployment –  https://bit.ly/3wf8ms4

A Stubborn Fury: How Writing Works in Elitist Britain | Novel by Gary Hall | Two-fifths of Britain’s leading people were educated privately: that’s five times the amount as in the population as a whole, with almost a quarter graduating from Oxford or Cambridge. Eight private schools send more pupils to Oxbridge than the remaining 2894 state schools combined, making modern Britain one of the most unequal places in Europe. In A Stubborn Fury, Gary Hall offers a powerful and provocative look at the consequences of this inequality for English culture in particular. Focusing on the literary novel and the memoir, he investigates, in terms that are as insightful as they are irreverent, why so much writing in England is uncritically realist, humanist and anti-intellectual – https://bit.ly/3u7AR94

Vegetal Entanglements: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture | Edited by Giovanni Aloi | Download Issue 53 – Spring 2021 | The contributions gathered in the third volume of ‘Vegetal Entanglements’—a tryptic entirely dedicated to plants in art and culture—focus on the inextricable, actual, and metaphorical links that bind plants, ecosystems, and humans. In this issue, the interconnectedness that characterizes plant lives is explored through a variety of media and approaches designed to foreground vegetal alterity. What role does anthropomorphism play in human-plant relations? How can we approach plant alterity in ways that bypass objectification? How can plants help us build fairer and more sustainable futures? These are only some of the many questions addressed in this issue – https://bit.ly/3djnko9

Punk & Post-Punk (Journal): Volume 10 issue 1 | Editors Russ Bestley, Pete Dale, Matthew Worley, Mike Dines | A peer-reviewed journal for academics, artists, journalists and the wider cultural industries. Placing punk and its progeny at the heart of interdisciplinary investigation, it is the first forum of its kind to explore this rich and influential topic in both historical and critical theoretical terms. Punk & Post-Punk is a Scopus-indexed journal for academics, artists, journalists and the wider cultural industries – https://bit.ly/2QV6jZZ

Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism | By Lauren Fournier || Autotheory—the commingling of theory and philosophy with autobiography—as a mode of critical artistic practice indebted to feminist writing and activism. Fournier provides a long-awaited account of autotheory, situating it as a mode of contemporary, post-1960s artistic practice that is indebted to feminist writing, art, and activism. Investigating a series of works by writers and artists including Chris Kraus and Adrian Piper, she considers the politics, aesthetics, and ethics of autotheory. Fournier argues that the autotheoretical turn signals the tenuousness of illusory separations between art and life, theory and practice, work and the self—divisions long blurred by feminist artists and scholars | MIT publishing – https://bit.ly/3wnin6D

Art and Care, Reflections on the To Mind Is To Care Exhibition | Free PDF Download at V2.nl | Authors: Dora Vrhoci & Florian Weigl | Editor: Michel van Dartel | Design: Jelle Koper | Photography: Fenna de Jong | Art and Care: Reflections on the To Mind Is To Care Exhibition reflects on the curatorial research that has been undertaken by Dora Vrhoci and Florian Weigl in the run-up, but especially during the To Mind Is To Care exhibition and peripheral programming. An exhibition Florian Weigl curated with a strong focus on ‘Caring for’. To Mind Is To Care is an ‘interdisciplinary study of care’ defined as everything we do to maintain and restore our world so that we can live in it to the best of our ability – https://bit.ly/2PtTEMX

Uncertain Archives: Critical Keywords for Big Data | Edited by Nanna Bonde Thylstrup, Daniela Agostinho, Annie Ring, Catherine D’Ignazio and Kristin Veel | Scholars from a range of disciplines interrogate terms relevant to critical studies of big data, from abuse and aggregate to visualization and vulnerability. This groundbreaking work offers an interdisciplinary perspective on big data and the archives they accrue, interrogating key terms. Scholars from a range of disciplines analyze concepts relevant to critical studies of big data, arranged glossary style—from abuse and aggregate to visualization and vulnerability. They not only challenge conventional usage of such familiar terms as prediction and objectivity but also introduce such unfamiliar ones as overfitting and copynorm | MIT Publishing – https://bit.ly/2O6SZ3s

Articles, Interviews, Blogs, Presentations, videos

Buen Vivir. Interview with Penny Travlou on collaborative practices in emerging networks | Framed by her long-standing research on collaborative practices, geographer and ethnographer Penny Travlou introduces two projects she has been involved lately: Platohedro, a space, a platform and community based in Medellín, Colombia, and the Feminist Autonomous Research Center in Athens (FAC). Platohedro refers to the indigenous concepts of Buen Vivir and Buen Conocer and works and adapting them to the contemporary living conditions in urban societies, while FAC puts an emphasis on community-based autonomous knowledge production. Both are concerned with forms of thinking and working together that allow for creating alternatives to extractivist, colonial, racist and anti-feminist modes of (knowledge)production – https://bit.ly/2PKMML5

Indigenous rituals and music | We Make Money Not Art | Sébastien Robert is an artist and researcher whose practise presents a rare combination of visual and sound art, technology, science and ethnographic research. A few years ago, he embarked on a research project called You’re no Bird of Paradise which studies indigenous music and rituals in danger of disappearing. Based on a collaborative and experimental approach, Robert’s projects attempt to translate sounds and rituals into tangible works of art that directly echo the traditions of the communities he meets – https://bit.ly/3sEcVcV

Herbert Marcuse and the Student Revolts of 1968: An Unpublished Lecture | By Herbert Marcuse | Jacobin Mag | In May 1968, the neo-Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse visited Paris and Berlin at the height of the student movements that were making news around the world. The text presented here is the transcript of a two-hour talk about those events that Marcuse delivered on May 23, 1968, shortly after his return to the United States, while the outcome of the May movement in France was still very much in doubt. It offers unique insights into the way a thinker often credited with providing the European student movements of 1968 with much of their ideological energy viewed them as they unfolded – https://bit.ly/3wh6QWi

Taxi Studio Visit: Marcel·lí Antúnez | Art matters Blog | In the context of  Ars Electronica 2020 we visited Marcel·lí Antúnez’s studio, today we retrieve the interview. The artist – whose work can be understood mainly in terms of performativity – began his artistic career with the internationally renowned group ” La Fura dels Baus “, with whom he worked for 10 years. In the 90s his interest in the study of technological complexity materialized for the first time with a robot called Joan l’home de Carn created in collaboration with the physicist, musician and programmer Sergi Jordà. Since then, Antúnez’s artistic production has delved into the idea of utopia in relation to a holistic ideal provided by technology, rethinking the barriers that are no longer so solid that separate the body from the machine – https://bit.ly/31kTLNl

On the Paris Commune: Part 1 | Stathis Kouvelakis | 29 March 2021 | The first instalment of a new text by Stathis Kouvelakis on the development, events and legacy of the Paris Commune, published in three parts across the week. Any perspective on the past tells us at least as much about the subject doing the looking, and the historical moment in which their perspective is situated, as about the object they are looking at. Editing a collection of Marx and Engels’s texts on the Paris Commune of 1871 is a quite different prospect today to what it would have been in decades past, separated from us by a deep historical rift even if they are not ever so remote in purely chronological terms. Half a century ago, upon the 1971 centenary of the Commune, it would have been almost self-evident that delving into these texts was a useful endeavour – https://bit.ly/3fuHX3e

Re-enchanting Our Art, Cultures and Everyday Lives | By Stephen Pritchard | A transcript of Pritchard’s talk, called ‘Cultural Democracy, Community Development and the Old/New Normal’ presented at the Imagine Belfast Festival on 28 March 2021. It’s about re-enchanting our art, cultures and everyday lives. Sheelagh Colcough, David Boyd, Conor Shields and Pritchard had a great conversation after the talk which could have gone on a lot longer. The talk will be published by Imagine Belfast soon – https://bit.ly/3wpmqPM

Is the Music Over at Mills College? | By Geeta Dayal | new York Times | A hotbed of experimental sound for nearly a century, this school in Oakland, Calif., is preparing to close its doors. Now that program and the electronics-focused Center for Contemporary Music, together with the most distinguished havens for experimental work in America over the past century, are facing possible closure. On March 17 the college, founded in 1852, announced that ongoing financial problems, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, would mean the end of its history as a degree-granting institution made up of an undergraduate women’s college and several coeducational graduate programs – https://nyti.ms/39wzF7h

Bill Gates Can’t Save the Planet | Grace Blakeley | Can Bill Gates save the world from capitalism? Gates’s new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, lays out his plan for achieving net-zero. With all the fanfare around the book’s release — his face was splashed on the cover of multiple magazines this week — this plan is depressingly familiar. Climate change, Gates and many economists argue is an example of a market failure. Markets have failed to adequately “price” carbon emissions, meaning we produce too much of them. If governments could only assign the correct price to these emissions, the market failure would be corrected and the planet would be saved – https://bit.ly/3u92X3J

Fairphone suggests Qualcomm is the biggest barrier to long-term Android support | Ron Amadeo | Qualcomm ended support for the phone after Android 6, but Fairphone is still going. The most interesting part of this news is a video from Fairphone detailing the update process the company went through, which offers more transparency than we normally get from a smartphone manufacturer. To hear Fairphone tell the story of Android updates, the biggest barrier to longer-term support is—surprise!—Qualcomm – https://bit.ly/3ss8XnL

Smashing the Patriarchy: Exposing Culture | Lilith Magazine | We’ve started an awesome collaboration with the amazing Wiam. At Lilith, we love the way she’s breaking taboos. Whether it is about sexuality, relationships or rap music. For Lilith, she will be making a series of videos on smashing the patriarchy. In this first episode, she is discussing the taboo that is shame culture. The past few weeks there has been a lot of online talk about exposers exposing young girls and queer folks for behaviour that is perfectly healthy. Wiam opens up about her own experience with being exposed and gives you the lesson of lessons on what helped her break the cycle – https://bit.ly/3wbR7I6

Image from: Installation shot. Auriea Harvey, Year Zero, exhibition at Bitforms Gallery. March 6 – April 24, 2021.

The FurtherList Archives

https://www.furtherfield.org/the-furtherlist-archives/

A list of recommendations, reflecting the dynamic culture we are part of, straddling the fields of art, technology, and social change.

Events, Exhibitions, Open Calls, Festivals and Conferences

Auriea Harvey, Year Zero | March 6–April 17 2021 | Opening Reception: Saturday, March 6 | bitforms is pleased to announce Year Zero, Auriea Harvey’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Through a diverse mixed-media practice, Harvey creates sculpture, video games, drawing, and mixed reality works steeped in character creation and mythology. Year Zero introduces a new body of work nested within the legacy of Harvey’s solo and collaborative career. Working online from the beginning of net art’s history, the artist expertly combines her experience in video game and software development with a three-dimensional practice. Year Zero is a continuation of this coalescence, presenting early sketchbooks, webcam broadcasts, and multiplayer games alongside Harvey’s latest sculptural installations and drawing. https://bit.ly/3bb8Nep

IPERCUBO presents an Online Exclusive Viewing Room dedicated to Axel Straschnoy’s The Permian Projects | 9–23 March 2021 | The Viewing Room is a preview of The Permian Projects, as well as a presentation of the recently published catalogue. The Permian Projects are two research projects by Axel Straschnoy on the natural history collection at the Perm Regional Museum, Perm Kray, Russia. The backdrop of the projects is the End-Permian Extinction (the biggest extinction ever to take place on Earth). The projects reflect on the Museum of Natural History and on the ongoing extinction process. The Dioramas of the Perm Regional Museum is a series of three-dimensional (lenticular) photographs presenting some of the stuffed animals in the collection in storage. https://bit.ly/2NOPeQ8

New Art City Festival: 2021 | A community celebration of Internet Art: March 15–26 2021 | March 26, 2021, is the one-year anniversary of New Art City’s domain registration. d0n.xyz chose the URL the way he always does for his art projects: by searching keywords and picking the coolest free one. A prototype grew into a tool, and a tool grew into a community. Since then, more than 30,000 people in 120 countries have visited galleries in New Art City. As an organization, we are proud to display artists who show in museums on the same level as art students and to show digital art in its native format alongside traditional media – https://bit.ly/2MG8ZJb

THE Q IN QONSPIRACY: QAnon as a Paradigm for Future Social-media-driven Conspiracism | Disruptive Fridays #19 | March 12 2021 |LIVE: Friday 5 pm | Berlin | Roberto Bui/Wu Ming 1 and Florian Cramer, moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli | In this conversation between Wu Ming 1 and Florian Cramer, QAnon is discussed as a template for contemporary social-media-driven conspiracy fantasies that work simultaneously as games and a new kind of cults. By focusing on the mutation of conspiracy myths from countercultural phenomena to contemporary meme and influencer culture, they will focus on three conspiracy narratives: “The Great Replacement” (from Renaud Camus to Charlottesville), QAnon (from Pizzagate to the Capitol storming), and “The Great Reset” (as a set of pandemic-inspired variations on the old New World Order trope). The conversation is centered around Wu Ming 1’s forthcoming book La Q di Qomplotto [The Q in qonspiracy], to be published end of March by Edizioni Alegre, which describes how conspiracy fantasies help legitimize systems of control. https://bit.ly/2OcAoTx

Bread and Roses: Gender and Class Under Capitalism, with Andrea D’Atri | Free  · Online event | Wednesday March 17 2021 7:00 pm–8:30 pm GMT| Is it possible to develop a radical socialist feminism that fights for the emancipation of women and of all humankind? Housmans is proud to welcome Andrea D’Atri to discuss her new publication with Pluto Press, Bread and Roses: Gender and Class Under Capitalism. Join us for a passionate journey through the history of feminism. Using the concrete struggles of women, Andrea traces the history of the women’s and workers’ movement from the French Revolution to queer theory. She analyses the divergent paths feminists have woven for their liberation from oppression and uncovers where they have hit dead ends. https://bit.ly/3uHW6zA

(re)programming: Infrastructure | With Benjamin Bratton | Event by Aksioma, Kino Šiška and KonS | Online with Facebook Live | Monday 15 March 2021 at 6pm UTC | For the 10th anniversary of Tactics & Practice, Aksioma presents (re)programming – strategies for self-renewal a “festival of conversations” with world-class thinkers debating key issues, from infrastructure and energy to community and AI, curated and conducted by writer and journalist Marta Peirano. The festival consists of 8 streaming events taking place every third Monday of the month throughout the year. https://bit.ly/3b0Hu6l

The DAOWO Sessions: Artworld Prototypes | A new set of experimental projects to reinvent the future of arts with blockchain | A partnership between Goethe-Institut, DECAL@Furtherfield, and Serpentine Galleries. The DAOWO Sessions: Artworld Prototypes series of online events ran 28 January – 4 March 2021. The series explores the possibilities for the future of the art world with blockchain by investigating what can be learned from DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations) working with Others (-WO). Each recorded session is an eye-opening presentation and conversation around active experimentation that aims to hack, deconstruct and reinvent the arts in the emerging crypto space in response to people and their local contexts. This is a unique opportunity for cultural practitioners, representatives of arts, technology organisations, communities, and anyone interested in blockchain’s potential to come together and question the future of art and society. https://bit.ly/37YllUg

Virtual Reality Residency | Program OPEN CALL until March 29 | Museums Without Walls is seeking proposals for its virtual reality residency program. Residencies will take place through April and May in different versions of the Espírito Santo Art Museum – MAES hosted in the Mozilla Hubs plataform. Four participants will be selected to occupy and recreate this environment based on their artistic and/or curatorial visions. The selected proposals will receive specialized mentorship and a development fee of CAD $ 600. The residency outcomes will be presented in the Museum Without Walls program in late May. https://bit.ly/3qbGMru

Pick Me Up (& hold me tight) | Compass festival | 19–28 March 2021 | An invitation for collective listening, experienced through public pay-phones across Leeds. Through an invitation to answer a public payphone, Pick Me Up (& hold me tight) is a mass act of contemplation about the relationship between mental health and modern life. Created by award-winning theatre and digital art company ZU-UK in response to rising suicide rates across the country, Pick Me Up (& hold me tight) is an audio event where every phone box in Leeds rings at the same time. Pick up the phone to participate in a gentle but thought-provoking audio experience that explores contemporary loneliness, and exposes the edges of our humanness. It’s an invitation to pause, take stock, and explore what kind of listeners we are. https://bit.ly/3kAcLAj

MoneyLab Berlin: Disaster Capitalism | From 26–28 March 2021| MoneyLab Berlin will shine a light on emerging communities that are starting to organize themselves around sustainable finance, inclusive tech, community-based currencies, and progressive monetary systems. Now for the first time in Berlin, the 11th edition of MoneyLab aims at creating space for utopias, experiments, and radical ideas around an economy for the people and for the planet. Over the course of this event we will present creative coping strategies, answers to the problems of data capitalism, platform monopolies and online surveillance, and modes of resistance. Free – online event. https://bit.ly/3dTaPkZ

Ecology and the Anthropocene Art-Game Commission | Phoenix Art-Game Commission Opportunity | LocationEast Midlands | We are seeking to commission an artist, group or studio to create an art-game exploring ecology and the Anthropocene, responding to the Daisyworld Simulation. We are open to proposals that use gaming as a medium in its widest sense, however, it is important to consider how the work could be exhibited in a gallery setting and published online, using platforms such as Steam and Itch. £4000 Commission fee to cover the production of work. Development support during the production of the work. Deadline – midnight on Sunday 28th March. Shortlisted applicants will be contacted by Monday 5th April – https://bit.ly/2MAnLBb

Center and Periphery: Marxism and Postcolonial Theory | Instructor: Nara Roberta Silva | Online event and Course Schedule 6–27 April 2021 | Brooklyn Institute for Social Research | £229.61 Registration Open | Marxism and anti-colonialism were once deeply intertwined in national liberation and other movements, from Vietnam to Angola to Algeria and beyond. However, by the end of the 20th century, Marxist and other socialist thought often seemed dated in a world with a waning Soviet bloc and an emerging neoliberal consensus. Postcolonial theory, itself often in conversation with Marxist thought, offered new understandings of liberation and emancipation. https://bit.ly/3b2JATe

Radical Kinship: Solidarity & Political Belonging | Free  · Online event | Apr 22, 2021 12:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada) | By Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at NYU and Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU | a panel discussion with Lisa Duggan, Che Gossett, Shellyne Rodriguez, & Helga Tawil Souri, & moderated by Layal Ftouni | This panel explores contemporary debates on solidarity and coalitional politics that are instrumental to conceptualizing political subjectivity, collectivity and belonging in our current political conjuncture. Engaging with questions of intersectionality, afro-pessimism, and Marxism, this session invites speakers to address the urgency of political affinities (comradeship, radical kinship) that can activate new socio-political imaginaries and envision alternative foundations and horizons for coalitional politics. Register for this free Zoom webinar. https://bit.ly/3swngY2

Computer Mouse Conference | Presented by CultureHub | 29 & 30 April 5pm EDT | Through lectures, live performances, discussions, and more, conference participants explore the question: what does the computer mouse see? The Computer Mouse Conference 2021 will take place on a website. Organized and moderated by Emma Rae Bruml & Ashley Jane Lewis. With support from The Processing Foundation, The Media Archaeology Lab, and The Coding Train. All ticket sales directly support CultureHub and the conference participants. https://bit.ly/3rdGvWe

Call for Proposals: Digital Matters: Designing/Performing Agency for the Anthropocene. 25th annual conference of the DRHA (Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts), Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, 5-7.09.2021. Taking place from September 5-7, 2021 in Berlin, the 25th Digital Research in Humanities and Arts conference invites contributions and interventions that focus on such transfers and interactions between digital and natural environments. Digital Matters takes on the challenge to explore new material and multi-species agencies, forms of embodiment, and interactions between the performing arts, the humanities, and the natural sciences that engage the sense of relationality and expanded scale that the Anthropocene affords. http://www.drha.uk/2021/call-for-paper/

Books, Papers & Publications

Aesthetics of the Commons | By Shusha Niederberger , Cornelia Sollfrank and Felix Stalder | What do a feminist server, an art space located in a public park in North London, a ‘pirate’ library of high cultural value yet dubious legal status, and an art school that emphasizes collectivity have in common? They all demonstrate that art can play an important role in imagining and producing a real quite different from what is currently hegemonic; that art has the possibility to not only envision or proclaim ideas in theory, but also to realize them materially. They are art in the sense that they place themselves in relation to (Western) cultural and art systems, developing discursive and aesthetic positions, but, at the same time, they are ‘operational’ in that they create recursive environments and freely available resources whose uses exceed these systems | Published by Diaphnes. https://bit.ly/3r4OFjr

Aesthetic Programming: A Handbook of Software Studies | By Winnie Soon and Geoff Cox | Aesthetic Programming explores the technical as well as cultural imaginaries of programming from its insides. It follows the principle that the growing importance of software requires a new kind of cultural thinking — and curriculum — that can account for, and with which to better understand the politics and aesthetics of algorithmic procedures, data processing and abstraction. It takes a particular interest in power relations that are relatively under-acknowledged in technical subjects, concerning class and capitalism, gender and sexuality, as well as race and the legacies of colonialism. Open Humanities Press. https://bit.ly/2ZYduBV

Some Ways of Making Nothing: Apophatic Apparatuses in Contemporary Art | By Curt Cloninger | What if all works of art were better understood as functioning apparatuses, entangling their human audiences in experiences of becoming? What if certain works of art were even able to throw the brakes on becoming altogether, making nothings rather than somethings? What would be the ethical value of making nothing, of stalling becoming; and how might such nothings even be made? Punctum Books. https://bit.ly/3b3tDMN

The Routledge Guidebook to Paine’s Rights of Man | By Frances A Chiu | Upon publication in 1791-92, the two parts of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man proved to be both immensely popular and highly controversial. An immediate bestseller, it not only defended the French revolution but also challenged current laws, customs, and government. The Routledge Guidebook to Paine’s Rights of Man provides the first comprehensive and fully contextualized introduction to this foundational text in the history of modern political thought, addressing its central themes, reception, and influence. Routledge. https://bit.ly/3b2Bees

Anthropocene islands: There are only islands after the end of the world | By David Chandler and Jonathan Pugh | Dialogues in Human Geography | Published March 1, 2021 | Many Anthropocene scholars provide us with the key take-home message that they are writing ‘after the end of the world’. Not because they are writing about the apocalypse, but because they are engaging the Anthropocene after the profound crisis of faith in Western modernity which has swept across academia in recent decades. […] In this article, we examine how the figure of the island as a liminal and transgressive space has facilitated Anthropocene thinking, working with and upon island forms and imaginations to develop alternatives to hegemonic, modern, ‘mainland’, or ‘one world’ thinking. Thus, whilst islands, under modern frameworks of reasoning, were reductively understood as isolated, backward, dependent, vulnerable, and in need of saving by others, the island is being productively re-thought in and for more recent Anthropocene thinking. Sage. https://bit.ly/3rb36mb

Gut Feelings: The Microbiome and Our Health | By Alessio Fasano and Susie Flaherty | Why the microbiome—our rich inner ecosystem of microorganisms—may hold the keys to human health. We are at the dawn of a new scientific revolution. Our understanding of how to treat and prevent diseases has been transformed by the knowledge of the microbiome—the rich ecosystem of microorganisms in and on every human. These microbial hitchhikers may hold the keys to human health. In Gut Feelings, Alessio Fasano and Susie Flaherty show why we must go beyond the older, myopic view of microorganisms as our enemies to a broader understanding of the microbiome as a parallel civilization that we need to understand, respect, and engage with for the benefit of our own health. MIT Press. https://bit.ly/3kH8bjL

Reading ′Black Mirror′ – Insights into Technology and the Post–Media Condition (Media Studies (COL)) | By German Duarte and Justin Michael Battin | Very few contemporary television programs provoke spirited responses quite like the dystopian series Black Mirror. This provocative program, infamous for its myriad apocalyptic portrayals of humankind’s relationship with an array of electronic and digital technologies, has proven quite adept at offering insightful commentary on a number of issues contemporary society is facing. This timely collection draws on innovative and interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks to provide unique perspectives about how confrontations with such issues should be considered and understood through the contemporary post-media condition that drives technology use. https://bit.ly/3sDUEMB

The Politics of Dating Apps: Gender, Sexuality, and Emergent Publics in Urban China | By Lik Sam Chan | An examination of dating app culture in China, across user demographics—straight women, straight men, queer women, and queer men. The open-access edition of this book was made possible by generous funding from Arcadia – a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing. In this exploration of dating app culture in China, Lik Sam Chan argues that these popular mobile apps are not merely a platform for personal relationships but also an emerging arena for gender and queer politics. Chan examines the opportunities dating apps present for women’s empowerment and men’s performances of masculinity, and he links experiences of queer dating app users with their vulnerable position as sexual minorities. He finds that dating apps are both portals to an exciting virtual world of relational possibilities and sites of power dynamics that reflect the heteronormativity and patriarchy of Chinese society. MIT Press. https://bit.ly/2MK3R6R

AI Art: Machine Visions and Warped Dreams | By Joanna Zylinska | Can computers be creative? Is algorithmic art just a form of Candy Crush? Cutting through the smoke and mirrors surrounding computation, robotics and artificial intelligence, Joanna Zylinska argues that, to understand the promise of AI for the creative fields, we must not confine ourselves solely to the realm of aesthetics. Instead, we need to address the role and position of the human in the current technical setup – including the associated issues of labour, robotisation and, last but not least, extinction. Offering a critique of the socio-political underpinnings of AI, AI Art: Machine Visions and Warped Dreams raises poignant questions about the conditions of art making and creativity today. Open Humanities Press. https://bit.ly/3kyNg29

Articles, Interviews, Blogs, Presentations, videos

Beeple Brings Crypto to Christie’s | The artist’s brash riffs on the news have whipped up a frenzy of interest within the cryptocurrency scene | By Josie Thaddeus-Johns | Mike Winkelmann never used to call himself an artist. But that was before he made $3.5 million in a single weekend from selling his artworks. In December, he auctioned off multiple editions of three digital artworks, each priced at $969, and 21 unique works, most of which sold for about $100,000 each. It was only the second time he had put his art on sale. The digital artist, who goes by Beeple, has created a drawing every single day for the last 13 years. He started with pen and paper but now mostly uses computer software such as the program Cinema 4D. A two-week-long online auction of a composite of the first 5,000 days of the project at Christie’s, is the auction house’s first sale of solely digital artwork. It will also be the first time that Christie’s will accept payment in the cryptocurrency Ether – https://nyti.ms/300t4gj

On Language, Technology, and Power: Jennifer Chan in Conversation With Hiba Ali | New media artists Hiba Ali and Jennifer Chan discuss absurd performance, making artwork about work, and diasporic afterlives | Hyperallergic | They both talk about absurd performance, making artwork about work, and the challenges w/in diasporic communities in openly discussing the nuances of privilege and oppression. “Ali and I recently reconnected — we met six years ago while teaching sessionally at SAIC in Chicago, and stayed in touch — to discuss the motivations around absurd performance, making artwork about work, and the difficulties people of color face with openly discussing specific privileges and oppressions.” https://bit.ly/3rioCp4

Reimagining Black Art and Criminology: A New Criminological Imagination | By Martin Glynn | It is time to disrupt current criminological discourses which still exclude the perspectives of black scholars. Through the lens of black art, Martin Glynn explores the relevance black artistic contributions have for understanding crime and justice. Through art forms including black crime fiction, black theatre, and black music, this book brings much-needed attention to marginalized perspectives within mainstream criminology. Refining academic and professional understandings of race, racialization, and intersectional aspects of crime, this text provides a platform for the contributions to criminology which are currently rendered invisible. Bristol University Press. https://bit.ly/2Pez1nC

Episode IV. Arcadian Dreams: AI-Generated Worlds from the Sublime to the Beautiful | By Filippo Lorenzin | “The Uncanny Valley” is Flash Art’s new digital column offering a window on the developing field of artificial intelligence and its relationship to contemporary art. When artists ask an AI to build an entirely digital world, implicit is the demand that it be appreciable to a human public. In the process, the AI discards variables that are unsuitable — elements that won’t be detectable to human senses or that don’t fulfil the narrative demands of its makers. Landscapes generated by AI are thus affected by the requirement for public enjoyment and cannot entirely recapture nature’s unpredictability. https://bit.ly/3uKjsEm

Reset or rewild: perspectives on future arts infrastructures | By Dr. Susan Jones | Pandemic conditions have shaken the foundations and functions of the art infrastructure to the core, illustrating the baked-in flaws while exposing the polar perspectives on conditions for a healthy, productive arts ecology in future. There was little emergency funding or practical support for individual freelance artists, and an apparent failure to acknowledge their dire situation after being hit by a dual economic and emotional tsunami. Although ensuring equality in the workforce is a beacon principle for the funded arts, staffers in art institutions were able to benefit from furlough while compounding the precarity of freelance artists was somehow socially acceptable to funders and most arts funded institutions. https://bit.ly/2O702ca

The model of an “inverted tree” for researching subcultures | By Frederick Lawrence. Expert with over 40 years of experience in investigating subcultures. Subcultures as a phenomenon are not unvarying, subcultures have changed and retransformed in fluctuating environments; some of them disappeared, but new forms arose or became a synthesis of pre-existing ones. Any study of social development requires a particular model first, that could guide the researcher in his work by acting as a “navigation system” in the course of his intellectual work. https://bit.ly/3r3P1Hg

Podcast – News From Where We Are # 3 – The Radical Friendship Series | In 2021 Furtherfield celebrates 25 years of radical friendship. We revisit and open up conversations with some of the fascinating and radical people with whom we have worked and collaborated through the years from the Internet to post-digital contexts. They are changing culture, their lives, and the lives of their communities. Filippo Florenzin interviews artist and independent, Mexican Curator, Doreen Rios. Ruth Catlow reads her foreword for the DisCO manifesto publication, edited by Stacco Troncoso and Ann Marie Utratel. Marc Garrett interviews artist Kate Southworth about her work with Art and Witchcraft. Stewart Home reads from his recent book edited by Home – Denizen of the Dead published by Cripplegate Books. Experimental, Avant-Folk by artists Alan Sondheim & Azure Carter, from their latest, excellent album Plaguesong. And more… http://bit.ly/3tuCIp6

Poly Styrene documentary: Celeste Bell on her mother’s incredible, complex legacy | The daughter of multi-layered punk icon Poly Styrene hopes her new film will give her mum the respect she deserves. As Bell says in a new, extraordinary documentary about her mother’s life and work, “it took an incredible amount of strength for my mum to walk away from X-Ray Spex,” a band at “the height of their success”. But as Bell adds: “Poly Styrene had to die so that Marianne Elliott could survive.” How she got to that point, and the various rebirths that followed, is all unpacked in the film, narrated by Bell, who co-directed it alongside Paul Sng. The Evening Standard. https://bit.ly/2ZZo1gc

The Secret Life of a Coronavirus | An oily, 100-nanometer-wide bubble of genes has killed more than two million people and reshaped the world. Scientists don’t quite know what to make of it | By Carl Zimmer | At the same time, the pandemic etched a scar across humanity that will endure for decades. More than 2.4 million people have died so far from Covid-19, and millions more have suffered a severe illness. In the United States, life expectancy fell by a full year in the first six months of 2020; for Black Americans, the drop was 2.7 years. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the global economy will lose over $22 trillion between 2020 and 2025. UNICEF is warning that the pandemic could produce a “lost generation.” At the center of these vast shocks is an oily bubble of genes just about 100 nanometers in diameter. Coronaviruses are so small that 10 trillion of them weigh less than a raindrop. https://nyti.ms/2NIXktI

‘Ari Up just kicked the door down’ | Neneh Cherry and others reflect on the legacy of the Slits and New Age Steppers singer as previously unheard songs are released | By Helen Barrett | I’ll never forget the first time I saw Ari Up,” says singer-songwriter Neneh Cherry. “She had her locks tied up, this huge pillar on her head, and she was wearing a tutu and walking on ballet pointe shoes. I was barely 15, really impressionable, and it was instant love.” Less well-known is the music Up recorded alongside and afterward — early cross-cultural experiments in sound and genre, collaborations with reggae artists, and immersion in Jamaican music that would take her from south London to Kingston and the jungles of Indonesia and Belize. Financial Times. February – https://on.ft.com/3dSv56e

Main image by Marc Garrett and Ruth Catlow 2020.

The FurtherList Archives

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The 21st conference of the Disruption Network Lab “Borders of Fear” was held on the 27th, 28th, and 29th November 2020 in Berlin’s Kunstquartier Bethanien. Journalists, activists, advocates, and researchers shed light on abuses and human rights violations in the context of migration management policies. Keynote speeches, panel discussions and several workshops were held involving a total number of 18 speakers and bringing together hundreds of online viewers.

Drawing on insights from humanities, science and technology studies, participants analysed from different perspectives the spread of new forms of persecution and border control targeting people on the move and those seeking refuge. They reflected collectively on forms of social justice and discussed the politics of fear that crystalize the stigmatisation of migrants. By concretely addressing these issues the conference also investigated the deployment of technology and the role of media to consolidate a well-defined structure of power, and outlined the reasons behind the rise of borders and walls, factors that lead to cultural and physical violence, persecution, and human rights violations.

In her introductory statement Dr. Tatiana Bazzichelli, founder and director of the Distruption Network Lab, presented the programme of the conference meant to address the discourse of borders both in their material function, and in their defining role within a strategy of dehumanization and racialisations of individuals. Across the globe, an unprecedented number of people are on the move due to war, economic and environmental factors. Bazzichelli recalled the urgent need to discuss human-right-related topics such as segregation and pushbacks, refugee camps and militarization of frontiers, considering the new technological artilleries available for states, investigating at the same time how border policing and datafication of society are affecting the narrative around migrants and refugees in Europe and the in the West.

The four immediate key content takeaways of the first day were the will to prevent people from reaching countries where they can apply for refugee status or visa; the externalisation polices of border control; the illegal practice of pushbacks; and systematic human rights violations by authorities, extensively documented but difficult to prove in court.

The conference opened with the short film by Josh Begley “Best of Luck with the Wall” – a voyage across the US-Mexico border – stitched together from 200,000 satellite images, and a talk by lawyer Renata Avila, who gave an overview of the physical and socio-economic barriers, which people migrating encounter whilst crossing South and Central America.

Avila took step from the current crises in South and Central America, to describe the dramatic migration through perilous regions, a result of an accumulation of factors like inequality, corruption, mafia, and violence. Avila pointed out that oligarchic systems from different countries appear to be interconnected in complicated architectures of international tax evasion, ruthless exploitation of resources, oppression, and the use of force. In those same places, people experience the most brutal inequality, poverty and social exclusion.

Since the ‘90s the regional free trade agreement meant open borders for products but not for people. In fact, it was an international policy with devastating effects on local economies and agriculture. People on the move in search for a better future somewhere else found closed borders and security forces attempting to block them from heading north towards Mexico and the U.S. border. In these years, the police forceful response to the migrants crossing borders have been widely praised by the governments in the region.

The fact of travelling alone is a red flag, especially for women, and the first wall people meet is in their own country. People on their way to the north experience every kind of injustice. Latin America has often been regarded as a region with deep ethnic and class conflicts. Abandoning possible stereotypical representations, we see that the bodies of the people on the move are at large sexualised and racialized for political reasons. Race, therefore, is another factor to consider, especially when we look at the journey of individuals on the move. Aside, languages in South America could also represent a barrier for those who travel without translators in a continent with dozens of indigenous languages.

Avila concluded her intervention mentioning the issue of digital colonialism and the relevance of geospatial data. Digital is no longer a separated space, she warned, but a hybrid one relevant for all individuals and whose rules are dictated by a small minority. People and places can be erased by those very few companies that can collect data, and –for example– draw and delete borders.

The panel on the first day titled “Migration, Failing Policies & Human Rights Violations,” was moderated by Roberto Perez-Rocha, director for the international anti-corruption conference series at Transparency International, and delivered by Philipp Schönberger and Franziska Schmidt, coordinators of the Refugee Law Clinic Berlin, together with investigative journalist and photographer Sally Hayden. The panellists referred to their direct experience and work, and reflected on how the EU migration policy is factually enforcing practices that cause violation of human rights, suffering, and desperation.

The Refugee Law Clinic Berlin e. V. is a student association at the Humboldt University of Berlin, providing free of charge and independent legal help for refugees and people on the move in Berlin and on the Greek island of Samos. ​The organisation also offers training on asylum and residence law in Berlin and runs the website ihaverights.eu, designed to allow access to justice to those in marginalised communities. 

Through a legal counselling project on the Greek island of Samos, the collective helps people suffering from European illegal practices at the Union’s borders, providing the urgent need of effective ways to guarantee them access to justice and protection. As Schönberger and Schmidt recalled, refugees, and people on the move within the EU find several obstacles when it comes to the enforcement of their rights. For such a reason, they shall be guaranteed procedural counselling by the law to secure, among other services, a fair asylum procedure. However, the Clinic confirmed that such guarantees are not being completely fulfilled in Germany, nor at Europe’s borders, in Samos, Lesvos, Leros, Kos, or Kios.

The panellists explained how their presence on the island gives a chance to document that these camps of human suffering are actually a structural part of an EU migration policy aimed at deterring people from entering the Union, result of deliberate political decisions taken in Brussels and Berlin. Human rights violations occur before arriving on the island, as people are intercepted by the Greek coastguard or by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), and then pushed back to the Turkish border. 

The camp in Samos, with a capacity of a maximum 648 people, is instead the home to 4,300 residents, with no water, no sanitary services, poisonous food, and no medical services. Even very serious cases documented to local health authorities remain unattended. The list of violations is endless and the complete lack of adequate protection for unaccompanied minors represents another big issue in this like in all others Greek hotspots, together with the precarity of vulnerable groups, whose risks increase with race, gender, and sexual identity.

The legal team from Berlin prepares applications to the EUCHR court and in these years has filed also 60 requests for urgent procedure due to the risk of irreparable harm, which were granted, ordering adequate accommodation and medical treatment for people in extreme danger.

Many observers criticise that the sufferings in the Aegean and on the Greek islands is the result of precise political decisions. Agreed in March 2016, the EU-Turkey deal is a statement of cooperation that seeks to control the crossing of people from Turkey to the Greek islands. According to the deal, every person arriving without documents by boat or without official permission or passage to the Greek islands would be returned to Turkey. In exchange, EU Member States would take Syrian refugees from Turkey. NGOs and international human rights agencies denounce that Turkey, Greece, and the EU have completely failed on humanitarian grounds and dispute the wrong premise that Turkey is a safe country for refugees and asylum-seekers.

Journalist and photographer Sally Hayden looked at the EU-Turkey deal, defining it as a prototype for what would then happen in the central Mediterranean. Libya, a country at war with multiple governments, is the destination of people on move and refugees from all over Africa, willing to cross the Mediterranean Sea. As it is illegal to stop and push people back, for years now the EU has been financing the Libyan coastguard to intercept and pull them back. What follows is a period of arbitrary and endless detention.

Hayden writes about facts; she is not an activist. When she talks about Libya, she refers to objective events she can fact check, and individual stories she has personally collected. Her reports represent a country at war, unsafe not just for refugees and people on the move but for Libyans too. With her work, the journalist has extensively documented how refugees and migrants smuggled into Libya are subject to human trafficking, forced labour, sexual exploitation and tortures, trapped in an infernal circle of violence and death. She recalled her experience with the detainees in Abu Salim, where 500 hundred people suffer from illegal and brutal incarceration inside a centre affiliated with the government in Tripoli. In July 2020, during the conflict, one of these many prisons not far from the city was bombed. At least 53 illegally detained people were killed. 

Hayden’s work provides a picture of the results of Europe’s management of the migration crises in the Mediterranean and Northern Africa. EU funds are employed for militarization of borders and externalisation of frontiers control. The political context, in which this occurs, is the cause of years and sometimes decades of lack of investment in reception and asylum systems in line with EU-State’s generic obligations to respect, protect and fulfil human rights.

All panellists called for the immediate intervention to evacuate camps and prisons that were the result of the EU migration policies, to allow migrant victims of abuses and refugees to seek justice and safety elsewhere.

The evening closed with the panel discussion titled “Illegal Pushbacks and Border Violence” and moderated by Likhita Banerji, a human rights and technology researcher at Amnesty International. Banerji reminded the audience that in the first nine months of 2020 there had already been 40 pushbacks, illegal rejections of entry, and expulsions without individual assessment of protection needs, had been documented within Europe or at its external borders. Since these illegitimate practices are widespread, and in some countries systematic, these pushbacks cannot be defined as incidental actions. They appear, instead, to be institutionalised violations, well defined within national policies. 

People who shall receive asylum or be rescued, are instead pushed back by police forces, who make sure that the material crossing of the borders remains undocumented. EU member States want to keep undocumented migrants, asylum seekers and refugees outside of their jurisdiction to avoid moral responsibilities and legal obligations. During the second panel of the day, Hanaa Hakiki, legal advisor at the ECCHR Migration Program, filmmaker and reporter Nicole Vögele, and Dimitra Andritsou, researcher at Forensic Architecture, had the chance to go in-depth and to consider the different aspects of these violations.

Hanaa Hakiki, in her intervention “Bringing pushbacks to justice” presented the difficulties that litigators experience in court to materially document pushbacks, which are indeed not meant to be proven. She defined pushbacks as a set of state measures, by which refugees and migrants are forced back over the border – generally shortly after having crossed it – without consideration of their individual circumstances and without any possibility for them to apply for asylum or to put forward arguments against the measures taken.

There are national and international laws that need to be considered in these cases, constituting binding legal obligations for all EU Member States. As a general principle, governments cannot enact disproportionate force, humiliating and degrading treatment or torture, and must facilitate the access to asylum, guarantee protection to people, and provide them access to individualised procedures in this sense.

Member States know that pushbacks have been illegal since a 2012 ECtHR judgment, known as the “Hirsi Jamaa Case,” which found that Italy had violated the law in forcing people back to Libya. However, the effective ban on direct returns led European countries to find other ways to avoid responsibility for those at sea or crossing their borders without documents, and concluded agreements with neighbouring countries, which are requested to prevent migrants from leaving their territories and paid to do so, by any means and without any human rights safeguards in place. By outsourcing rescue to the Libyan authorities, for example, pushbacks by EU countries turned into pullbacks by Libyan coastguard.

Land-pushbacks are still common practice. Hakiki explained that the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) has worked with communities of undocumented migrants since 2014, considering potential legal interventions against the practice of pushbacks at EU borders, and assisting affected persons with individual legal proceedings. She presented three cases the ECCHR litigated in Court (N.D. and N.T. v. Spain; AA vs North Macedonia; SB vs. Croatia) proving that European countries illegally push people back, in violation of human rights laws. Despite the fact that this is still a common practice, it is very difficult to document these violations and have the authorities condemned.

During the beginning of the Syrian conflict, in 2015, refugees were able to travel via Serbia and Hungary into Central and Northern Europe. A couple of years later the EU decided to close down again this so-called Balkan Route, with the result that more and more people found themselves stuck in Bosnia-Herzegovina, prevented from continuing onward to Europe’s territories. From there a person can try to enter the European Union dozens of times, and each time is stopped by Croatian security forces, beaten, and then dragged back across the border to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

After having seen the effects of these illegal practices and met victims of dozens of violent pushbacks in Sarajevo, in 2019 the reporter Nicole Vögele and her crew succeeded in filming a series of these cross-border expulsions from Croatia to Bosnia Herzegovina near the village of Gradina, in the municipality of Velika Kladuša. The reporter, one of the few who succeeded in documenting this practice, also interviewed those who had just been pushed back by the Interventna Policija officers. The response of the Bosnian authorities to her reportage was a complete denial of all accusations. 

Vögele then presented footage taken at the EU external border in Croatia, in March 2020, showing masked men beat up refugees and illegally pushing them back to Bosnia. The journalist and her team found the original video, analysed its metadata, and interviewed the man captured on it. Once again, their work could prove that these practices are not isolated incidents.

The panel closed with the investigation by Forensic Architecture part of a broader project on cases of pushbacks across the Evros/Meriç river. Team member Dimitra Andritsou presented the organisation founded to investigate human rights violations using a range of techniques, flanking classical investigation methods including open-source investigation video analysis, spatial and architectural practice, and digital modelling.

Forensic Architecture works with and on behalf of communities affected by state and military violence, producing evidence for legal forums, human rights organisations, investigative reporters and media. A multidisciplinary research group – of architects, scholars, artists, software developers, investigative journalists, archaeologists, lawyers, and scientists – based at the University of London, works in partnership with international prosecutors, human rights organisations, political and environmental justice groups, and develops new evidentiary techniques to investigate violations of human rights around the world, armed conflicts, and environmental destruction.

The Evros/Meriç River is the only border between Greece and Turkey that is not sea. For years migrants and refugees trying to cross it to enter Europe have been reporting that unidentified and generally masked men catch, detain, beat, and push people back to Turkey. Mobile phones, documents, and the few personal things they travel with are confiscated or thrown into the river, not to leave any evidence of these violations behind. As Andridsou described, both Greek and EU authorities systematically deny any wrongdoing, refusing to investigate these reports. The river is part of a wider ecosystem of border defence and has been weaponised to deter and let die those who attempt to cross it. 

In December 2019, the German magazine Der Spiegel obtained rare videos filmed on a Turkish Border Guard’s mobile phone and on a surveillance, camera installed on the Turkish banks of the river, which apparently documented one of these many pushback operations. Forensic Architecture was commissioned to analyse the footages. A team of experts was then able to geolocate and timestamp the material and could confirm that the images were actually taken few hundred metres away from a Greek military watchtower in Greece.

Andritsou then presented the case of a group of three Turkish political asylum seekers, who entered Greek territory on 4 May 2019, always crossing the Evros/Meriç river. In this case a team of Forensic Architecture could cross-reference different evidence sources, such as new media, remote sensing, material analysis, and witness testimony and verify the group’s entry and their illegal detention in Greece. A pushback to Turkey on the 5 May 2019 led to their arrest and imprisonment by the Turkish authorities.

Ayşe Erdoğan, Kamil Yildirim, and Talip Niksar had been persecuted by the Turkish government on allegations of involvement in Fettulah Gulen’s movement. The group on the run had shared a video appealing for international protection against a possible forced return to Turkey and digitally recorded the journey via WhatsApp. All their text messages with location pins, photographs, videos and metadata prove their presence on Greek soil, prior to their arrest by the Turkish authorities. The investigation could verify that the three were in a Greek police station too, a fact that matches their statement about having repeatedly attempted to apply for asylum there. Their imprisonment is a direct result of the Greek authorities contravening the principle of non-refoulement.

Some keywords resonated throughout the first day of the conference, as a fil rouge connecting the speakers and debates held during the panels and commentaries by the public. Violence, arbitrariness and lawlessness are wilfully ignored –if not backed– by EU Member States, with authorities constantly trying to hide the truth. Thousands of people live under segregation, with no account or trace of being in custody of authorities free to do with them whatever they want. 

Technology has always been a part of border and immigration enforcement. However, over the last few years, as a response to increased migration into the European Union, governments and international organisations involved in migration management have been deploying new controversial tools, based on artificial intelligence and algorithms, conducting de facto technological experiments and research involving human subjects, refugees and people on the move. The second day of the conference opened with the video contribution by Petra Molnar, lawyer and researcher at the European Digital Rights, author of the recent report “Technological Testing Grounds” (2020) based on over 40 conversations with refugees and people on the move.

When considering AI, questions, answers, and predictions in its technological development reflect the political and socioeconomic point of view, consciously or unconsciously, of its creators. As discussed in the Disruption Network Lab conference “AI traps: automating discrimination” (2019)— risk analyses and predictive policing data are often corrupted by racist prejudice, leading to biased data collection which reinforces privileges of the groups that are politically more guaranteed. As a result, new technologies are merely replicating old divisions and conflicts. By instituting policies like facial recognition, for instance, we replicate deeply ingrained behaviours based on race and gender stereotypes, mediated by algorithms. Bias in AI is a systematic issue when it comes to tech, devices with obscure inner workings and the black box of deep learning algorithms.

There is a long list of harmful tech employed at the EU borders is long, ranging from Big Data predictions about population movements and self-phone tracking, to automated decision-making in immigration applications, AI lie detectors and risk-scoring at European borders, and now bio-surveillance and thermal cameras to contain the spread of the COVID-19. Molnar focused on the risks and the violations stemming from such experimentations on fragile individuals with no legal guarantees and protection. She criticised how no adequate governance mechanisms have been put in place, with no account for the very real impacts on people’s rights and lives. The researcher highlighted the need to recognise how uses of migration management technology perpetuate harms, exacerbate systemic discrimination, and render certain communities as technological testing grounds.

Once again, human bodies are commodified to extract data; thousands of individuals are part of tech-experiments without consideration of the complexity of human rights ramifications, and banalizing their material impact on human lives. This use of technology to manage and control migration is subject to almost no public scrutiny, since experimentations occur in spaces that are militarized and so impossible to access, with weak oversight, often driven by the private sector. Secrecy is often justified by emergency legislation, but the lack of a clear and transparent regulation of the technologies deployed in migration management appears to be deliberate, to allow for the creation of opaque zones of tech-experimentation. 

Molnar underlined how such a high level of uncertainty concerning fundamental rights and constitutional guarantees would be unacceptable for EU citizens, who would have ways to oppose these liberticidal measures. However, migrants and refugees have notoriously no access to mechanisms of redress and oversight, particularly during the course of their migration journeys. It could seem secondary, but emergency legislation justifies the disapplication of laws protecting privacy and data too, like the GDPR. 

The following part of the conference focused on the journey through Sub-Saharan and Northern Africa, on the difficulties and the risks that migrants face whilst trying to reach Europe. In the conversation “The Journey of Refugees from Africa to Europe,” Yoseph Zemichael Afeworki, Eritrean student based in Luxemburg, talked of his experience with Ambre Schulz, Project Manager at Passerell, and reporter Sally Hayden. Afeworki recalled his dramatic journey and explained what happens to those like him, who cross militarized borders and the desert. The student described that migrants represent a very lucrative business, not just because they pay to cross the desert and the sea, but also because they are used as cheap labour, when not directly captured for ransom.

Once on the Libyan coast, people willing to reach Europe find themselves trapped in a cycle of waiting, attempts to cross the Mediterranean, pullbacks and consequent detention. Libya is a country at war, with two governments. The lack of official records and the instability make it difficult to establish the number of people on the move and refugees detained without trial for an indefinite period. Libyan law punishes illegal migration to and from its territory with prison; this without any account for individual’s potential protection needs. Once imprisoned in a Libyan detention centre for undocumented migrants, even common diseases can lead fast to death. Detainees are employed as forced labour for rich families, tortured, and sexually exploited. Tapes recording inhuman violence are sent to the families of the victims, who are asked to pay a ransom.

As Hayden and Afeworki described, the conditions in the buildings where migrants are held are atrocious. In some, hundreds of people live in darkness, unable to move or eat properly for several months. It is impossible to estimate how many individuals do not survive and die there. An estimated 3,000 people are currently detained there. The only hope for them is their immediate evacuation and the guarantee of humanitarian corridors from Libya –whose authorities are responsible for illegal and arbitrary detention, torture and other crimes– to Europe.

The second day closed with the panel “Politics & Technologies of Fear” moderated by Walid El-Houri, researcher, journalist and filmmaker. Gaia Giuliani from the University of Coimbra, Claudia Aradau, professor of International Politics at King’s College in London, and Joana Varon founder at Coding Rights, Tech and Human Rights Fellow at Harvard Carr Center.

Gaia Giuliani is a scholar, an anti-racist, and a feminist, whose intersectional work articulates the deconstruction of public discourses on the iconographies of whiteness and race, questioning in particular the white narrative imaginary behind security and borders militarization. In her last editorial effort, “Monsters, Catastrophes and the Anthropocene: A Postcolonial Critique” (2020), Giuliani investigated Western visual culture and imaginaries, deconstructing the concept of “risk” and “otherness” within the hegemonic mediascape.

Giuliani began her analyses focusing on the Mediterranean as a border turned into a biopolitical dispositive that defines people’s mobility –and particularly people’s mobility towards Europe– as a risky activity, a definition that draws from the panoply of images of gendered monstrosity that are proper of the European racist imaginary, to reinforce the European and Western “we”. A form of othering, the “we” produces fears through mediatized chronicles of monstrosity and catastrophe. 

Giuliani sees the distorted narrative of racialized and gendered bodies on the move to Europe as essential to reinforce the identification of nowadays migrations with the image of a catastrophic horde of monsters, which is coming to depredate the wealthy and peaceful North. It´s a mechanism of “othering” through the use of language and images, which dehumanizes migrants and refugees in a process of mystification and monstrification, to sustain the picture of Europe as an innocent community at siege. Countries of origins are described as the place of barbarians, still now in post-colonial times, and people on the move are portrayed as having the ability to enact chaos in Europe, as if Europe were an imaginary self-reflexive space of whiteness, as it was conceived in colonial time: the bastion of rightfulness and progress. 

As Giuliani explained, in this imaginary threat, migrants and refugees are represented as an ultimate threat of monsters and apocalypse, meant to undermine the identity of a whole continent. Millions of lives from the South become an indistinct mass of people. Figures of race that have been sedimented across centuries, stemming from colonial cultural archives, motivate the need to preserve a position of superiority and defend political, social, economic, and cultural privileges of the white bodies, whilst inflicting ferocity on all others.

This mediatized narrative of monsters and apocalypse generates white anxiety, because that mass of racialized people is reclaiming the right to escape, to search for a better life and make autonomous choices to flee the objective causes of unhappiness, suffering, and despair; because that mass of individuals strives to become part of the “we”. All mainstream media consider illegitimate their right to escape and the free initiative people take to cross borders, not just material ones but also the semiotic border that segregate them in the dimension of “the barbarians.” An unacceptable unchained and autonomous initiative that erases the barrier between the colonial then and the postcolonial now, unveiling the coloniality of our present, which represents migration flows as a crisis, although the only crisis undergoing is that of Europe.

On the other side, this same narrative often reduces people on the move and refugees to vulnerable, fragile individuals living in misery, preparing the terrain for their further exploitation as labour force, and to reproduce once again racialized power relations. Here the process of “othering” revivals the colonial picture of the poor dead child, functional to engender an idea of pity, which has nothing to do with the individual dignity. Either you exist as a poor individual in the misery –which the white society mercifully rescues– or as a part of the mass of criminals and rapists. However, these distinct visual representations belong to the same distorted narration, as epitomized in the cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo after the sexual assaults against women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2015. 

Borders have been rendered as testing ground right for high-risk experimental technologies, while refugees themselves have become testing subjects for these experiments. Governments and non-state actors are developing and deploying emerging digital technologies in ways that are uniquely experimental, dangerous and discriminatory in the border and immigration enforcement context. Taking step from the history of scientific experiments on racialized and gendered bodies, Claudia Aradau invited the audience to reconsider the metaphorical language of experiments that orients us to picture high-tech and high-risk technological developments. She includes instead also tech in terms of obsolete tools deployed to penalise individuals and recreate the asymmetries of the digital divide mirroring the injustice of the neoliberal system.

Aradau studies technologies and the power asymmetries in their deployment and development. She explained that borders have been used as very profitable laboratories for the surveillance industry and for techniques that would then be deployed widely in the Global North. From borders and prison systems –in which they initially appeared– these technologies are indeed becoming common in urban spaces modelled around the traps of the surveillance capitalism. The fact that they slowly enter our vocabularies and daily lives makes it difficult to define the impact they have. When we consider for example that inmates’ and migrants’ DNA is collected by a government, we soon realise that we are entering a more complex level of surveillance around our bodies, showing tangibly how privacy is a collective matter, as a DNA sequence can be used to track a multitude of individuals from the same genealogic group.

Whilst we see hyper-advanced tech on one side, on the other people on the move walk with nothing to cross a border, sometimes not even shoes, with their personal belongings inside plastic bags, and just a smartphone to orientate themselves, and communicate and ask for help. An asymmetry, which is –once again– being deployed to maintain what Aradau defined as matrix of domination: no surveillance on CO2 emissions and environmental issues due to industrial activities, no surveillance on exploitations of resources and human lives; no surveillance on the production of weapons, but massive deployment of hi-tech to target people on the move, crossing borders to reach and enter a fortress, which is not meant for them. 

Aradau recalled that in theory, protocols ethics and demands for objectivity are necessary when it comes to scientific experiments. However, the introduction in official procedures of digital tech devices and software such as Skype, WhatsApp or MasterCard or a set of apps developed by either non-state or state actors, required neither laboratories nor the randomized custom trials that we usually associate with scientific experimentation. These heterogeneous techniques specifically intended to work everywhere and enforced without protocols, need to be understood under neoliberalism: they rely on pilot projects trials and cycles of funds and donors, whose goal is every time to move to a next step, to finance more experiments. Human-rights-centred tech is far away.

Thus, we see always more experiments carried out without protocols, from floating walls tech to stop migrants reaching the Greek shores, to debit cards used as surveillance devices. Creative experiments come also with the so-called refugees’ integration, conceived by small-scale injections of devices into their reality for limited periods, with the purpose of speculatively recompose rotten asymmetries of power and injustice. In Greece, as Aradau mentioned, the introduction of Skype in the process of the asylum application became an obstacle, with applicants continually experiencing debilitation through obsolete technology that doesn’t work or devices with limited access, disorientation through contradictory and outdated information.

There is also a factual aspect: old and slow computers, documents that have not been updated or have been updated at different times, and lack of personnel are justified by saying that resources are limited. A complete lack or shortage of funds, which is one other typical condition of neoliberalism, as we can see in Greece. In this, tech recomposes relations of precarity in a different guise.

Aradau concluded her contribution focusing on the technologies that are deployed by NGOs, completely or partially produced elsewhere, often by corporate actors who remain entangled in the experiments through their expertise and ownership. Digital platforms such as Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, or Google not only shape relations between online users, she warned, but concerning people on the move and refugees too. Google and Facebook –for example– dominate the relations that underpin the production of refugee apps by humanitarian actors. 

Google is at the centre of a sort of digital humanitarian ecosystem, not only because it can host searches or provide maps for the apps, but also because it simultaneously intercepts data flows so that it acts as a surplus data extractor. In addition, social networks reshape digital humanitarianism through data extractive relations and provide big part of the infrastructure for digital humanitarianism. Online humanitarianism becomes thus a particularly vulnerable site of data gathering and characterised by an overall lack of resources –similarly to the Greek state. As a result, humanitarian actors cannot tackle the depreciation messiness and obsolescence of their tech and apps. 

The last day of the conference concentrated on the urgent need to creating safe passages for migration, and pictured the efforts of those who try to ensure safer migration options and rescue migrants in distress during their journey. Lieke Ploeger, community director of the Disruption Network Lab, presented the panel discussion “Creating Safe Passages”, moderated by Michael Ruf, writer and director of documentary and theatre plays. Ruf´s productions include the “Asylum Dialogues” (2011) and the “Mediterranean Migration Monologues” (2019), which have been performed in numerous countries more than 800 times by a network of several hundred actors and musicians. This final session brought together speakers from the Migrant Media Network (MMN), the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), and SeaWatch e.V. to discuss their efforts to ensure safer migration options, as well as share reliable information and create awareness around migration issues. 

The talk was opened by Thomas Kalunge, Project Director of the Migrant Media Network, one of r0g_agency’s projects, together with #defyhatenow. Since 2017 the organisation has been working on information campaigns addressed to people in rural areas of Africa, to explain that there are possible alternatives for safer and informed decisions, when they choose to reach other countries, and what they may come across if they decide to migrate. 

The MMN team organises roundtable discussions and talks on various topics affecting the communities they meet. They build a space in which young people take time to understand what migration is nowadays and to listen to those, who already personally experienced the worst and often less discussed consequences of the journey. To approach possible migrants the MMN worked on an information campaign on the ethical use of social media, which also helps people to learn how to evaluate and consume information shared online and recognise reliable sources.

The MMN works for open culture and critical social transformation, and provides young Africans with reliable information and training on migration issues, included digital rights. The organisation also promotes youth entrepreneurship “at home” as a way to build economic and social resilience, encouraging youth to create their own opportunities and work within their communities of origin. They engage on conversations on the dangers of irregular migration, discussing together rumours and lies, so that individuals can make informed choices. One very relevant thing people tend to underestimate, is that sometimes misinformation is spread directly by human smugglers, warned Kalunge.

The MMN also provides people from remote regions with offline tools that are available without an internet connection, and training advisors and facilitators who are then connected in a network. The HyracBox for example is a mobile, portable, RaspberryPi powered offline mini-server for these facilitators to use in remote or offline environments, where access to both power and Internet is challenging. With it, multiple users can access key MMN info materials.

An important aspect to mention is that the MMN does not try to tell people not to migrate. European government have outsourced borders and migration management, supporting measures to limit people mobility in North and Sub-Saharan Africa, and it is important to let people know that there are real dangers, visible and invisible barriers they will meet on their way.

Visa application processes –even for legitimate reasons of travel– are very strict for some countries, often without any information being shared, even with people who are legitimately moving for education, to work or get medical treatment. The ruling class that makes up the administrative bureaucracy and outlines its structures, knows that who controls time has power. Who can steal time from others, who can oblige others to waste time on legal quibbles and protocol matters, can suffocate the others’ existence in a mountain of paperwork. 

Human smugglers then become the final resort. Kaluge explained also that, at the moment, the increased outsourcing of the European border security services to the Sahel and other northern Africa countries is leading to diversion of routes, increased dangerousness of the road, people trafficking, and human rights violations.

Closing the conference, Regina Catrambone presented the work that MOAS does around the world and the campaign for safe and legal routes that is urging governments and international organisations to implement regular pathways of migration that already exist. Mattea Weihe presented instead the work of SeaWatch e. V., an organisation which is also advocating for civil sea rescue, legal escape routes and a safe passage, and which is at sea to rescue migrants in distress.

The two panellists described the situation in the Central Mediterranean. Since the beginning of the year, over 500 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea (November 2020). While European countries continue to delegate their migration policy to the Libyan Coast Guard, rescue vessels from several civilian organisations have been blocked for weeks, witnessing the continuous massacre taking place just a few miles from European shores. With no common European rescue intervention at sea, the presence of NGO vessels is essential to save humans and rescue hundreds of people who undertake this dangerous journey to flee from war and poverty.

However, several EU governments and conservative and far right political parties criminalise search and rescues activities, stating that helping migrants at sea equals encouraging illegal immigration. A distorted representation legitimised, fuelled and weaponised in politics and across European society that has led to a terrible humanitarian crisis on Europe’s shores. Thus, organisations dedicated to rescuing vessels used by people on the move in the Mediterranean Sea see all safe havens systematically shut off to them. Despite having hundreds of rescued individuals on board, rescue ships wait days and weeks to be assigned a harbour. Uncertainty and fear of being taken back to Libya torment many of the people on board even after having been rescued. After they enter the port, the vessels are confiscated and cannot get back out to sea.

By doing so, Europe and EU Member States violate human rights, maritime laws, and their national democratic constitutions. The panel opened again the crucial question of humanitarian corridors, human-rights-based policy, and relocations. In the last years the transfer of border controls to foreign countries, has become the main instrument through which the EU seeks to stop migratory flows to Europe. This externalisation deploys modern tech, money and training of police authorities in third countries moving the EU-border far beyond the Union’ shores. This despite the abuses, suffering and human-rights violations; willingly ignoring that the majority of the 35 countries that the EU prioritises for border externalisation efforts are authoritarian, known for human rights abuses and with poor human development indicators (Expanding Fortress, 2018).

It cannot be the task of private organizations and volunteers to make up for the delay of the state. But without them no one would do it. 

States are seeking to leave people on the move, refugees, and undocumented migrants beyond the duties and responsibilities enshrined in law. Most of the violations, and the harmful technological experimentation described throughout the conference targeting migrants and refugees, occurs outside of their sovereign responsibility. Considering that much of technological development occurs in fact in the so-called “black boxes,” by acting so these state-actors exclude the public from fully understanding how the technology operates.

The fact that the people on the move on the Greek islands, on the Balkan Route, in Libya, and those rescued in the Mediterranean have been sorely tested by their journeys, living conditions, and, in many cases, imprisoned, seems to be irrelevant. The EU deploys politics that make people who have already suffered violence, abuse, and incredibly long journeys in search of a better life, wait a long time for a safe port, for a visa, for a medical treatment.

All participants who joined the conference expressed the urgent need for action: Europe cannot continue to turn its gaze away from a humanitarian emergency that never ends and that needs formalised rescue operations at sea, open corridors, and designated authorities enacting an approach based on defending human rights. Sea rescue organisations and civil society collectives work to save lives, raise awareness and demand a new human rights-based migration and refugee policy; they shall not be impeded but supported.

The conference “Borders of Fear” presented experts, investigative journalists, scholars, and activists, who met to discuss wrongdoings in the context of migration and share effective strategies and community-based approaches to increase awareness on the issues related to the human-rights violations by governments. Here bottom-up approaches and methods that include local communities in the development of solutions appear to be fundamental. Projects that capacitate migrants, collectives, and groups marginalized by asymmetries of power to share knowledge, develop and exploit tools to combat systematic inequalities, injustices, and exploitation are to be enhanced. It is imperative to defeat the distorted narrative, which criminalises people on the move, international solidarity and sea rescue operations.

Racism, bigotry and panic are reflected in media coverage of undocumented migrants and refugees all over the world, and play an important role in the success of contemporary far-right parties in a number of countries. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance effective and alternative counter-narratives based on facts. For example, the “Africa Migration Report” (2020) shows that 94 per cent of African migration takes a regular form and that just 6 per cent of Africans on the move opt for unsafe and dangerous journeys. These people, like those from other troubled regions, leave their homes in search of a safer, better life in a different country, flee from armed conflicts and poverty. It is their right to do so. Instead of criminalising migration, it is necessary to search for the real causes of this suffering, war and social injustice, and wipe out the systems of power behind them. 

Videos of the conference are also available on YouTube via:

For details of speakers and topics, please visit the event page here: https://www.disruptionlab.org/borders-of-fear 

Upcoming programme:

The 23rd conference of the Disruption Network Lab curated by Tatiana Bazzichelli is titled “Behind the Mask: Whistleblowing During the Pandemic.“ It will take place on March 18-20, 2021. More info: https://www.disruptionlab.org/behind-the-mask 

To follow the Disruption Network Lab sign up for the newsletter and get informed about its conferences, meetups, ongoing researches and projects.

The Disruption Network Lab is also on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Reinventing the artworld with blockchain

Discover a new set of experimental projects to reinvent the future of arts with blockchain. 

The Goethe-Institut London, Furtherfield and the Serpentine Galleries present The DAOWO Sessions, a new series of online events running from 28th January to 4th March 2021. The series explores the possibilities for the future of the artworld with blockchain by investigating what can be learned from DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations) working with Others (-WO). Each session is an eye-opening presentation and conversation around active experimentation that aims to hack, deconstruct and reinvent the arts in the emerging crypto space in response to people and their local contexts. This is a unique opportunity for cultural practitioners, representatives of arts, technology organisations, communities and anyone interested in the potential of blockchain to come together and question the future of art and society.

Curated by Ruth Catlow (artistic director Furtherfield), Penny Rafferty (writer and researcher) and Ben Vickers (CTO Serpentine Galleries) with the Goethe-Institut London, each event introduces one of five new progressive blockchain art prototypes created by DAO teams in Berlin, Hong Kong, Johannesburg and Minsk. Through live video conference, the teams will introduce their prototypes and address key questions about the potential of blockchain systems to decentralise power structures and to rewire the arts. The final session brings together the DAOWO curators in conversation with art critic Francesca Gavin. 

The DAOWO Sessions are part of the award-winning blockchain programme for reinventing the arts, the DAOWO initiative, a partnership between the Goethe-Institut London, Furtherfield/DECAL and Serpentine Galleries.

All events take place at 9.00am GMT and are free to access with booking required. 

(Video Broadcast in English, BSL interpretation)

For full event information and tickets please visit: goethe.de/daowo

THE DAOWO SESSIONS

Events and Dates:

28 Jan 2021 | BLACK SWAN DAO (Berlin)

The first event connects with Berlin to introduce BLACK SWAN DAO (Trust), an experimental initiative which responds to the increasing precarisation of cultural labour by providing cultural practitioners with tools to collaboratively organise and share resources. 

4 Feb 2021 | COVALENCE STUDIO (Johannesburg)

This event connects with Johannesburg’s DAO (Covalence Studio) to introduce a network of resources, skills and support for artists and creative practitioners with the goal to rethink equitable artistic practices that can thrive under restricted movements and collapsing economic infrastructures.

11 Feb 2021 | DAO AS CHIMERA (Minsk)

Speculating on future histories of blockchains, Minsk-based initiative DAO AS CHIMERA is a unique network and a live action role play. The project aims to provide a view on the cultural, tech and start-up sphere in Belarus and to unpack emancipatory potentialities of collectivities freed from the constraints of project-orientation.

25 Feb 2021 | ENSEMBL (Hong Kong)

An Ethereum-based platform for decentralised organising of artistic production. The project explores how can DAOs learn from improvised music about value and temporally dynamic collaborations? What’s the “Score”?  

4 Mar 2021 | The Machine to Eat the Artworld (online)

A conversation with the curators of the Artworld DAO think tank and the DAOWO programme, Ruth Catlow and Penny Rafferty interviewed by curator and writer Francesca Gavin. Catlow brings 25 years of experience as a curator, artist, and researcher exploring the intersection of arts and technology, emerging practices in art, decentralised technologies and the blockchain, alongside Berlin-based writer and visual theorist.

For full event information and tickets please visit: goethe.de/daowo

Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | #DAOWO 

A list of recommendations, reflecting the dynamic culture we are part of, straddling the fields of art, technology, and social change.

Exhibitions, Open Calls, Courses and Conferences

RGBFAQ by Alan Warburton | For 2021 arebyte Gallery has extended the online exhibition until 13 February 2021. Book your slot online today | “My process is like a comedian developing a set, but without the laughs,” says Warburton, “a cross between a software tutorial and a ghost train ride that channels an episode of late 80s Tomorrow’s World.” RGBFAQ comprises a research-led experiential exhibition in which the audience navigates a “black-box” set populated by gigantic geometric sculptures. Warburton’s ambitious new video essay will be projection-mapped onto this sculptural background, expanding the form of his popular video essays (Goodbye Uncanny Valley, Fairytales of Motion) into an immersive 3D space, with a soundtrack by David Kamp – http://bit.ly/2XeZJgB

MediaFutures OPEN CALL | Closing 28th of January. We are looking for artists and start-ups from the media field, who work with data and want to develop artworks or products (or both) to reshape the media value chain. This is the first of three open calls and includes four challenges focusing on the coronavirus infodemic, as well as an open challenge for other topics. Successful applicants will join a dedicated support program, and receive up to 80,000€ of funding, both over the course of six months. More information and details on how to apply are available on our website – https://mediafutures.eu/opencall/

Who cares for the caregivers? | New Hologram course! | Online, for six consecutive Tuesdays: February 2nd to March 9th 2021, from 6-9 PM GMT | Applications are open for people who do care work and who need help organizing their own care. This course will help us answer the question “who cares for the caregivers?” and will be aimed at – though not exclusively for – people who identify as caregivers. We know from our first two courses that many people who provide the most care find it difficult to organize care for themselves. We hope that we can offer a space and time for people who do support work to develop long term support systems for themselves and their pals for now and into the future . The Hologram is developing with the ongoing support of Furtherfield, CreaTures (Creative Practices for Transformational Futures) and many other people and organisations. http://thehologram.xyz/course/

Protest and Resist: Stories of Uprising and Resistance with Maxine Peake | Event by Housmans Radical Booksellers and Comma Press | Wednesday, February 10, 2021 at 7 PM GMT – Free | Housmans Bookshop and Comma Press are delighted to host two online events with renowned British actors Christopher Eccleston and Maxine Peake reading from protest-inspired stories published in Comma’s History-into-Fiction series, Protest and Resist. The two events will take place on two consecutive dates, with Christopher reading on the 9th of February and Maxine on the 10th. Both readings will be followed by a conversation between authors and historians discussing the events depicted in the stories read by Christopher and Maxine – Tickets available here>> https://housmans.com/events/

Bridges for Communities | The Path Leads to Bristol | 4 Dec 2020 – 28 Feb 2021 | Arnolfini Gallery approached Bridges for Communities to create a local response to Hassan Hajjaj’s exhibition The Path, and Bridges, in turn, invited a number of people involved in their work to take part in a photoshoot exploring themes of culture, identity, and story. These images were captured by Bridges volunteers and graphic designers Safia and Samira Belhaj, sisters whose own journey has included life in Libya, the United States, and now Bristol – http://bit.ly/3bbGInI

Conference alert! ‘(In)Visibility and the Medical Humanities’ | Call for Papers: NNMHR 4th Annual Congress, 21st-23rd April 2021, online | Open to scholars, health professionals, and creative practitioners at all career stages. “The global and local health inequalities revealed and perpetuated by the Covid-19 pandemic require us to reflect upon how we do medical humanities research. We ask participants to consider the ways in which our work renders some aspects of health and illness visible while leaving others out of sight. We hope to think more carefully about what sort of experiences the medical humanities has become adept at bringing to light, whilst reflecting on the ways in which theoretical methodologies, research priorities and funding structures have left other voices unheard. Durham University – http://bit.ly/2LpskNv

Books, Papers & Publications

Aesthetics of the Commons | Editors, Cornelia Sollfrank, Felix Stalder, Shusha Niederberger.  What do a feminist server, an art space located in a public park in North London, a so-called pirate library of high cultural value yet dubious legal status, and an art school that emphasizes collectivity have in common? They all demonstrate that art plays an important role in imagining and producing a reality quite different from what is currently hegemonic and that art has the possibility to not only envision or proclaim ideas in theory but also to realize them materially. In Aesthetics of the Commons, the commons are understood not as a fixed set of principles that need to be adhered to in order to fit a definition, but instead as a thinking tool–in other words, the book’s interest lies in what can be made visible by applying the framework of the commons as a heuristic device | Diaphanes AG (20 Mar. 2021) – https://amzn.to/3rSkxsp

Groove is in the Heart: The DiSCO Elements | A friendly and carefully planned approach for organizations that want to create and share value in ways that are cooperative, commons-oriented and rooted in feminist economics. A DisCO (Distributed Cooperative Organisation) is an organisational model for cooperative groups that combines ideas and practices from cooperativism, the commons, P2P and feminist economics. It aims to prototype new and radical forms of ownership, governance, entrepreneurship, and value accounting meant to counteract pervasive economic inequality, and offers an alternative to the aims and outcomes of DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations) – https://elements.disco.coop/

SHADOW WOLF CYBERZINE issue#9 | I N T E R N E T ‘ S  U N D E R G R O U N D  C Y B E R Z I N E | ‘slaughtering your dystopian future’ | Lots of interviews, ASCII art, DIY articles, studio tips, a DJ Psychology test & also for the 1st time a COVER TAPE comp with artists from the ShadowWolf Cyberzine-o-sphere! “It was supposed to come out earlier in the summer but yeah things don’t go as planned, I had a lot of stuff to do so we have, like every year, the new issue at Christmas! I will spare you the corona covid ‘oh-what-did-we-have-a-though-year-talk’ because that is for most of you pretty obvious, you might not want to be reminded I reckon.” – http://bit.ly/3oiqsF9

The Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music | Edited by Alex McLean, and Roger T. Dean. With the ongoing development of algorithmic composition programmes and communities of practice expanding, algorithmic music faces a turning point. Joining dozens of emerging and established scholars alongside leading practitioners in the field, chapters in this Handbook both describe the state of algorithmic composition and also set the agenda for critical research on and analysis of algorithmic music. Organized into four sections, chapters explore the music’s history, utility, community, politics, and potential for mass consumption. Contributors address such issues as the role of algorithms as co-performers, live coding practices, and discussions of the algorithmic culture as it currently exists and what it can potentially contribute to society, education, and e-commerce – http://bit.ly/38bPlwt

Subvertising: on the Life and Death of Advertising Power | By Thomas Dekeyser | Get in-depth insight into the motivations and politics of subvertising with this 300-page doctoral study. It features some of the world’s key subvertisers, and shows how subvertisers can avoid getting co-opted by advertisers. Pdf – https://bit.ly/390WPlk

Technocrats of the Imagination: Art, Technology, and the Military-Industrial Avant-Garde | John Beck, Ryan Bishop | Art and Visual Culture > Art History, Cultural Studies, Media Studies | In Technocrats of the Imagination John Beck and Ryan Bishop explore the collaborations between the American avant-garde art world and the military-industrial complex during the 1960s, in which artists worked with scientists and engineers in universities, private labs, and museums. For artists, designers, and educators working with the likes of Bell Labs, the RAND Corporation, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, experiments in art and technology presaged not only a new aesthetic but a new utopian social order based on collective experimentation | Duke University Press – http://bit.ly/3ot9IuE

Articles, Interviews, Blogs, Presentations, Videos

The Hologram: You can’t cut THIS: without multiplying it | Video | Organized in partnership with Pluto Press, artists Cassie Thornton (Eyebeam Rapid Response Phase 1 Fellow) and Tina Zavitsanos on shared attention around holograms, debt, and care and Thornton’s recently published pamphlet, The Hologram: Peer to Peer Health for a Post-Pandemic Future, included in the Vagabonds series, edited by Max Haiven. Both artists consider Thornton’s central question, “In an era when capitalism leaves so many to suffer and to die, with neoliberal ‘self-care’ offering little more than a bandaid, how can we take health and care back into our hands?” | Recorded session moderated by Ruth Catlow from FurtherField – https://bit.ly/393XXV3

Ambivalence, part 3: the necessary dialogue between art and environmental sciences | Article| Regine Debatty | 3rd and final part of my report from the conference AMBIVALENCES #1 which took place in early October in Rennes in the framework of the Maintenant digital art festival. Part 1 outlined Bénédicte Ramade’s overview of the History of Ecological Art. Part 2 highlighted key moments from the round table “Digital Arts and Environmental Awareness” that discussed the ambivalent relationship between digital artists and the environmental crisis – http://bit.ly/2LjXFBm

What if care is the organizing principle of our society? | Blog post | By JM Wong | The South Seattle Emerald | What if care was the organizing principle of our society? Not profit, not white supremacist garbage masked as liberal paternalism in the form of “diversity” that would hire cops of color to continue to target Black and Brown folks on the street just living their lives. What if care was my people who are here finding home as guests on Turtle Island, shredding up the myths of american empire force-fed to us through aid packages and free trade agreements, with jobs that colonize our psyches and rob us of our life forces? http://bit.ly/3s2EeOf

Adversarial.io, subverting image recognition | Francis Hunger & Flupke | Neural.it | There is growing criticism of the widespread application of machine-based recognition and data processing, especially those involving visual technologies. The inaccuracy, tolerated as a minority, is second only to the political consequences of the applied criteria. Hunger & Flupke have developed a product that successfully implements this criticism at a technical level. Their “Adversarial.io”, is a webapp that alters images in order to make them machine-unreadable, while leaving them visually almost indistinguishable from the original. […] The declared mission of the duo is to “fighting mass image recognition” – http://bit.ly/3oio94K

David Graeber: A Celebration & Discussion of Ideas w/ Tony Vogt & Shane Capra | Laborwave Radio | Podcast & Full transcript | David Graeber was an anthropologist, proponent of anarchism, and participant in many movement struggles of the past two decades including the Alter-Globalization movement and Occupy Wall Street. Among his popular authored books includes Debt: The First 5,000 Years, The Utopia of Rules, Bullshit Jobs, and Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. He passed on September 2, 2020. “We discuss his ideas and celebrate his memory in this conversation with comrades Tony Vogt, member of the IWW and co-founder of the Anarres Project for Alternative Futures, and Shane Capra, an organizer and participant in the Institute for Advanced Troublemaking and member of the IWW” – http://bit.ly/3ncjekt

Amazon Capitalism | Podcast | Listen to an interview with Jake Alimahomed-Wilson & Ellen Reese LaborwaveRadio where they discuss their book about Amazon capitalism and workers’ resistance. With cutting-edge analysis, they discuss the many facets of the corporation, including automation, surveillance, tech work, workers’ struggle, algorithmic challenges, the disruption of local democracy, and much more – http://bit.ly/2X93N26

FoAM in 02020, on Flickr | This album weaves together FoAM’s trajectories through the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of 02020. Many thanks to all of you who accompanied us during the year as collaborators, supporters, followers and friends. We wish you a vigorous 2021! FoAM 02020, in a rearview mirror – https://bit.ly/3nkbPzI

ODI Fridays: How live action role play could fix real-world social problems | Presentation | Furtherfield’s Artistic Director Ruth Catlow talks about how participation in scenarios in live action role play (LARP) leads to powerful group-driven discovery, rich research data, and potential real-world answers. Digital media devices, platforms and services are designed for individual consumers, in competitive markets rather than for healthy societies. The increased transparency offered by DLTs and blockchain technologies promise to increase accountability in supply chains for instance. But how can we assess technical systems that are both invisible and hard to explain to everyday users? – https://bit.ly/38mahAT

Main image: Monopoly mix by Ricky Leong. New York. (February 2011). Originally used as the cover image for the article ‘Survival of the richest’ by Douglas Rushkoff 23 July 2020, via Guerilla Translation. https://bit.ly/3s0T4VL

The FurtherList Archives
https://www.furtherfield.org/the-furtherlist-archives/

Parrots. Grey parrots. African grey parrots. African grey parrots laughing. I hear African grey parrots laughing. I hear African grey parrots laughing and it’s weird.

Their laughter sounds forced. Not compulsive, no, it’s not that. But artificial to say the least. Somewhat robotic. And I find it rather disturbing. 

I can also hear birds chirping outside, and their sound is clearly different. Their tone of voice is lively and high pitched. And it brings me joy, almost subconsciously. 

However, as I begin to doubt the authenticity of the African grey parrots’ laughter, I am told that their laughter is real. They are real parrots that are truly emitting the sound of laughter: they have been trained to do so. 

The history of the process that leads me to listen to this laughter spans over a period of sixteen years. Sixteen years during which the Slovenian artist Sanela Jahić has produced works that have reversed the power balance in the world of work (Five Handshakes, 2016), explored the range of emotions within the human-machine relations in industrial workplaces, (The Factory, 2013), studied the history of gesture efficiency in factories (Tempo Tempo, 2014) and created the conditions for experiencing human-machine co-creation (Fire Painting, 2010). However, over the past three years she narrowed her focus to applying automation to her own practice. Since these prosthetic technologies pervade the capitalist world of work—through the increasing replacement of workforce by industrial robotic arms and systems as well as through the increasingly algorithmic management of workers—why should it not be applied to the production of artworks? A seemingly light-hearted question that allows the artist to raise another, deeper question: can artistic creation be considered on the same level as other types of work? And ultimately, what does it mean to cast off the burden of choice to machines, what does it mean to try to distance oneself from one’s subjectivity while consciously choosing to delegate one’s decisions to a computer program?

Responding to generalized quantophrenia¹—from permanent, automatized and unsuspected data extraction to voluntary submission to the fascinating and oxymoronic idea of the quantified self, i.e. a human being reduced to mere numbers—Sanela Jahić started to conceive a way to turn her career into numbers. She created a classification system which she applied to all of her artworks and through this produced a database of her works. A selection of parameters described as keywords represented numerous different aspects of her work such as ‘manual labour’, ‘mathematical precision’, ‘mechanical device for showing images’, ‘collaboration’, ‘mistake as a sign of the human factor’, ‘revealing patterns’, ‘mechanism in the back’, ‘machine painting’, ‘light-based medium’, and many more; their intensity was displayed in graph form in a series of works titled The Labour of Making Labour Disappear (2018). But this would not present sufficient data for an algorithm to create a work on Jahić’s behalf, since this new work would have been based merely on the previously created works, and not on what would have actually taken place in the artist’s mind at the moment of creation.

In order to overcome the potentially simplistic predictive outcome, Jahić decided to complete the database with elements that would have probably influenced her. Thus, she added approximately six months of real time data on what she was reading while working on this project to the parameters. Every word from every text that passed in front of her eyes increased the database, opening new horizons of thought. With this amount of technical, theoretical, sociological and descriptive terms, ranked by the frequency of their occurrences, the algorithm was set to act as a surrogate of her creative endeavour. 

According to the artist, if we consider this process as a (psycho)analysis of her work, we can also ironically read it as an analysis of the prediction algorithm by itself. Indeed, the algorithm specifically designed² for the occasion, produced output terms such as: ‘behavioural data’, ‘tracking devices’, ‘scientific investigation’, ‘assessment tool’ and ‘machine learning’. ‘Vocal biomarkers’ also came up. Vocal biomarkers are a diagnostic tool used by artificial intelligence systems that scan for voice patterns in speech with the aim of detecting diseases such as depression, cancer, or heart conditions with the aid of a database of intonations linked to predetermined underlying emotions. This speech signal analysis focuses on the tone of voice and therefore does not require the spoken words to be numerous or even to make sense, which is why individual words can be used as vocal exercises that provide the necessary data. 

Pataka is one of these words. Found in the Mapuche language in which it means a hundred, as well as in Hindi where it designates firecrackers, the word Pataka, when pronounced, asks the speaker to emit rapidly alternating sounds which allow for precise detection of their muscle control, the lack of which is a common sign of depression.

Since Sanela Jahić had to interpret the predictive results from the algorithm in order to turn them into an artwork in its own right, she chose to work around the use of this specific word³ but not to work with people afflicted by illness; thus she decided to use parrots as proxies. Parrots are known for imitating the voice of the persons teaching them to speak, and this can be seen in Jahić’s Pataka videos. Parrots. Grey parrots. African grey parrots. African grey parrots talking. And African grey parrots laughing.

Sanela Jahić, Uncertainty-in-the-Loop, Aksioma, Ljubljana, 23 September – 23 October 2020, and Delta Lab, Rijeka, 5–27 November 2020.

A list of recommendations, reflecting the dynamic culture we are part of, straddling the fields of art, technology and social change.

Events, Exhibitions, Open Calls, Festivals and Conferences

Upcoming event: Book launch |The Hologram <> You can’t cut THIS: without multiplying it | Online event | Friday, December 11th, 1:00-2:30 pm EST |
Organized in partnership with Eyebeam,  Pluto Press, artists Cassie Thornton and Tina Zavitsanos will reflect on their shared attention around holograms, debt, and care and Thornton’s recently published pamphlet, The Hologram: Peer to Peer Health for a Post-Pandemic Future. Both artists consider Thornton’s central question, “In an era when capitalism leaves so many to suffer and to die, with neoliberal ‘self-care’ offering little more than a bandaid, how can we take health and care back into our hands?” The Hologram is developing with the ongoing support of Furtherfield, CreaTures (Creative Practices for Transformational Futures) and many other people and organisations. https://www.eyebeam.org/events/the-hologram/

Feminist International: How to Change Everything | Online event | Friday, 11 December 2020 from 20:00 UTC-21:30 UTC | Hosted by International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs and Verso Books. A conversation with Judith Butler, Susana Draper, Verónica Gago, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Moderated by Natalia Brizuela on Verónica Gago’s Feminist International, which draws on the author’s rich experience with radical movements to enter into ongoing debates in feminist and Marxist theory: from social reproduction and domestic work to the intertwining of financial and gender violence, as well as controversies surrounding the neo-extractivist model of development, the possibilities and limits of left populism, and the ever-vexed nexus of gender-race-class. https://tinyurl.com/yxkqx7u5

RGBFAQ | Alan Warburton | arebyte Gallery presents a new commission by UK based artist Alan Warburton. RGBFAQ comprises a research-led experiential exhibition in which the audience navigates a “black-box” set populated by gigantic geometric sculptures. Warburton’s ambitious new video essay will be projection mapped onto this sculptural background, expanding the form of his popular video essays (Goodbye Uncanny Valley, Fairytales of Motion) into an immersive 3D space, with a soundtrack by David Kamp. Until 19 December 2020, and from 5 – 23 January 2021. https://www.arebyte.com/alan-warburton-rgbfaq

Sign up for the DisCO Beat, a brand-new newsletter about the life and times of the DisCO project | The project furthers the ideas and practices put forth in the DisCO Manifesto with a comprehensive framework designed to support the worldwide development of “Distributed Cooperativism”. The project’s aim is to create and provide the following: comprehensive educational and legal resources for people to launch DisCOs, accessible software for value-sovereignty practices, pilot projects supported by hands-on mentorship guidance, participatory action research on distributed cooperativism. It explores and prototypes new and radical forms of ownership, governance, entrepreneurship, and value accounting meant to counteract pervasive economic inequality. https://disco.coop/newsletter/

Call for Submissions – NEoN is excited to be supporting Goethe-Institut Glasgow and Alliance Française Glasgow with their newly reframed residency programme. In response to the impact felt by the cultural sector as a result of the Covid-19 global health crisis, their initial residency project has transformed into a digital one. https://northeastofnorth.com/call-for-submissions/

Aksioma presents Hyperemployment STREAMING #2 | !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Felix Stalder #algoregimes | 7 December 2020 at 5 PM (CET) | The upcoming second event entitled #algoregimes is an informal discussion between artistic duo !Mediengruppe Bitnik and professor of Digital Cultures and Network Theory Felix Stalder. Touching upon topics such as the invisibility of institutional processes, the functioning of infrastructures and logistics, and freedom and control in the data economy. https://aksioma.org/streaming

THE DAOWO GLOBAL INITIATIVE | Announcing Artworld DAO Prototype breakfast meetings 2021 In February 2020, cultural practitioners and representatives of non-profit arts and technology organisations from around the world gathered to participate in a 52hr gathering focusing on Artworld DAOs (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations). Ruth Catlow and Penny Rafferty facilitated a programme hosted by Goethe Institute, London to discuss, analyse and map the obstacles, opportunities, and implications for progressive, decentralised artworld automation. Sign up for the DAOWO newsletter for information about showcase and discussion events with the teams creating Artworld DAO prototypes in Berlin, Hong Kong, Johannesburg and Minsk. Breakfast meetings are planned for January and February 2021. https://www.daowo.org/#daowo-global-initiative

VIDEO-TALKS | Berliner Gazette Winter School online program | Includes talks exploring labour struggles in California’s Silicon Valley, Germany’s Cyber Valley, and India’s AI sweatshops – and back again. The speakers include Sana Ahmad (India), Jose Miguel Calatayud (Spain), Luise Meier (Germany), Yonatan Miller (US), Peng! (Germany), and Katja Schwaller (Switzerland/US). You can access videos of their talks on this website by scrolling down to the TALKS section. https://bit.ly/36lElf5

Call for Proposals: INC Reader #15 – Critical Meme Research | By Chloë Arkenbout | Deadline 16th December | As they metastasized from the digital periphery to the mainstream, memes have seethed with mutant energy. From now on, any historical event will be haunted by its memetic double — just as any pandemic will have its own infodemic that will recursively act upon it — issuing in the kinds of cross-contamination that Baudrillard already prefigured in the 1980s: of the convoluted age of simulacra, of epistemological crises associated with postmodernity, and of a generalized informational obesity whose gravitational pull bends reality to whatever “program”, in the multiple senses of that term – https://bit.ly/39sb5oO

The Sir Terry Pratchett Memorial Scholarship | As part of his legacy beyond literature, the Discworld Foundation established by international bestselling author, the late Sir Terry Pratchett, has established a perpetual scholarship in his name through the University of South Australia. Applications are being sought from proven high achievers for this prestigious scholarship working in the areas of social theory, cultural studies, visual and literary studies and identity studies where the research proposed is inspired by Sir Terry Pratchett’s work – https://tinyurl.com/yxjvxkku

OPENING: Tend To It | Group show from TOMA 2019-2021 artists | Saturday, 23 January 2021 | TOMA Project Space, Unit 13, Royals Shopping Centre, Southend, SS1 1DG | The 2019-2021 TOMA (The Other MA) cohort present their end of year show: Tend to it. An instruction that doubles as a confession. How has it affected our art-making? Why do we make art? And what happens when we are faced with death? This show explores how even in a crisis we must tend to our needs to create. Raid the larder, stroke the euphoric parceltape, pass through the silky curtain, step onto the stage, go back in time, ooze into a queer new landscape, journey through screens, pause in isolation, ponder reused, reborn found objects. This exhibition shows how we tend to it. Opening: Saturday 23/01/21 12-6pm RSVP via Eventbrite (bookable slots to ensure social distancing) here – https://bit.ly/3qaIGtn

Books, Papers & Publications

Atlas of Anomalous AI | Edited by Ben Vickers & K Allado-McDowell | Like a snake eating its tail, artificial intelligence exists in a circular relationship with its human creators. The Atlas of Anomalous AI is a compelling and surprising map of our complex relationship to intelligence, from ancient to emerging systems of knowledge. A wildly associative constellation of ideas, stories, artworks and historical materials, the Atlas draws on art historian Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas — an image map of the “afterlife of antiquity” — to approach the defining concepts of AI from an imaginative, artistic and revitalising perspective – https://bit.ly/36lJcge

Coronavirus, Class and Mutual Aid in the United Kingdom | Authors: Preston, John, Firth, Rhiannon | This book considers how the UK government’s response to the recent COVID-19 pandemic disadvantages the working class, and how mutual aid, based on anarchist principles, can be used as a force for social change. The authors draw on Marxist and anarchist thought in class theory and social movement analysis to demonstrate that the virus and its material and discursive consequences are an active part of continuing class struggle and class interpolation. Preston and Firth examine how plans for quarantine and social isolation systematically work against the needs of the working class, and rely on classed assumptions about how markets and altruism operate. Publisher, Palgrave Macmillan – https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030577131

Retracing Political Dimensions: Strategies in Contemporary New Media Art | Edited by: Oliver Grau and Inge Hinterwaldner | De Gruyter |  2021 | At the beginning of the 21st century, new forms and dynamics of interplay are constituted at the interfaces of media, art and politics. Current challenges in society and ecology, like climate, surveillance, virtualization of the global financial markets, are characterized by hybrid and subtle technologies. They are ubiquitous, turn out to be increasingly complex and act invasively. New media art utilizes its broad range of expression in order to tackle the most urgent topics through multi-sensorial, participatory, and activist approaches. This volume shows how media artists address, with a political lens, the core of these developments critically and productively. With contributions by Elisa Arca, Andrés Burbano, Derek Curry, Yael Eylat Van Essen, Mathias Fuchs, Jennifer Gradecki, Sabine Himmelsbach, Ingrid Hoelzl, Katja Kwastek, José-Carlos Mariátegui, Gerald Nestler, Randall Packer, Viola Rühse, Chris Salter – https://bit.ly/37ieNic

Working Class History: Everyday Acts of Resistance & Rebellion | Edited by Working Class History, an international collective of worker-activists, foreword by Noam Chomski. This book presents a distinct selection of people’s history through hundreds of “on this day in history” anniversaries that are as diverse and international as the working class itself. Women, young people, people of colour, workers, migrants, Indigenous peoples, LGBT+ people, disabled people, older people, the unemployed, home workers, and every other part of the working class have organized and taken action that has shaped our world, and improvements in living and working conditions have been won only by years of violent conflict and sacrifice. https://bit.ly/3fQtD3j

Vol 19. Media Populism | Edited by Giuseppe Fidotta, Joshua Neves, & Joaquin Serpe | Culture Machine | Parasitical, unstable, excessive, corrupt, inexact, threatening—the intellectual history of populism is, to say the least, vexed. ‘Few terms have been so widely used in contemporary political analysis’, Ernesto Laclau famously observed, and ‘few have been defined with less precision’ (1977: 143). As populism has increasingly become ‘the preserve of political scientists’ (Rovira Kaltwasser et al., 2017: 10; Canovan, 1982), so too has its focus on political parties and movements become a default position in academic and popular thought. This orientation, today contested by many political scientists but nonetheless widespread, has the advantage of making populism visible, even measurable, through its analysis of speeches, polls, rallies, and electoral victories – https://bit.ly/3oapYAf

The Forest of Dean Miners’ Riot of 1831 | By Chris Fisher | Bristol Radical Pamphleteer | In June 1831, the free miners and commoners of the Forest of Dean rioted. This book considers the background to the uprising and the motives of the participants. Chris Fisher contends that the uprising was a clear expression of considerable and justifiable resentment towards the state and capitalists as they encroached on the customary rights of free miners. The Forest of Dean Miners’ Riot of 1831 places the events in the context of a social and economic transformation which favoured private property, the exchange of commodities for profit, and the accumulation of wealth for a few at the expense of the labouring many – https://bit.ly/3lpsb9o

Bank Job | Hilary Powell and Daniel Edelstyn | Art hacks life when two filmmakers launch a project to cancel more than £1m of high-interest debt from their local community. A white-knuckle ride into the dark heart of our financial system, in which filmmaker and artist duo Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn risk their sanity to buy up and abolish debt by printing their own money in a disused bank in Walthamstow, London. Tired of struggling in an economic system that leaves creative people on the fringes, the duo weave a different story, both risky and empowering, of self-education and mutual action. Behind the opaque language and defunct diagrams, they find a system flawed by design but ripe for hacking. This is the inspiring story of how they listen and act upon the widespread desire to change the system to meet the needs of many and not just the few. And for those among us brave enough, they show how we can do this too in our own communities one bank job at a time – https://bit.ly/3lpUSCU

Articles, Interviews, Blogs, Presentations, videos

Body and Digitality: From early experiments to theatre-making | Marco Donnarumma | Youtube | In this talk produced by Fronte Vacuo artists group, co-founder Marco Donnarumma discusses the relation of body and technology in the arts and how the body is at the centre of transdisciplinary avantgarde meshing media art, dance and theatre; a set of practices that made possible much of the art we see today. The first 30 minutes are dedicated to a historical overview of body and technology works and performances from the 1960s until 2010s, including Alvin Lucier, E.A.T, Stelarc Stelarc, Marcel.lí Antúnez Roca, #VNSMatrix, Seiko Mikami, Shulea Cheang, Santasangre Santasangre. The next 30 minutes are focused on my own work as well as on the collaborative works created with Fronte Vacuo co-founders #margheritapevere and Andrea Familari Fax – https://bit.ly/37lIP4P

The Invisible Hand | Thierry Fournier | Series of 8 digital images, fine art prints on dibond, variable dimensions, 2020 | Created from photographs and courtesy of NnoMan, Amaury Cornu, Benoît Durand, Anne Paq, Julien Pitinome, Kiran Ridley and Charly Triballeau.The Invisible Hand transforms eight photographs that witness police violence by completely erasing the police officers from the image. By raising the question of censorship and pretending to submit to it, the image now shows only the people under assault, surrounded by a spectral void that no longer has a body or face. The term “invisible hand” is one of the historical concepts of liberalism, which postulates that the sum of individual market actions would spontaneously lead to the common good – https://bit.ly/2VgJ6QS

Ambivalence, part 2: On the uneasy relationship between digital art and the environment | Regine Debatty | With considerable delay and only pitiful excuses to justify it, here’s the second part of the notes I scribbled down during the conference AMBIVALENCES #1 which took place in early October in Rennes in the framework of the Maintenant digital art festival. Part 1 of my report summed up Bénédicte Ramade’s overview of the History of Ecological Art. Today, I’m sharing the notes I took during the round table “Digital Arts and Environmental Awareness” that discussed the ambivalent relationship between digital artists and the environmental crisis. Contemporary art has a massive ecological footprint. Contemporary art that uses -and sometimes even champions- digital tools also relies on technologies that generate extractivism, e-waste, human misery and unbridled energy consumption – https://tinyurl.com/y6gb8nuq

Thinking the Unthinkable: The Idea of an Eco-state | David Garcia | If any serious individual in late February had argued that under conditions, other than war, that wealthy technologically advanced states were capable of shutting down 80% of the global economy… and in the process ending mass air transportation, the proposition would not just have been dismissed it would simply not even have been heard.” This forces us to ask how the same level of agency can be made available to address the far more profound threat of the climate emergency? And ask why in comparison with Covid the ecological crisis yields little more than a collective shrug of the shoulders? https://bit.ly/3moswu9

How an Algorithm Blocked Kidney Transplants to Black Patients | A formula for assessing the gravity of kidney disease is one of many that is adjusted for race. The practice can exacerbate health disparities. A new study of patients in the Boston area is one of the first to document the harm that can cause. It examined the effect on the care of a widely used but controversial formula for estimating kidney function that by design assigns Black people healthier scores. https://tinyurl.com/y56tyl9y

UNINVITED. A “horror experience by and for machines” | Regine Debatty | On 31 October, the Furtherfield Gallery in London launched an exhibition centered around “the world’s first horror experience by and for machines”. In true horror movie style, a pandemic is keeping the gallery closed and the human visitors locked up inside their home. Meanwhile, the machine is left undisturbed, using CCTV cameras to observe the world remotely and turn its understanding of it into a horror film for machines. UNINVITED, by Nye Thompson and UBERMORGEN, is a puzzling, disturbing but strangely seducing work. It rejects human viewers as much as it draws them in. A mix of dystopia, scifi and reality, the film echoes our confusion about the machines which intelligence (or utter stupidity) we sometimes fail to fully appreciate – https://tinyurl.com/yyfqat7x

DISRUPTION NETWORK LAB | Youtube Video Collection | Examining the intersection of politics, technology, and society, Disruption Network Lab exposes the misconduct and wrongdoing of the powerful. Disruption Network Lab is an ongoing platform of events and research focused on the intersection of politics, technology and society. Since 2014 the Berlin-based nonprofit organisation in Germany has organised participatory, interdisciplinary, international events at the intersection of human rights and technology with the objective of strengthening freedom of speech and exposing the misconduct and wrongdoing of the powerful – https://bit.ly/3lkvqyV

Nomadland: Mortality And Materialism In 21st Century America | Daniel Broadley | Quietus | Chloé Zhao’s majestic new film Nomadland is set to lead the 2021 awards season, but its power will last much longer by tapping into a fear and hope about metaphysical materialism, finds Daniel Broadley. “The last free place in America is a parking spot,” writes Jessica Bruder in Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century, the book upon which Chloé Zhao’s stunning film Nomadland is based – https://tinyurl.com/y2powhc8

Future Machine Live Autumn 2020 – Creating Rituals for When The Future Comes | Artist Rachel Jacobs blogs about the stresses and uncertainties of creating a safe performance in Finsbury Park during lockdown.
“The rules of the Future Machine compares the data to the monthly averages for the place where the machine is and then the algorithm decides if it is cold, mild, warm, hot, breezy, windy etc… and if the climate is expected, unexpected or extreme. In the live performance the machine plays the algorithm, the musicians play their feelings, their emotional, creative, reflective, experiential (and incredibly skilled) ability to translate the being-ness of this place and time, with the wind, rain, air, the smells, the sensations of moisture and dryness, warmth, coldness, prickling our skin.” Read the blog and watch and listen to the performance https://www.whenthefuturecomes.net/2020/12/03/future-machine-live-autumn-2020/

Image by Cassie Thornton from, The Hologram <> You can’t cut THIS: without multiplying it | Eyebeam December 2020.

The FurtherList Archives
https://www.furtherfield.org/the-furtherlist-archives/

On September 25, 2020, the Disruption Network Lab opened its 20th conference “Data Cities: Smart Technologies, Tracking & Human Rights” curated by Tatiana Bazzichelli, founder and program director of the organisation, and Mauro Mondello, investigative journalist and filmmaker. The two-day-event was a journey inside smart-city visions of the future, reflecting on technologies that significantly impact billions of citizens’ lives and enshrine new unprecedented concentrations of power, characterising the era of surveillance capitalism. A digital future which is already here.

Smart urbanism relies on algorithms, data mining, analytics, machine learning and infrastructures, providing scientists and engineers with the capability of extracting value from the city and its people, whose lives and bodies are commodified. The adjective ‘smart’ represents a marketing gimmick used to boost brands and commercial products. When employed to designate metropolitan areas, it describes cities which are liveable, sustainable and efficient thanks to technology and the Internet.

The conference was held at Berlin’s Kunstquartier Bethanien and brought together researchers, activists and artists to discuss what kind of technologies are transforming metropolises and how. The Disruption Network Lab aimed at stimulating a concrete debate, devoid of the rhetoric of solutionism, in which participants could focus on the socio-political implications of algorithmic sovereignty and the negative consequences on fundamental rights of tracking, surveillance and AI. They shared the results of their latest work and proposed a critical approach, based on the motivation of transforming mere opposition into a concrete path for inspirational change.

The first part of the opening keynote “Reclaiming Data Cities: Fighting for the Future We Really Want” was delivered by Denis “Jaromil” Roio, ethical hacker, artist and activist. In his talk, moderated by Daniel Irrgang, research fellow at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, Jaromil focused on algorithmic sovereignty and the incapacity to govern technological transformation which characterises our societies today. 

Jaromil looked at increasing investments in AI, robots and machine learning, acknowledging that automated decision-making informed by algorithms has become a dominant reality extending to almost all aspects of life. From the code running on thousands of e-devices to the titanic ICTs-infrastructures connecting us, when we think about the technology surrounding us, we realise that we have no proper control over it. Even at home, we cannot fully know what the algorithms animating our own devices are adopted for, if they make us understand the world better or if they are instead designed to allow machines to study and extract data from us for the benefit of their creators. The same critical issues and doubts emerge with a large-scale implementation of tech within so-called “smart cities”, maximization of the “Internet of Things” born in the 1980s.

Personal data is a lucrative commodity and big data means profit, power, and insights, which is essential to all government agencies and tech firms. Jaromil announced a call-to-action for hackers and programmers, to get involved without compromise and play a key role in building urban projects which will safeguard the rights of those living in them, taking into consideration that by 2050, an estimated 70 per cent of the world’s population may well live in cities. 

Jaromil observed that there is too often a tremendous difference between what we see when we look at a machine and what really happens inside it. Since the dawn of the first hacking communities, hackers preferred writing their own software and constructing their own machines. They were free to disassemble and reassemble them, having control over all the functions and direct access to the source code. This was also a way to be independent from the corporate world and authorities, which they mistrusted. 

Today, users are mostly unaware of the potential of their own tech-devices, which are no longer oriented strictly towards serving them. They have no exposure to programming and think Computer Science and Informatics are way too difficult to learn, and so entrust themselves entirely to governments and tech firms. Jaromil works to simplify interface and programming language, so people can learn how to program and regain control over their tech. He supports minimalism in software design and a process of democratisation of programming languages which works against technocratic monopolies. His Think & Do Tank—Dyne.org—is a non-profit software house with expertise in social and technical innovation, gathering developers from all over the world. It integrates art, science and technology in brilliant community-oriented projects (D-CENT, DECODE, Commonfare, Devuan), promoting decentralisation and digital sovereignty to encourage empowerment for the people.

The second keynote speaker, Julia Koiber, managing director at SuperrrLab, addressed issues of technology for the common good, open data and transparency, and—like the previous speaker—reflected on uncontrolled technological transformation. Koiber noticed that the more people are mobilising to be decision-makers, rather than passive data providers, the more they see how difficult it is to ensure that publicly relevant data remains subject to transparent control and public ownership. In the EU several voices are pushing for solutions, including anonymised user data to be classified as ‘common good’ and therefore free from the control of tech companies.

Recalling the recent Canadian experience of Sidewalk Labs (Alphabet Inc.’s company for urban tech development), Koiber explained that in order to re-imagine the future of neighbourhoods and cities, it is necessary to involve local communities. The Google’s company had proposed rebuilding an area in east Toronto, turning it into its first smart city: an eco-friendly digitised and technological urban planning project, constantly collecting data to achieve perfect city living, and a prototype for Google’ similar developments worldwide. In pushing back against the plan and its vertical approach, the municipality of Toronto made clear that it was not ready to consider the project unless it was developed firmly under public control. The smart city development which never really started died out with the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. Its detractors argue that city dwellers were meant to be human sensors collecting data to test new tech-solutions and increase corporate profit. Data collected during the provision of public services and administrative data should be public; it belongs to the people, not to a black box company.

As Jaromil and Koiber discussed, in the main capitals of the world the debate on algorithmic sovereignty is open and initiatives such as the “Manifesto in favour of technological sovereignty and digital rights for cities,” written in Barcelona, reflect the belief that it will be crucial for cities to achieve full control and autonomy of their ICTs, which includes service infrastructures, websites, applications and data owned by the cities themselves and regulated by laws protecting the interests and fundamental rights of their citizens. Their implementation shall come within people-centric projects and a transparent participatory process.

The work of the conference continued with the panel “Making Cities Smart for Us: Subverting Tracking & Surveillance,” a cross-section of projects by activists, researchers and artists digging into the false myth of safe and neutral technologies, proposing both counterstrategies and solutions to tackle issues introduced in the opening keynote.

Eva Blum-Dumontet, English researcher on privacy and social-economic rights, dedicated her work to the impact of tech on people, particularly those in vulnerable situations. She opened the talk with the observation that the term ‘smart city’ lacks of an official definition; it was coined by IBM’s marketing team in 2005 without a scientific basis. Since then, tech firms from all over the world have been developing projects to get into governments’ favour and to build urban areas that integrate boundless tech-solutions: security and surveillance, energy and mobility, construction and housing, water supply systems and so on. 

As of today, thanks to smart cities, companies such as IBM, Cisco, Huawei, Microsoft and Siemens have found a way to generate the satisfaction of both governments and their suppliers, but do not seem to act in the public’s best interest. In their vision of smart urbanism people are only resources: like water, buildings and administrative services, they are something to extract value from. 

Blum-Dumontet explained that when we refer to urban tech-development, we need to remember that cities are political spaces and that technology is not objective. Cities are a concentration of countless socio-economic obstacles that prevent many individuals from living a dignified life. Privilege, bias, racism and sexism are already integrated in our cities´ (tech-)infrastructures. The researcher acknowledged that it is very important to implement people-centric solutions, while keeping in mind that as of now our cities are neither inclusive nor built for all, with typical exclusion of, for instance, differently abled individuals, low-income residents and genderqueer people.

A sharp critique of the socio-economic systems causing injustice, exploitation and criminalisation, also lies at the core River Honer’s work. River is a web developer at Expedition Grundeinkommen and anti-capitalist tech activist, who wants to support citizens and activists in their struggle for radical transformation toward more just cities and societies without relying on solutions provided by governments and corporations.

Her work methodology includes critical mapping and geospatial analyses, in order to visualise and find solutions to structurally unjust distribution of services, access and opportunities in given geographic areas. Honer works with multidisciplinary teams on community-based data gathering, and turns information into geo-visualisation to address social issues and disrupt systems of discriminatory practices which target minorities and individuals. Examples of her work include LightPath, an app providing the safest well-lit walking route between two locations through various cities; Refuge Restroom, which displays safe restroom access for transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming individuals who suffer violence and criminalisation in the city, and the recent COVID-19 tenant protection map.

Honer’s projects are developed to find practical solutions to systematic problems which underpin a ruthless political-economic structure. She works on tech that ignores or undermines the interests of capitalism and facilitates organisation for the public ownership of housing, utilities, transport, and means of production. 

The Disruption Network Lab dedicated a workshop to her Avoid Control Project, a subversive tracking and alert system that Honer developed to collect the location of ticket controllers for the Berlin public transportation company BVG, whose methods are widely considered aggressive and discriminatory.

There are many cities in the world in which activist groups, non-governmental organisations and political parties advocate for a complete revocation of fares on public transport systems. The topic has been debated for many years in Berlin too; the BVG is a public for-profit company earning millions of euros annually on advertising alone, and in addition charges expensive flat fares for all travelers.

The panel discussion was concluded with Norway-based speakers Linda Kronman and Andreas Zingerle of the KairUs collective. The two artists explored topics such as vulnerabilities in Internet-of-Things-devices and corporatisation of city governance in smart cities, as well as giving life to citizen-sensitive-projects in which technology is used to reclaim control of our living environments. As Bazzichelli explained when presenting the project “Suspicious Behaviours” by Kronman, KairUs’s production constitutes an example of digital art eroding the assumptions of objective or neutral Artificial Intelligence, and shows that hidden biases and hidden human decisions influence the detection of suspicious behaviour within systems of surveillance, which determines the social impacts of technology.

The KairUs collective also presented a few of its other projects: “The Internet of Other People’s things” addresses technological transformation of cities and tries to develop new critical perspectives on technology and its impact on peoples’ lifestyles. Their video-installation “Panopticities” and the artistic project “Insecure by Design” (2018) visualise the harmful nature of surveillance capitalism from the unusual perspective of odd vulnerabilities which put controlled and controllers at risk, such as models of CCTV and IP cameras with default login credentials and insecure security systems which are easy to hack or have by default no password-protection at all. 

Focusing on the reality of smart cities projects, the collective worked on “Summer Research Lab: U City Sogdo IDB”(2017), which looked at Asian smart urbanism and reminding the panellists that many cities like Singapore, Jakarta, Bangkok, Hanoi, Kuala Lump already heavily rely on tech. In Songdo City, South Korea, the Songdo International Business District (Songdo IBD), is a new “ubiquitous city” built from scratch, where AI can monitor the entire population’s needs and movements.  At any moment, through chip-implant bracelets, it is possible to spot where someone is located, or observe people undetected using cameras covering the whole city. Sensors constantly gather information and all services are automatised. There are no discernible waste bins in the park or on street corners; everything seems under tech-control and in order. As the artists explained, this 10-year development project is estimated to cost in excess of 40 billion USD, making it one of the most expensive development projects ever undertaken.

The task of speculative architecture is to create narratives about how new technologies and networks influence and shape spaces and cultures, foreseeing possible futures and imagining how and where  new forms of human activity could exist within cities changed by these new processes. Liam Young, film director, designer and speculative architect opened the keynote on the second conference day with his film “Worlds Less Travelled: Mega-Cities, AI & Critical Sci-Fi“. Through small glimpses, fragments and snapshots taken from a series of his films, he portrayed an alternative future of technology and automation in which everything is controlled by tech, where complexities and subcultures are flattened as a result of technology, and people have been relegated to the status of mere customers instead of citizens

Young employs the techniques of popular media, animation, games and doc-making to explore the architectural, urban and cultural implications of new technologies. His work is a means of visualising imaginary future worlds in order to help understand the one we are in now. Critical science fiction provides a counter-narrative to the ordinary way we have of representing time and society. Young speaks of aesthetics, individuals and relationships based on objects that listen and talk back, but which mostly communicate with other machines. He shows us alternative futures of urban architecture, where algorithms define the extant future, and where human scale is no longer the parameter used to measure space and relations.

Young’s production also focused on the Post-Anthropocene, an era in which technology and artificial intelligence order, shape and animate the world, marking the end of human-centered design and the appearance of new typologies of post-human architectures. Ours is a future of data centres, ITCs networks, buildings and infrastructures which are not for people; architectural spaces entirely empty of human lives, with fields managed by industrialised agriculture techniques and self-driving vehicles. Humans are few and isolated, living surrounded by an expanse of server stacks, mobile shelving systems, robotic cranes and vacuum cleaners. The Anthropocene, in which humans are the dominant force shaping the planet, is over.

The keynote, moderated by the journalist Lucia Conti, editor at “Il Mitte”and communication expert at UNIDO, moved from the corporate dystopia of Young, in which tech companies own cities and social network interactions are the only way people interrelate with reality, to the work of filmmaker Tonje Hessen Schei, director of the documentary film “iHuman”(2020). The documentary touches on how things are evolving from biometric surveillance to diversity in data, providing a closer look at how AI and algorithms are employed to influence elections, to structure online opinion manipulation, and to build systems of social control. In doing so, Hessen Schei depicts an unprecedented concentration of power in the hands of few individuals.

The movie also presents the latest developments in Artificial Intelligence and Artificial General Intelligence, the hypothetical intelligence of machines that can understand or learn any task that a human being can. 

When considering AI, questions, answers and predictions in its technological development will always reflect the political and socioeconomic point of view, consciously or unconsciously, of its creators. For instance —as described in the Disruption Network Lab´s conference “AI Traps” (2019)—credit scores are historically correlated with racist segregated neighbourhoods. Risk analyses and predictive policing data are also corrupted by racist prejudice leading to biased data collection which reinforces privilege. As a result new technologies are merely replicating old divisions and conflicts. By instituting policies like facial recognition, for instance, we replicate deeply ingrained behaviours based on race and gender stereotypes and mediated by algorithms. 

Automated systems are mostly trying to predict and identify a risk, which is defined according to cultural parameters reflecting the historical, social and political milieu, in order to give answers and make decisions which fit a certain point of view. What we are and where we are as a collective —as well as what we have achieved and what we still lack culturally— gets coded directly into software, and determines how those same decisions will be made in the future. Critical problems become obvious in case of neural networks and supervised learning. 

Simply put, these are machines which know how to learn and networks which are trained to reproduce a given task by processing examples, making errors and forming probability-weighted associations. The machine learns from its mistakes and adjusts its weighted associations according to a learning rule and using error values. Repeated adjustments eventually allow the neural network to reproduce an output increasingly similar to the original task, until it reaches a precise reproduction. The fact is that algorithmic operations are often unpredictable and difficult to discern, with results that sometimes surprise even their creators. iHuman shows that this new kind of AI can be used to develop dangerous, uncontrollable autonomous weapons that ruthlessly accomplish their tasks with surgical efficiency.

Conti moderated the dialogue between Hessen Schei, Young, and Anna Ramskogler-Witt, artistic director of the Human Rights Film Festival Berlin, digging deeper into aspects such as censorship, social control and surveillance. The panellists reflected on the fact that—far from being an objective construct and the result of logic and math—algorithms are the product of their developers’ socio-economic backgrounds and individual beliefs; they decide what type of data the algorithm will process and to what purpose. 

All speakers expressed concern about the fact that the research and development of Artificial Intelligence is ruled by a few highly wealthy individuals and spoiled megalomaniacs from the Silicon Valley, capitalists using their billions to develop machines which are supposed to be ‘smarter’ than human beings. But smart in this context can be a synonym for brutal opportunism: some of the personalities and scientists immortalised in Hessen Schei´s work seem lost in the tiny difference between playing the roles of visionary leaders and those whose vision has started to deteriorate and distort things. Their visions, which encapsulate the technology for smart cities, appear to be far away from people-centric and based on human rights.

Not only big corporations but a whole new generation of start-ups are indeed fulfilling authoritarian practises through commercialising AI-technologies, automating biases based on skin colour and ethnicity, sexual orientation and identity. They are developing censored search engines and platforms for authoritarian governments and dictators, refining high-tech military weapons, and guaranteeing order and control.

The participants on stage made clear that, looking at surveillance technology and face recognition software, we see how existing ethical and legal criteria appear to be ineffective, and a lack of standards around their use and sharing just benefit their intrusive and discriminatory nature. Current ethical debates about the consequences of automation focus on the rights of individuals and marginalised groups. Algorithmic processes, however, generate a collective impact as well that can only be partially addressed at the level of individual rights— they are the result of a collective cultural legacy. 

Nowadays, we see technologies of control executing their tasks in aggressive and violent ways. They monitor, track and process data with analytics against those who transgress or attempt to escape control, according to a certain idea of control that was thought them. This suggests, for example, that when start-ups and corporations establish goals and values within software regulating public services, they do not apply the principles developed over century-long battles for civil rights, but rely on technocratic motivations for total efficiency, control and productivity. The normalisation of such a corporatisation of the governance allows Cisco, IBM and many other major vendors of analytics and smart technologies to shape very delicate public sectors, such as police, defence, fire protection, or medical services, that should be provided customarily by a governmental entity, including all (infra)structures usually required to deliver such services. In this way their corporate tactics and goals become a structural part of public functions.

In the closing panel “Citizens for Digital Sovereignty: Shaping Inclusive & Resilient” moderated by Lieke Ploeger, community director of the Disruption Network Lab, political scientist Elizabeth Calderón Lüning reflected on the central role that municipal governments have to actively protect and foster societies of digital self-determination. In Berlin, networks of collectives, individuals and organisations work to find bottom-up solutions and achieve urban policies in order to protect residents, tenants and community spaces from waives of speculation and aggressive economic interests. Political and cultural engagement make the German capital a centre of flourishing debate, where new solutions and alternative innovative perspectives find fertile ground, from urban gardening to inclusion and solidarity. But when it comes to technological transformation and digital policy the responsibility cannot be left just at the individual level, and it looks like the city government is not leading the way in its passive reactions towards external trends and developments. 

Calderón Lüning is currently researching in what spaces and under what premises civic participation and digital policy have been configured in Berlin, and how the municipal government is defining its role. In her work she found policy incoherence among several administrations, alongside a need for channels enabling citizens to participate and articulate as a collective. The lack of resources in the last decade for hiring and training public employees and for coordinating departmental policies is slowing down the process of digitalisation and centralisation of the different administrations.

The municipality’s smart city strategy, launched in 2015, has recently been updated and refinanced with 17 million euros. In 2019 the city Senate released the Berlin Digital Strategy for the coming years. To avoid the harmful consequences of a vertical approach by the administration towards its residents, activists, academics, hackers, people from civil society and many highly qualified scientists in the digital field came together to rethink and redesign an ecological, participatory and democratic city for the 21st century. The Berlin Digital City Alliance has been working since then to arrive at people and rights-centred digital policies and is structuring institutional round tables on these aspects, coordinated by civic actors.

Digital sovereignty is the power of a society to control technological progress, self-determining its way through digital transformation. It is also the geopolitical ownership and control of critical IT infrastructures, software and websites. When it comes to tech in public services, particularly essential public services, who owns the infrastructure and what is inside the black box are questions that administrations and policy makers should be able to answer, considering that every app or service used contains at least some type of artificial intelligence or smart learning automation based on a code, which has the potential to significantly affect citizens’ lives and to set standards that are relevant to their rights. Without open scrutiny, start-ups and corporations owning infrastructures and code have exceeded influence over delicate aspects regulating our society.

Rafael Heiber, geologist, researcher and co-founder of the Common Action Forum, focused on the urgent need to understand ways of living and moving in the new space of hybridisation that cities of the future will create. Taking a critical look at the role of technologies, he described how habitability and mobility will be fundamental in addressing the challenges posed by an urban planning that lies in a tech-substratum. As he explained, bodies are relevant inside smart environments because of their interactions, which are captured by sensors. Neoliberal capitalism has turned us into relentless energy consumers in our everyday lives, not because we move too much, but because we use technology to move and tech needs our movements.

Heiber considered the way automobiles have been influencing a whole economic and financial system for longer than a century. In his view they symbolise the way technology changes the world around itself and not just for the better. Cars have transformed mobility, urban environment, social interactions and the way we define spaces. After one hundred years, with pollution levels increasing, cities are still limited, enslaved, and dominated by cars. The geologist suggested that the implementation of smart cities and new technologies might end up in this same way.

Alexandre Monnin, head of Strategy and Design for the Anthropocene, closed the panel discussion questioning the feasibility of smart cities, focusing on the urge to avoid implementing unsustainable technologies, which proved to be a waste of resources. Monnin acknowledged that futuristic ideas of smart cities and solutionism will not tackle climate change and other urgent problems. Our society is profit-oriented and the more efficient it is, the more the system produces and the more people consume. Moreover, tech doesn´t always mean simplification. Taking as example the idea of dematerialisation, which is actually just a displacement of materiality, we see today for example how video rental shops have disappeared almost worldwide, replaced in part by the online platform Netflix, which represents 15 percent of internet traffic.

Monnin warned about the environmental impact of tech, not just the enormous amount of energy consumed and Co2 produced on a daily basis, but also the amount of e-waste growing due to planned obsolescence and consumerism. Plastics are now a growing environmental pollutant and constitute a geological indicator of the Anthropocene, a distinctive stratal component that next generations will see. Monnin defines as ‘negative commons’ the obsolete tech-infrastructures and facilities that will exist forever, like nuclear power plants, which he defines as “zombie technology”.

The French researcher concluded his contribution pointing out that humanity is facing unprecedented risks due to global warming, and—as far as it is possible to know—in the future we might even not live in cities. Monnin emphasized that people shall come together to prevent zombie-tech obsolescence from happening, like in Toronto, and he wishes that we could see more examples of civil opposition and resistance to tech which is unfit for our times. Smart cities are not revolutionising anything, they constitute business as usual and belong to the past, he argued, and concluded by appealing for more consideration of the risks related to institutionalisation of what he calls “corporate cosmology” which turns cities into profit-oriented firms with corporate goals and competitors, relying on the same infrastructures as corporations do.

In its previous conference “Evicted by Greed,” the Disruption Network Lab focused on the financialisation of housing. Questions arose about how urban areas are designed and governed now and how they will look in the future if the process of speculation on peoples’ lives and privatisation of available common spaces is not reversed. Billions of people live in cities which are the products of privilege, private corporate interests and financial greed. This 20th conference focused on what happens if these same cities turn into highly digitised environments, molded by governments and billionaire elites, tech-engineers and programmers, who wish to have them functioning as platforms for surveillance and corporate intelligence, in which data is constantly used, stored and collected for purposes of profiling and control.

According to the UN, the future of the world’s population is urban. Today more than half the world’s people is living in urban areas (55 percent). By mid-century 68 percent of the world’s population will be living in cities, as opposed to the 30 percent in 1950. By 2050, the global urban population is projected to grow by 2.5 billion urban dwellers, with nearly 90 percent of the increase in Asia and Africa, as well as the appearance of dozens of megacities with a population of at least 10 million inhabitants on the international scene.

This conference presented the issue of algorithmic sovereignty and illustrated how powerful tech-firms work with governments—which are also authoritarian regimes and dictators— to build urban conglomerates based on technological control, optimisation and order. These corporations strive to appear as progressive think tanks offering sustainable green solutions but are in fact legitimising and empowering authoritarian surveillance, stealing data and causing a blurry mix of commercial and public interests.

Algorithms can be employed to label people based on political beliefs, sexual identity or ethnicity. As a result, authoritarian governments and elites are already exploiting this tech to repress political opponents, specific genders and ethnicities. In such a scenario no mass-surveillance or facial recognition tech is safe and attempts at building “good tech for common goods” might just continue to fail.

To defeat such an unprecedented concentration of power, we need to pressure governments at all levels to put horizontal dialogue, participation, transparency and a human-rights based approach at the centre of technological transformation. To this end, cities should open round tables for citizens and tech-developers, forums and public committees on algorithmic sovereignty in order to find strategies and local solutions. These will become matters of, quite literally, life and death. 

Smart cities have already been built and more are at the planning and development stages, in countries such as China, Singapore, India, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Jordan, and Egypt. As Bazzichelli pointed out, the onset of the dramatic COVID-19 crisis has pushed social control one step further. We are witnessing increasing forms of monitoring via tracking devices, drone technologies and security infrastructures. Moreover, governments, banks and corporations think that this pandemic can be used to accelerate the introduction of technologies in cities, like 5G and Internet of Things.

There is nothing wrong with the old idea that we can use technology to build liveable, sustainable, and efficient cities. But it is hard to imagine this happening with technology provided by companies that exhibit an overall lack of concern for human rights violations.

Alongside the main conference sessions, several workshops enriched the programme. Videos of the conference are also available on YouTube.

For details on speakers and topics, please visit the event page here: https://www.disruptionlab.org/data-cities

The 21th conference of the Disruption Network Lab curated by Tatiana Bazzichelli
“BORDER OF FEARS” will take place on November 27-29, live from Studio 1, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin.
More info here

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Registration is now open for the Peer to Peer: UK/HK Online Festival, an online platform for cultural exchange between the UK and Hong Kong’s Visual Arts sectors as they interrogate topical  themes of our time including art & activism, art in the digital realm and the climate emergency.

The festival has announced its programme of public events and panel talks, alongside an online exhibition of digital artwork including existing artworks and 5 brand new commissions from artists based in the UK and Hong Kong.

The Peer to Peer: UK/HK Online Festival will take place entirely online between 11-14 November 2020 on peertopeerexchange.org. The festival is free and open to all.

Originally envisaged as a physical exchange between UK and Hong Kong visual arts networks, the project has responded to the Covid-19 pandemic to become an online space where meaningful exchange can happen and partnerships and relationships can be forged.

Curated by independent curator Ying Kwok, the festival has announced its public events programme. These will be a series of engaging public debates with artists, curators and visual arts leaders from across Hong Kong and the UK. 

Arts Council England’s Director International, Nick McDowell, will open the event on Wed 11 November alongside Ying Kwok and festival organisers Lindsay Taylor (University of Salford Art Collection), Sarah Fisher (Open Eye Gallery) and Zoe Dunbar (Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art).

“This is such a heartening example of international exchange and partnership evolving despite the global pandemic. Artists may not be able to travel but – as this project shows – they can connect and innovate in the digital space.” Nick McDowell, Director International, Arts Council England.

The panel events will include:

• The importance of artist-led exchange as a radical and necessary response to a changing international world, chaired by Wing-Sie Chan from a-n, the Artists Information Company.
• Climate change as the defining emergency of our times, and how visual arts can contribute to a greener recovery, chaired by Sarah Fisher from Open Eye Gallery.
• Exploring the realm of ‘online’ and the concept of online exhibitions v. exhibitions online, chaired by Hong Kong Academic and Curator Vennes Cheng.

“The themes that will be explored in the festival have grown from mutual interests from partners in Hong and the UK as we respond to timely global events and issues. It reflects how we have co-curated the festival with all partners in an experimental approach for international collaboration. We see this festival as a springboard for meaningful exchange between Hong Kong and the UK in the future.” Ying Kwok, Festival Director

Online exhibition & social media residencies

Accompanying the public events will be an entirely online exhibition of digital artworks from artists based in the UK and Hong Kong.

It will include five brand new commissions, nominated and selected by UK and Hong Kong partner organisations taking part in Peer to Peer: UK/HK. They include UK based artists Antonio Roberts – nominated by Furtherfield, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley and Hetain Patel, and Hong Kong based artists Lee Kai Chung and Sharon Lee Cheuk Wun.

The commissions will be accompanied by over 15 existing digital artworks from nominated artists, to be announced.

As part of the exchange between UK and Hong Kong, artists based in each country have also been nominated for a series of online residencies hosted on the social media accounts of partner organisations in the corresponding country. The artists will respond to different themes set by the host organisation.

The residency exchange began last weekend with Hong Kong International Photo Festival nominating Raul Hernandez, a Spanish born artist living in Hong Kong, to take over Open Eye Gallery’s Instagram channel for four consecutive weekends as part of his Room Available project exploring being a foreigner in a new environment. 

Hong Kong’s HART gallery have also nominated Hong Kong artist Wu Jiaru who will be taking over Furtherfield’s Instagram channel from 19 – 29 October, as an extension of their work currently displayed in HART’s exhibition Household Gods.

Further residencies will be announced on the Peer to Peer: UK/HK Residencies page.

Peer to Peer: UKHK Festival Programme

Full programme below:

Wednesday 11 November 2020

Opening session: Welcome and introductions
11.30am UKT / 7.30pm HKT
Outline of programme and launch of online commissions 

Speakers: Nick McDowell (Director International, Arts Council England), Ying Kwok (Peer to Peer: UK/HK Festival Director), Sarah Fisher (Director, Open Eye Gallery), Lindsay Taylor (Curator, University of Salford Art Collection), Zoe Dunbar (Director, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art) 

Panel One: Local/international artist exchange in time of global pandemic
12pm UKT / 8pm HKT
The values of becoming artist-led as a radical and necessary approach to responding to a changing international world.
Chair: Wing Sie Chan (a-n The Artists Information Company, UK)
Panel: Angel Leung (Videotage, HK), Dorcas Leung ( HART, HK), Jamie Wylde (Videoclub, UK)

Panel Two: Working with communities
1:15pm UKT / 9:15pm HKT
How do visual arts organisations in the UK and Hong Kong connect with communities in a rapidly changing political and social world.
Chair: James Green (Newlyn Art Gallery and The Exchange, UK)
Panel: Charlotte Frost (Furtherfield, UK), Liz Wewiora (Open Eye Gallery, UK), Bruce Li (Centre for Heritage Arts & Textile, HK), Ivy Lin (Oil Street Art Space, HK)

Thursday 12 November 2020

Panel Three: Isn’t all art activism?
12pm UKT / 8pm HKT
Activision: The philosophy and principle of activism in art. Isn’t all art activism?
Chair: Skinder Hundal (New Art Exchange, UK)
Panel: Chantal Wong (Eaton Workshop, HK), Yang Yeung (1983, HK), Helen Wewiora (Castlefield Gallery, UK)

Panel Four: Placemaking: utopian vision v social experiment
1:15pm UKT / 9:15pm HKT
Challenges and barriers in face of art programming for placemaking and community building in Hong Kong and the UK.
Chair: Jeannie Wu, (HART, UK)
Panel: Fiona Venables (Milton Keynes Arts Centre, UK), Bess Chan (Hong Kong International Photo Festival, HK), Maddi Nicholson, (Artist/Art Gene, UK)

Friday 13 November 2020

Panel Five: Climate: The Defining Emergency of Our Times
12pm UKT / 8pm HKT
How can we join forces to engage and empower the public, or influence policy, towards a greener recovery?
Chair: Sarah Fisher (Open Eye Gallery, UK)
Panel: Patrick Fung (Clean Air Network, HK), Colette Bailey (Metal, UK), Richard Fitton (Energy House, University of Salford, UK), 

Panel Six: Archives/collections
1:15 pm UKT / 9:15pm HKT
A discussion of the profound changes recently affecting archives and collections; what they contain, who they represent and how they are accessed.

Chair: Paul Hermann (Redeye, the Photography Network / The Photographic Collections Network, UK)
Panel: John Tain (Asia Art Archive, HK), Joseph Chen (Videotage, HK), Stephanie Fletcher (University of Salford Art Collection, UK), Melanie Keen (Wellcome Collection, UK)

Saturday 14 November 2020

Panel Seven: Exploring the realm of “online”
11am UKT / 7pm HKT
An online exhibition or an exhibition online? Creating and curating online art as an artistic practice – not a solution.
Chair: Vennes Cheng (Academic and Curator, HK)
Panel: Jacob Bolton (Peer to Peer: UK/HK), Peter Bonnell (Derby Quad, UK), Antonio Roberts (Artist, UK)

Closing Remarks
12:15pm UKT / 8.15pm HKT
Chairs: Lindsay Taylor (University of Salford Art Collection) and Ying Kwok (Festival Director)
All partners and panelists invited to share their highlights of the Festival

Ends
1pm UKT / 9pm HKT

UK/HK Partners

UK partners
a-n – The Artists Information Company, Castlefield Gallery, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA), Firstsite, Furtherfield, Milton Keynes Arts Centre, New Art Exchange Nottingham, Newlyn Art Gallery / The Exchange, Nottingham Contemporary, Open Eye Gallery, QUAD Derby, Red Eye Photography Network, University of Salford Art Collection, and Wellcome Collection.

Hong Kong partners
1983, 1a space, Blindspot Gallery, Centre for Heritage Arts and Textile (CHAT), Eaton Workshop, HART, Hong Kong International Photo Festival, Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, K11 Art Foundation, Oil Street Art Space, Videotage and WMA.

Featured image: Spork patient rights (jpeg copy).  Millie developed Spork who experienced all manner of catastrophes.

Download PDF of The Last Collaboration

Preface Summer, 2020

The Last Collaboration comprises the joint fatality review of Millie Niss’s final illness in a Western New York hospital’s ICU by mother and daughter, Martha Deed and Millie Niss in 2009.  Furtherfield could scarcely have chosen a more significant time to reintroduce the collaboration.

As is the case for hundreds of thousands of people in this year of COVID-19, Millie’s story has no happy ending.  In fact, those who knew and loved her were forewarned that Martha could not compose an upbeat conclusion to the recounting of Millie’s final illness.

2020 is also the year in which the web art so central to Millie’s life will end as well.  In this, as in her death from a virus that could not be avoided, Millie also is not alone.

In fact, in parallel to steps Millie took to make sure the story of her illness and death was told in The Last Collaboration, Millie also anticipated the need for future upgrades to her award-winning Erewhon installation.

News from Erewhon, in its initial incarnation is an example of Web Art 1.0 with a slight leaning towards 1.1 because we exploit Google Image search: We display our text with our design. In Erewhon 2.0, we propose to do what older websites have had to do: upgrade from 1.0 to 2.0 whilst preserving the essence of Erewhonicity and without alienating users. Thus, instead of a single URL in a web journal, there will now be a profusion of Erewhon web installations hosted by us and by others. . . (Millie Niss.  &Now talk, October 15, 2009)

What Millie did not anticipate, despite her knowledge that she might not have many years ahead of her, was that she would not be able to meet the goal of protecting her work from future changes on the web or with her tools, such as Flash and Actionscript.  She died six weeks after delivering her talk.

Martha constructed The Last Collaboration from a collection of circumstances and documents not ordinarily available for a family to review.  Family members can keep logs of their observations and conversations with hospital personnel and with their family member patients.  They can collect medical records.  However, Millie’s documentation of her month in the ICU is nearly unique.

Millie suffered respiratory arrest within an hour of entering the ER, was resuscitated and placed on a ventilator.  But she did not require sedation.  Millie couldn’t speak while on the ventilator.  Thus, with her oxygen supply restored, and her computer in front of her or with pencil and notebook in hand, for the next four weeks, she sent reports home, posted emails, and ‒ perhaps most important ‒handwrote her side of every conversation with her family or medical staff.   When filled, each notebook was sent home for safekeeping, because Millie wanted her story told.  These notebooks are dated and can be linked to her medical record. Thus, both sides of her conversations with medical staff are recorded.  Millie’s communications in writing can be lined up with progress notes and medical reports to assess whether staff understood the significance of what Millie reported to them.  

Millie had struggled with chronic illness that had left her bedridden for several years.  She had regained sufficient strength to apply with Martha, her mother, to present at &Now, an international  e-poetry conference held in Buffalo, NY.  With power wheelchair and oxygen and the help of her aides and family, she had made that presentation. But there was a terrible irony, given our world’s current struggle with COVID-19.

This was October 2009, and there was a major outbreak of H1N1 in the city.  Because a vaccine was on the way, but not yet available, local public health officials decided not to announce the outbreak to avoid panic.  Only after a dozen or more people, including Millie, had died from H1N1, was the public informed.

Millie and Martha discovered the outbreak when Millie arrived at the ICU, which normally had approximately 20 beds for non-heart patients.  Seventeen patients were on ventilators (instead of the usual 3-5), the coronary care ICU had been reduced to accommodate desperately ill patients arriving with H1N1. Patients were forced to remain in the ER until the beds and other equipment were retrieved  from storage and set up.

Millie’s presentation of her new work, work which excited her because it represented a significant advance in her technical skills led her into H1N1’s path and contributed to her death.

And here is the irony to top all others:  Erewhon itself will soon disappear.  Millie constructed it in Flash and Flash Actionscript, stretching those utilities to their outer limits.  And now, the presentation of that project, which was groundbreaking for her,  not only is Millie, the author, gone, but in an act of willful obsolescence by Adobe, the work itself also will soon be gone.  Although the dire messages of Flash’s demise are somewhat contradictory, it appears that the work may not even be viewable downloaded onto laptops and viewed off the web.

To a web artist like Millie, what is happening to her work as well as the work of many others who used Flash when Flash was cutting edge technology, is akin to paper manufacturers decreeing that libraries may no longer use paper in their collections.

Three years’ notice is hardly adequate to ensure the work of those early artists, some of whom are no longer here to protect their work.

Impossible to know whether Millie, had she anticipated the early death of her project, would have been willing to risk her impaired immune system to make her &Now presentation in 2009, even absent H1N1 rampant in the community.  She had been shut-in for years, as many have been shut in for many months in 2020, due to her risk of death if she had caught a common cold.

Almost certainly, if Millie Niss were here today, she would be coding her own language to preserve her work.

Reading The Last Collaboration in 2020, it is possible to see that changes in health care have improved, particularly in the area of hospital acquired infections (HAI) and medical staff communication with family. The importance of coordinatated, accessible and affordable health care remains critical. Perhaps the most important contribution Martha and Millie’s account makes today when families are often excluded from visiting family members seriously ill from COVID-19, is the picture it presents of life in the ICU. 

In a series of six online sessions we practice and discuss the social skills, values, and priorities that are central to the Hologram model. Each person leaves the course empowered to assemble and participate in their own Hologram.

Pragmatics:  six consecutive Tuesdays, starting September 8 and finishing on October 20th. 6-9pm London Time, [1-4pm Thunder Bay (Eastern Standard Time)], and [1-4am Singapore Time], on Zoom. 

The course is fully booked but find out here how you can get involved. 

The Hologram is a mythoreal viral distribution system for non-expert healthcare, practiced from couches around the world. The premise is simple: three people – the ‘Triangle’ – meet on a regular basis, digitally or in person, to focus on the physical, mental and social health of a fourth – the ‘Hologram’. The Hologram, in turn, teaches these listeners how to give and also receive care. When they are ready, the Hologram will support them to each set up their own triangle, and so the system expands. This social technology is based on the experimental care models developed in the Social Solidarity Clinics in Greece during the height of the financial and migration crisis. The result is the construction of a robust multidimensional health network, collectively-oriented social practices, and trust that can outlive capitalism. Its protocol ensures that all caretakers are cared for, and regards properly supporting someone else’s wellbeing as therapeutic in itself. 

In the second ever Hologram course, people from all over the world are invited to study and practice what it means to ask for help. In We Must Begin Again: Asking for help as a new world, participants will be guided through a process to remember together why and how to ask for support, and how to ensure that our supporters are supported. 

As the racist, capitalist and patriarchal world crumbles around us, we invite people to design long-lasting systems for support and solidarity that can ensure that our species can outlast the coming social, economic and planetary emergencies. Participants in the course will experiment with how to organize and value the support they need to survive and thrive in the coming new world. We believe that destruction is making space for new beginnings and that we have no choice but to begin again. We see asking for help as a way of coming into a new world with humility, curiosity and interdependence with all beings. 

We want to work together with you to remind ourselves what we have been forced to forget: how to be a cooperative, interdependent species. In this project, the person who articulates their needs and asks for support can take us to a whole new world.

BOOKING ESSENTIAL

Contact cooperativespecies@gmail.com if you need any further information or assistance.

Apply to join the course here. 

About the course co-facilitators

Cassie Thornton is an artist and activist who makes a “safe space” for the unknown, for disobedience and for unanticipated collectivity. She uses social practices including institutional critique, insurgent architecture, and “healing modalities” like hypnosis and yoga to find soft spots in the hard surfaces of capitalist life. Cassie has invented a grassroots alternative credit reporting service for the survivors of gentrification, has hypnotized hedge fund managers, has finger-painted with the grime found inside banks, has donated cursed paintings to profiteering bankers, and has taught feminist economics to yogis (and vice versa). Her new book is available from Pluto Press called The Hologram: Feminist, Peer-to-Peer Health for a Post-Pandemic Future. She is currently the co-director of the Re-Imagining Value Action Lab in Thunder Bay, an art and social centre at Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada.

Lita Wallis is a youth worker, organiser, and informal educator based in London. Whether in work or her personal life, Lita has spent much of her time experimenting with different shapes of supportive relationships (eg. cooperatives, triangles, flows and webs.) She is still working on ways to build sustainable support networks that challenge isolating social norms, and then how to commit to them in a social context that is so hostile to putting down roots. Four years ago she and two friends made a lifelong commitment to The Tripod, a platonic support system, which aims to provide much of the financial, emotional and housing support that many people end up relying on couple relationships for. She hopes to bring some learning from this experience, plus some seeds of inspiration from her work with young people and her avid sci-fi habit, to set founding Hologram members fourth in good stead.

This course is supported by Furtherfield and CreaTures – Creative Practices for Transformational Futures. CreaTures project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870759. The content presented represents the views of the authors, and the European Commission has no liability in respect of the content.

On May 29, 2020, the Disruption Network Lab opened its 19th conference, “Evicted by Greed: Global Finance, Housing & Resistance”. The three-day-event was supposed to take place in Berlin in March, on the days of the global call for the Housing Action Days. Instead, it took place online due to ongoing safety concerns relating to the coronavirus pandemic.

Chaired by Tatiana Bazzichelli and Lieke Ploeger, programme and community director of the Disruption Network Lab, the interactive digital event brought together speakers and audience members from their homes from all over the world to investigate how speculative finance drives global and local housing crises. The topic of how aggressive speculative real-estate purchases by shell companies, anonymous entities, and corporations negatively impacts peoples’ lives formed the core conversation for the presentations, panel discussions, and interactive question and answer sessions. The conference served as a platform for sharing experiences and finding counter-strategies.

In her introductory statement, Bazzichelli took stock of the situation. As the pandemic appeared, it became clear worldwide that the “stay-at-home” order and campaigns were not considering people who cannot comply since they haven’t got any place to stay. Tenants, whose work and lives have been impacted, struggle to pay rent, bills, or other essentials, and in many cases had to leave their homes or have been threatened with forced eviction. People called on lawmakers at a national and local level to freeze rent requirements as part of their response to the pandemic, but very few measures have been put in place to protect them. However, scarce and unaffordable housing is neither a new, nor a local problem found in just a few places.

Christoph Trautvetter, public policy expert and German activist of
Netzwerk Steuergerechtigkeit (Network for Tax Justice) and Wem gehört
die Stadt (Who Owns the City) of the Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation, and Manuel Gabarre de Sus, Spanish lawyer and activist from the Observatory Against Economical Crime, delivered the opening keynote “Anonymous & Aggressive Investors: Who owns Berlin & Barcelona?” moderated by Eka Rostomashvili, advocacy and campaigns coordinator at Transparency International.

In the last decade waves of private equity real estate investments have reshaped the rental housing markets in cities like Berlin and Barcelona. Housing and real estate have been deformed by global capital markets and financial excess, treated as a commodity, a vehicle for predatory investment and wealth rather than a social good reflecting a human right. This led to evictions, discriminations in the housing sphere, and lack of access to basic housing-related services, all put in place by aggressive real estate investors.

Trautvetter is co-author of a recent study tracing the ownership of 400 companies owning real estate in Berlin. He explained that in the city, where about 85% of the population are renters, exploding house prices and rentals have been guaranteeing investors returns far beyond 10% per year after the financial crises of 2009. Here the emergence of corporate landlords changed the city. They are entities that own and operate rental housing on a massive scale, replacing the traditional “gentle old lady” landlord. At 17.5%, Berlin has a law proportion of direct investors renting out their properties.

Activists, politicians, and organisations of tenants are trying to fight unlawful evictions and speculative investments reshaping the German capital, but often face anonymity. Almost half of the city is in the hands of listed companies, professional investors, or indirect investors shielded by property management firms and lawyers that operate on their behalf. International private equity companies are one of the most obscure and greedy embodiments of policy failure in this context.

Gabarre de Sus focused on the problem of the opportunistic investment funds that appeared in Spain due to strong deregulation. After the global financial crisis of 2009, the rescue of the Spanish financial system ensured that hundreds of thousands of households were indirectly under public control. But the European Union and the Spanish Government decided in 2012 to sell these properties to opportunistic investors. Many say that if public ownership of these real estates had been maintained for social renting, the rent bubble of recent years would not have occurred. As a result, many vulture funds, particularly from the United States like Blackstone, Hayfin, TPG, and millionaires like the Mexican Carlos Slim, made huge profits. Since then, rent prizes have increased of more than the 50% in the main Spanish cities, more than 30 times faster than wages.

Whilst describing this process, Gabarre de Sus focused on the political and legal ties of big investment funds that invest in real estate. There are structures of political and economic interest that allow companies like Blackstone Group Inc. — one of the largest real estate private equity and investment management firms in the world declaring $140 billion of real estate assets under management, 25% of its total assets — to scale business models in which properties are bought, renovated, and then put back on the market at rents that tenants cannot afford. These actors are influential, with economic partners at international level, including banks from the world’s largest economies.

In many cases, real estate registers do not contain any information on beneficial owners or there is no way to link legal and beneficial owners, so that both authorities and citizens know very little about who owns their cities. EU legislation obliges information on real estate holders to be available to authorities and specifies that the general public shall receive access to beneficial ownership information of EU based companies. The problem is that such registers are usually maintained under self-disclosure principles based on data internally identified by the reporting entity. Access to data is often difficult and expensive. Once you get the information, it can take time to check it and find out contradictory data. Moreover, an articulated system of international shell companies, secrecy legislation, and strategic financial loopholes provides immunity and contributes to global inequality, consolidating the incessant shift of wealth from the poor to the rich.

In Berlin nearly half of the real estate investors remain anonymous and there is no certainty of how much dirty money hides behind their investments, which is something common to many places around the world. The current situation —  revealed also by the Panama Papers investigation —  shows that governments profit from illegal wealth from transnational money-laundering, hosting international criminal enterprises within their territories and capital cities, thus providing a grey area for illegal practices where false or inappropriate identification represents the other face of fraudulent records and corruption.

The panel “Foggy Properties & Golden Sands: Money Laundering in London & Dubai” moderated by Rima Sghaier, outreach and research fellow at the Hermes Centre for Transparency and Digital Human Rights, made clear how easy and common it is for global elites and organised criminality to open offshore companies, move assets, and buy real estate in big capital cities, with investments that integrate illegal funds into the financial system and legitimate economy.

Sam Leon, data investigations lead at Global Witness, referred to the relations between satellite fiscal havens such as the Virgin Islands, the Cayman, and the Channel Islands, and the City of London. These countries are linked through commercial and legal ties with high probabilities for dark money to flow through the UK’s Overseas territories and Crown Dependencies undetected. 

The UK has a public land registry, but it is difficult to effectively scrutiny data. Companies are obliged to file good quality information, but many do not and authorities are not able to check it accurately. Britain is defined by detractors as the world’s greatest enabler of corporate tax avoidance. Considering real estate, Leon explained that tens of thousands of tenants in England and Wales are in the hands of unscrupulous owners, who hide behind anonymous companies and trusts.

One loophole real estate investors use is acquiring shares in a company that owns real estate, rather than the real estate itself; the property can be then sold by selling the shares in the company with no UK corporate tax. If the company is registered in a country that guarantees secrecy and free hands, no name appears. According Global Witness in England and Wales 87,000 properties with an estimated value of more than 1 billion pounds are owned by companies incorporated in secrecy jurisdictions, which keep secret the information about the real owners. Scotland suffers from the same problem, and in this context Scottish Limited Partnerships are a major concern too.

Companies avoid inheritance tax and capital gain tax, riding fiscal loopholes. The use of firms based in countries which are known tax havens to purchase property is being observed all around the world, with concerns about how much property is owned by unaccountable offshore entities.

The analyses of Leon introduced topics covered by the second panellist Karina Shedrofsky, who presented her work as head of OCCRP’s research team “Dubai’s Golden Sands.” Recently leaked datasets of property and residency details were obtained by the non-profit group C4ADS, and provided to the international investigative journalists of the OCCRP as part of the Global Anticorruption Consortium, in collaboration with Transparency International.

International criticism of governments and independent organisations pointed out that Dubai has become an open market for money laundering and a safe haven for the corrupt at a global level, due to the lack of controls along with very profitable conditions. The United Arab Emirates are accused of weakly regulating the financial sector, guaranteeing secrecy, and offering the world’s criminals a range of services. The country’s land registry is not open to the public and a lack of enforcement and oversight in the property sector is ideal to stash vast amounts of dirty money.

Shedrofsky pointed out that Dubai is an absolute monarchy ruled as a business. Several transnational investigations show that its laws seem to be a facilitator for international money laundering, corruption, and other financial crimes.

The emirate has been attracting secretive real estate purchases by foreign companies and individuals for years. Construction and real estate sector represents 20% of the country’s gross domestic product (2016). In the country it is possible to move money with very little regulatory scrutiny, cash-based transactions are incentivised, and the volume of gold trafficked accounts for around 25% of global trade, with almost no questions about its origins. Wealthy investors are offered a property investment visa by an investment in real estate of minimum $272,000 dollars, and get the benefits of light financial regulation, anonymity, and banking secrecy.

Shedrofsky explained how researchers from 8 countries worked on thousands of spreadsheets maintained by real estate professionals, in an accurate cross-border investigation that led to the publication of a hundred names of wealthy people, who have invested millions in Dubai. The non-official records from the years 2014-2016 provided more than 129,000 owner’s data, which the team organised per country and verified, revealing only information that could be proven beyond doubt. A website hosting an interactive map with the detected properties is online, and anyone can check it (occrp.org/en/goldensands/).

The first day of the conference closed with filmmaker and journalist Fredrik Gertten and Leilani Farha, former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, in a live conversation moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli. Gertten’s latest documentary investigates the factors that push people out from their own city, turning it into an unaffordable place that is more and more difficult to live in due to the extreme difference between housing prices and wage development.

From New York to Barcelona “Push: The Film” narrates how corporations and financial elites are speculating on people’s lives. Renters worldwide are drowning in a sea of self-doubt, with feelings of inadequacy and fears, because they think they are unable to keep up with life. But the documentary shows that this condition is the consequence of a system intended to harm, marginalise, and discriminate them. Even if residents should be able to afford to live in their own cities, this process inexorably condemns them to move away.

The work of the speakers on the first day of the conference reinforced the idea that crowd-based and data-driven research projects, together with independent and cross-border investigations, can allow a glimpse behind the curtain of the real estate market. Anonymity and secrecy in juxtaposition to openness and transparency, obtained through collective mobilisation, collecting, sharing, and analysing data.

A depressingly similar pattern emerges in countries all over the world. Housing has been financialised and turned into an investment vehicle, which has caused an oversupply of luxury estates and empty buildings in many cities, and a chronic shortage of adequate housing for the least advantaged, for the working class, and often for the middle class too. A process often encouraged by governments.

In this context, “financialisation” refers to tendencies within the economic system characterised by the expansion and proliferation of financial markets penetrating into a range of both economic and social sectors, and consequently affecting human rights related goods — such as housing, pensions and healthcare — making huge profits out of basic needs and human sufferings.

With regard to the financialisation of housing, not just banks, corporations, and big investment funds play this ruthless game. Fraudsters, money launderers, and organised crime are very active internationally, and look for weak financial systems and a moment of crisis to speculate on the property market.

Ela Kagel, digital strategist and founder of Supermarkt Berlin, discussed collective solutions to tackle housing, social, and economic injustices with the sociologist Volkan Sayman, promoter of the campaign “Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co!”. This movement is an example of how residents can involve themselves to determine and achieve their own objectives, acting on their rights to create a space for their perspectives and needs within an urban context.

After a majority of citizens were found to be in favour of the initiative in early 2019, a city-wide referendum could be now called on the expropriation of private housing companies with more than 3,000 housing units. Local political parties have not managed to find agreement yet and, as a result, the effects of the referendum in Berlin are likely to be minor if people do not keep on supporting it. The expropriation would put 240,000 flats under public control.

As outlined, investors from the international capital market made huge purchases in Berlin’s residential and commercial real estate: the company Deutsche Wohnen alone owns 111,500 apartments in the city. Together with Vonovia, BlackRock, Akelius, Blackstone, Carlyle, Optimum Evolution, and others, these companies own almost one fourth of the city. In the early 2000s Berlin’s government sold many public housing units and areas to these companies, instead of offering them to residents as development project to focus on local communities and their needs. The Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co! community has forced large real estate companies and politicians from all parties to address the issue and successfully raised awareness among Berliners who engaged in it.

In Berlin exasperated renters successfully came together and organised themselves in several ways. They are also appealing to the local council to stop the sale of their homes, and the “Rent Price Cap,” a new policy in force since 2020, has frozen rents on around 1.4 million homes in the German capital. The “Mietendeckel” is supposed to last for 5 years. Twelve constitutional complaints have already been filed against it.

The keynote on the second day “The Human Rights Solution: Tackling the housing crisis” focused on the work of Leilani Farha, UN former Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, in conversation with Justus von Daniels, Editor-in-Chief of CORRECTIV, non-profit newsroom for investigative journalism. Opening the keynote Von Daniels presented the German crowdsourced project he runs — Who owns the city? — which is based on community-powered investigations collecting data to gain a better understanding of the German housing market.

Farha recalled that international human rights law recognizes everyone’s right to an adequate housing and living conditions. Global real estate today represents nearly 60% of the value of all global assets; with housing comprising nearly 75%. That´s more than twice the world’s total gross domestic product. The aspect to consider is that such a vast amount of wealth seems to have left governments accountable to real estate investors rather than to their international human rights obligations.

Farha criticised Blackstone Group Inc. and its subsidiaries for a practice she also confirms has become common throughout the industry in many countries around the world. These companies are targeting multi-family residences in neighbourhoods deemed to be “undervalued,” so a building or several buildings from an area of poor and low-income tenants. The former UN rapporteur described how Blackstone purchases a building, undertakes repairs or renovation, and then increases the rent driving existing tenants out, and replacing them with higher income ones.

As the speakers pointed out, there has been little attention given to the impact of financialisation on housing, which has caused displacement and evictions, changing urban areas forever. Until the massive financial deregulation of the 1980s, housing was built and paid for locally. Governments, local savings, and loan institutions were supposed to provide the bulk of financing for housing up. Due to an ideological shift, determined by the impact of the dominance on financial markets of big investment funds, banks and corporations, housing is increasingly intertwined with flows of global capital. Housing markets are now more responsive to these flows than to local conditions becoming a global industry.

With roots in the 2008 financial crisis, the recent massive wave of investments by international corporations, banks, and big investment funds completed the shift from housing as a place to build a home, to housing as an investment, with devastating consequences for millions of people. The current real-estate cycle started in 2009 and led to significant price increases for residential property in many cities all over the world. Among several factors, the proliferation of predatory equity funds sifting through the world searching for undervalued investment opportunities and finding them in housing.

The global goal is to guarantee everybody legal security and protection against unlawful forced evictions, harassment and other threats, to make sure that personal or household financial costs associated with housing do not threaten or compromise the attainment and satisfaction of other basic needs. We see instead that the needs of disadvantaged and marginalized groups are not taken into account at all. In urban areas public spaces and social facilities disappear together with the expression of cultural identities and ways of life of the original residents.

Statistics show that many of the less advantaged are renters, not owners. And rents have increased even faster than housing prices in many metropolitan areas. Some call for more expansion at the urban peripheries with sustainable and modern public housing projects and better infrastructures. Others call for empowering neighbourhoods and local communities to reverse the financialisation process and to improve the conditions of the areas, that are most affected by this process, building more housing for themselves, and distributing those empty ones.

The conclusive panel on the second day was moderated by Iva Čukić, cofounder of the urban development organisation Ministry of Space, set up to occupy abandoned and neglected urban spaces and fill them with projects, workplaces, housing, or alternative art galleries, to enhance everyone’s right to the city. The panel brought into dialogue different modalities of fighting property speculation, and sharing tactics of resistance in the political and media landscape, and presented concrete alternatives for the urban territory.

The first panelist to speak, Marco Clausen, is the co-founder of the Prinzessinnengarten in Berlin, an island of collective gardening in Moritzplatz. The garden represents an open space to share and develop new forms of urban life, where to practice ideas of social-ecological positive transformation, in the context of privatisation and financialisation of real estate in the city. 

In the 2000s Berlin was still a city with vast empty areas, dismissed military facilities and many old empty buildings. In the last 20 years over 3,000 sites in Berlin owned by public housing societies have been privatised. The garden started as a temporary project in 2009 and has been struggling since 2012 against private investors and speculation. Back then activists mobilised 30,000 people to stop the selling process to an investor, and obtained a new contract until 2018. The area around the garden was first in the hands of a Goldmann Sachs fund, and later to Deutsche Wohnen. A small group fought for two years to keep the garden a collective project, managing to prolong the contract for another six years and receiving public funding to rebuild the garden as an open learning and cultural centre. 

Always in Berlin, another group of activists has been mobilising to fight the Amazon tower, that is to be completed in 2023 in the area of Berlin-Friedrichshain. Yonatan Miller, tech-worker and activist from the coalition “Berlin vs. Amazon,” talked about the movement that opposes the big tech company’s project, that will reshape the area and impact many people’s lives. On one side, over the last five years Berlin has already seen the fastest increase in housing prices globally, on the other big tech corporations are known for getting into real-estate market and make things worse for local residents, gentrifying the area. Miler discussed the challenges of the activists, presenting their strategy for the struggle ahead to replicate the success story of New York’s ousting of Amazon in 2019.

The panel proceeded with the StealThisPoster collective and their online archive “stealthisposter.org” maintained by artists and activists part of a network formed around the right to housing movements of London and Rome. The group presented the practice of subvertising, the artistic hacking of corporate and political advertisements to make counter-statements by disrupting lucrative communication of induced desires and needs and parodying of them. Inside urban areas subvertising (portmanteau of subvert and advertise) is an act of reappropriation of those public spaces that have been turned into a vehicle for intrusive and harmful commercial communications.

StealThisPoster recently supported with various guerrilla actions a community fighting against the eviction of the “Lucha y Siesta,” a space of social housing and the first inhabited by an all-female squat in Rome. Their evocative pictures of Roman monuments lit at night by the words “on sale” became viral and helped the cause. However, the existence of this independent legendary social space is still at risk. Lucha Y Siesta was put on auction by the city council of Rome on April 7 this year. The short film premiere “StealThisPoster: Artivism & the Struggle of Lucha Y Siesta” that StealThisPoster created in occasion of Evicted By Greed, focuses on this experience and introduces the practice of subvertising.

A video contribute by Penny Travlou from the University of Edinburgh concluded the panel. Travlou talked about the housing crisis in Athens and the local activists of the AARG collective, Action Against Regeneration & Gentrification, born to fight against eviction, financial speculation, and to support the rights of the refugees.

Alongside the main conference sessions, a workshop on the third day enriched the programme.

The virtual tour “Visiting the Invisible” by Christoph Trautvetter discovers the anonymous and aggressive real estate investors of Berlin, drawing on the findings of the project “Wem gehört die Stadt” of the Rosa-Luxemburg Stiftung, and including further recent studies from other collectives.

The conference “Evicted by Greed” presented experts working on anti-corruption, investigative journalists, artists and activists, who met to share effective strategies and community-based approaches to increase awareness on the issues related to the financialisation of housing and its negative effects. Here bottom-up approaches and methods that include local communities in the development of solutions appear to be fundamental. Projects that capacitate collectives, minorities, and marginalized groups to develop and exploit tools to combat systematic inequalities, injustices, and speculation are to be enhanced.

Ghostly shell companies and real estate speculators evict real people from their homes. It is not possible to state that all of these companies are acting illegally, or indeed avoiding paying taxes by being based in tax havens, but it is proven that opaque offshore firms are routinely used by criminals for systemic tax evasion, to buy property as a means to launder or stash dirty money, as well as to dodge taxes.

Open registers and open debate about these issues are very important, and not just for possible judicial outcomes. It is important to find out who the owners of real estates are and give a name to the landlords. Sometimes they might not be speculation oriented individuals and might not be aware of the consequences of their investments, but have delegated ruthless intermediates, lawyers, and investment consultants. There could be hundreds of workers who invested in a pension found without knowing that their profit is based on aggressive speculation.

Equal and non-discriminatory access to public spaces and adequate housing is not possible without an appropriate and effective regulation. The researches, the projects and the investigations presented in this conference are all worthwhile experiences with proven benefits, but ultimately, they may not be enough to alter the structural forces in play. The pandemic has shown that speculators all over the world wait for moments of crisis to purchase new real estates for a lower price, taking advantage of the financial difficulties that many people are experiencing. A growing number of property investors are preparing for what they believe could be a once-in-a generation opportunity to buy distressed real-estate assets at bargain prices. The system facilitates the concentration of real states in the hands of big international landlords and governments remain inert.

The solution cannot be found in one simple formula, or by asking people to buy real estate and become direct investors and new owners, in a deregulated system based on speculation, where most of the individuals struggle to make a living. The global economic system is based on banks holding massive amounts of loans to companies based in tax havens, speculative real estate investments and a small economic elite that makes and escapes rules, defending financial deregulations and feeding social injustice.

Videos of the conference are also available on YouTube.

In-depth video contributes by the speakers recorded before the conference are available here: https://www.disruptionlab.org/evicted-videos

For details of speakers and topics, please visit the event page here: https://www.disruptionlab.org/evicted-by-greed

The 20th conference of the Disruption Network Lab curated by Tatiana
Bazzichelli & Mauro Mondello is DATA CITIES: SMART TECHNOLOGIES,
TRACKING & HUMAN RIGHTS. It will take place on September 25-27 at Studio 1, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin. More info: https://www.disruptionlab.org/data-cities

To follow the Disruption Network Lab sign up for its Newsletter and get informed about its conferences, ongoing researches and projects.

The Disruption Network Lab is also on Twitter and Facebook.

Many generations have passed since the “Dread Isolation”. Two nations with shared ancestry and clashing beliefs meet to trade their unique technologies.

Join us for the workshop that is also a game where we use roleplay to explore how personal and collective data practices and devices might shape the attitudes and fortunes of a society? 

Sign up by 12th August 2020

Booking essential 

Participants will each receive one of two devices in the post, and will be given different roles to play as delegates in a fictional trade negotiation. In this first meeting on record, and with minimal knowledge of each other’s cultures, the people of Ourland and New Bluestead must use their devices to communicate with each other and to agree to the terms of a technology and data-culture exchange.

What do they have to offer? How will they decide what they want and what is in their best interests?

What freedoms might they sacrifice, what insights might they gain?

How might they adapt a foreign technology to their own needs, and how might they understand the risks involved?

This is an invitation to participate in Transcultural Data Pact, a research event that is also a  game of serious make believe. We welcome you to a future-historic event and clash of data-cultures. 

The event will take place online in Zoom and will last for about 3 hours with a lunchtime pre-event orientation session that will last for an hour.

There are two sessions available for both the game event and the pre-event orientation (which is a requirement of participation):

Lunchtime pre-game orientation events

13.30 – 14.30 BST Tues 18 August 2020

13.30 – 14.30 BST Wed 19 August 2020 

Transcultural Data Pact Game events

13.15 – 16.30 BST Thurs 20 August 2020 

13.15 – 16.30 BST Fri 21 August 2020 

In exchange for your time you will exercise your creative agency contributing to the ideation of future technologies for live personal data.  You might even discover new meanings in your personal data in places you never thought of looking before!

All participants will receive a £20 voucher for their contribution to the research.  

This is an open invitation to all. No experience in role-playing games is necessary.

Booking essential

Pregame orientation events 

13.30 – 14.30 to learn about your devices and about LARPing, to introduce and develop the scenarios, to build the fictional worlds together.

Game Event Schedule

13.20 – 13.30 Arrive in Zoom and sign in

13.30 Introduction

13.40 – 16.00 Nations Technology Exchange Live Action Role Play

16.00 – 16.30 Debrief, reflection and survey

For any enquiries, please email ruth.catlow@furtherfield.org

About the project

Findings contribute to a research paper Human-Computer Interaction (CHI).

The Transcultural Data Pact is a Qualified Selves research event that uses data objects to stretch people’s imagination about the collection and usage of their own data to investigate personal and collective data devices and practices that add real value.

Qualified Selves is a joint project between Lancaster and Edinburgh Universities. Improving how individuals make sense of data management (from social media to activity trackers to home IoT devices) in order to enhance personal decision making, increase productivity, and improve their quality of life. Its novel approach to co-design and co-creation has supported the development of new prototypes to help think about tracking data in different ways. https://sensemake.org/

Transcultural Data Pact is created by Ruth Catlow (Furtherfield/DECAL) with Dr Kruakae Pothong, Billy Dixon, Dr Evan Morgan and Prof. Chris Speed from Edinburgh University, in collaboration with Kate Genevieve.

Ruth Catlow is Director of DECAL. Furtherfield is London’s first (de)centre for digital arts. DECAL is a Furtherfield initiative which exists to mobilise research and development by leading artists, using blockchain and web 3.0 technologies for fairer, more dynamic and connected cultural ecologies and economies.

In 2019 we began planning the second year in our 3-year Citizen Sci-Fi programme crowdsourcing creative and technological visions of our communities and public spaces. 

With a planetary health check revealing over a million species on earth at risk of extinction as a result of human action, we wanted to explore ways of developing living and machine systems for mutual care and respect on earth. We had questions: How do we care? Who or what do we care for first? And who cares for the carers in a world ravaged by political crises and climate emergency?

Little did we know, by the time we were about to launch this programme of radical care, we humans would need it more than ever. 

Covid-19 has both interrupted and accelerated our plans. Physical proximity and presence are vital to ongoing collaborations between artists and other human and non-human inhabitants of Finsbury Park (where our Gallery and Commons are based). We long for the time that these can resume. We have postponed The Treaty of Finsbury Park that we have been planning with Cade Diehm til next year. But you can read about this mid-Summer LARP for multi-species revolution here.

However, while we have had to close our Gallery space to visitors for the summer months, as a  born-digital arts organisation we were already occupying online networks for connection, knowledge sharing, and support, so this year you’ll find even more of our programme there where everyone can get at it. Please check this page, our social media and sign up for our newsletter for updates. 

Each of the projects in our Love Machines season explores how we might act together and start reprogramming all our technologies of production and control for better love and understanding between all entities on earth – human, creature and machine or other! From collective healthcare, to terrifying (and comforting?) technologies themselves, to shared stories and systems of empathy, for Furtherfield, 2020 will be the real summer of love. 

‘UNINVITED’ by Nye Thompson & UBERMORGEN

31 Oct 2020 – 31 Jan 2021

UNINVITED by leading digital artists Nye Thompson (UK) and UBERMORGEN (AT/CH) is an art installation at Furtherfield Gallery and on the Internet exploring what happens when networked surveillance tools and AI capabilities get sick in the head. See for yourself by entering www.furtherfield.org in your browser or by scanning the cordoned off gallery with your phone. There you’ll encounter a website possessed and enter a ‘captcha’ code to the live feeds. Watch the watcher seeing the unseen as its eyes crawl the disturbing digital crevices of a world caught on camera (and entirely misunderstood) by MACHINES!

An invisible networked super-organism oscillating between anxiety, lust, and horror. Described by the artists as ‘a radically new creature looking at the world and nothing makes sense,’ the synthetic organism apprehends the universe through millions of hallucinogenic virally abused (CCTV) sensors. Thompson & UBERMORGEN’s life-form continually evolves by using human and machine learning. It defines its own existence and distributed agency through undergoing fear, instability, aggression, and vulnerability. UNINVITED can be experienced as a monstrous AI machine installation in Furtherfield Gallery, the horror movie it makes in its own mind and projects into the void, and an online viewing room where the humans and their own watching machines try to join the experience. By disrupting the traditional contract between the work and the visitor, the life-form insists on its own autonomy. Observers become part of this ostensibly alien organism.

Credits:
By Nye Thompson & UBERMORGEN
With…
Composer/sound designer: Thom Kubli
Project Consultant: Adrian Bojenoiu
Branding & Web Team: Studio Hyte
Industrial Design & Monster Prototype: Tareg Al-Zamel
Photography & videography: Geoff Titley
Software architecture & machine learning: Richard Hopkirk & Martin Dixon
Mechatronics: Modulab Bucarest
CCTV visual prototypes: Alexander Zenker

The Hologram: An image of health in multi-dimensional crisis, Cassie Thornton

Prototyping and enacting a networked care distribution system. 

February – September 

In early 2020 Canadian artist Cassie Thornton arrived in London to do major work on her sci-fi-inflected project about the future of healthcare. As governments around the world began putting their nations on lockdown, Thornton found herself isolated inside the fiction she herself had been building – becoming a kind of pandemic artist in residence. 

Thornton’s project uses ‘parafiction’ or, fiction presented as fact, to create an alternate universe of healthcare solutions for a world overcome by myriad new illnesses. Poignant in an age of ‘social distancing’, from her fictitious realm she will model the Hologram, a network of socially connected caretakers. Inspired by free, integrative and transformational healthcare developed in Greece during the financial/refugee crisis, each ‘hologram’ comprises a team who connect with one individual and talk with them about their health from three perspectives: social, physical or mental. Over time each person’s ‘hologram’ reflects back to them a multifaceted image of themselves. 

The Hologram – Collective Health As A Beautiful Artwork 

August – September

This summer, as a continuation of The Hologram project Thornton will host a four week course prototyping and enacting a networked healthcare system as part of the European CreaTures programme. Participants will explore the Hologram state of being and co-create a portrait of the process in the form of advertisements for the model. Sign up for the Hologram newsletter here to receive more information.

These elements will all contribute to an exhibition and performance of The Hologram alongside performed trials in the park in 2021.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870759, for CreaTures – Creative practice and transformations to sustainability.

Empathy Loading, Friendred, Elisa Giardina Papa, Vishal Kumaraswamy and Marie-Eve Levasseur

An online art project exploring empathetic relationships between humans and networked non-humans developed by students from the MA Curating Contemporary Art Programme Graduate Projects 2020, Royal College of Art, London, in partnership with Furtherfield.

June – October

Empathy Loading is a transdisciplinary online art project inquiring into affective relationships between humans and non-humans. These emotional connections are the objects of speculation in the works of Friendred, Elisa Giardina Papa, Vishal Kumaraswamy and Marie-Eve Levasseur, who each submitted a creative ‘proposition’ in response to these themes. The artworks reflect upon the interweaving of the synthetic and organic worlds, and the emergence of new forms of caretaking and caregiving. 

One submission, by Vishal Kumaraswamy, was chosen to be developed further into the project’s main online commission. Speculating on the potential of alternative systems of care for and with technology, all artists’ responses, exhibited on the Empathy Loading website, invite consideration of meaningful interactions between humans and machines by developing new forms of intimacy. 

Launching on 15 June, the website will feature artist interviews, a curatorial statement, a newly commissioned creative text by poet and programmer Allison Parrish and host a live public programme.

Join us online for the events accompanying Empathy Loading: 

• 15 June Project Launch of Empathy Loading
• 16 June 12:00 – 1:00 pm: Artist in Conversation: Vishal Kumaraswamy and Zarina Muhammad (The White Pube) | Event page
• 18 – 21 June: Speculative Listening by Amina Abbas-Nazari | Event page

Follow Empathy Loading on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook for all updates.

Future Fictions of Finsbury Park, Stephen Oram, Mud Howard, Studio Hyte and YOU?

Delivering augmented reality stories about the Future of Finsbury Park through your door

September 2020-March 2021

Future Fictions of Finsbury Park is an augmented reality sci-fi zine set in Finsbury Park. In these dystopian times we are gathering alternative stories about the future, representing a range of diverse viewpoints, and presenting them in a futuristic format that will be delivered direct to the doors of the local residents.

The zine arrives in the post as an alien-looking booklet which needs to be scanned with a smartphone to reveal a set of stories about Finsbury Parks of the future. The augmented stories will only appear through the app, occupying their own dimension by hovering and moving above the page.  

Future Fictions of Finsbury Park AR produced by Furtherfield and Studio Hyte with funding from Arts Council England and Haringey Council.

News From Where We Are 

A cultural discussion podcast grounded in news from where we are

April, May and from November

We may be confined to our homes by the Coronavirus emergency but we still have access to thriving networked cultures from around the world.  ‘News From Where We Are’ is hosted by Furtherfield’s Marc Garrett, a conversation with many voices from the ground. The podcast explores how the collaborative-imaginative fieldwork of artists, techies and activists is informing how we organise, imagine and build solidarity, good health and post-capitalist realities. Working together and supporting others to do the same. Each podcast includes your news from where you are, interviews, reviews, readings and announcements, to explore how people want to live in our globally-connected world now.

Listen to two full programmes that document the early stages of the pandemic. When we resume in November please send short audio recordings to marc.garrett@furtherfield.org in the style of local news headlines (up to 90 seconds) including your name, where you are, and your news. Also send your social media handles so that we can share the podcast with you.

Bios

Amina Abbas-Nazari is a London based designer, researcher and artist whose work expands reality through designed interactions, speculative systems and sonic fictions. She graduated from the MA Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art, where she is now a Research Fellow, working on the EPSRC funded Citizen Naturewatch project. She is also embarking on a Techne NPIF funded PhD studentship in the subject areas of Artificial Intelligence and Voice, in partnership with IBM. She is a member of MUSARC choir, a research and event platform based at London Metropolitan University, exploring the relationship between architecture and sound. Her projects re-compose or re-arrange reality as a way to understand how the world is constructed and then use speculation, storytelling and designed media to describe alternate arrangements of society and ways of life via technology, geopolitics, semiotics, economics and belief systems. 

https://www.aminanazari.com/

Friendred is an installation and computational artist currently based in London. He is a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths, University of London, researching the intertwined relationship between technology and performance arts in the field of HCI. Since 2015, Friendred has been focused on disciplines crossing arts, technology and sciences. His recent work combines movement and algorithmic machines to explore sensory apparatus and interactive systems and their relationship to embodiment, technologised performance and the architectural body. His work has been published on several design and technology platforms including DesignBoom and CreativeApplications. He has won several prestigious awards including the Shanghai Da Shi Award and the Bronze prize in the third Cultural and Creative Design Competition. His work has been exhibited at Tate Britain and The Design Museum.   

http://friendred.studio/

Elisa Giardina Papa is an Italian artist whose work investigates gender, sexuality, and labor in relation to neoliberal capitalism and the borders of the Global South. Her work has been exhibited and screened at MoMA (New York), Whitney Museum [Sunrise/Sunset Commission], Seoul Mediacity Biennale 2018, Unofficial Internet Pavilion of 54th Venice Biennial, XVI Quadriennale di Roma, rhizome.org  [Download Commission], The Flaherty NYC, Institute for Contemporary Art, Milano (ICA MILANO), among others. Giardina Papa received an MFA from RISD, and a BA from Politecnico of Milan, and she is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in film and media studies at the University of California Berkeley. She lives and works in New York and Sant’Ignazio (Sicily).

http://www.elisagiardinapapa.org/

Mud Howard (they/them) is a gender non-conforming poet, performer and activist from the states. mud creates work that explores the intimacy and isolation between queer and trans bodies. mud is a Pushcart Prize nominee. they are currently working on their first full-length novel: a queer and trans memoir full of lies and magic. they were the first annual youth writing fellow for Transfaith in the summer of 2017. their poem “clearing” was selected by Eduardo C. Corral for Sundress Publication’s the Best of the Net 2017. mud is a graduate of the low-res MFA Poetry Program at the IPRC in Portland, OR and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Westminster. you can find their work in THEM, The Lifted Brow, Foglifter, and Cleaver Magazine. they spend a lot of time scheming both how to survive and not perpetuate toxic masculinity. they love to lip sync, show up to the dance party early and paint their mustache turquoise and gold.

www.mudhoward.com

Vishal Kumaraswamy is a new media artist and filmmaker currently based in Bangalore, India. He has an MA in Photography from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London. Vishal’s work has been presented at the Venice Biennale’s Research Pavilion, Galeria-de Arte-Mexicano, Athens Digital Arts Festival, Birmingham Art Summit, Apex Art’s Savdhaan – Regimes of Truth and will shortly be exhibiting at The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. He is  Programme Director at Walkin Studios, an independent multidisciplinary art studio and project space and founder of the international artist collective, Now You Have Authority, a collaborative practice through which he has curated exhibitions, residencies, and delivered workshops as part of Tate Modern’s Tate Exchange Programme, Tanzfest Aarau and The Sluice Biennial. Vishal is currently an artist-in-residence with Contemporary Calgary’s In-Collider Program and is presenting work online for www.the-lack-of.com as part of The Wrong Biennale.

https://www.vishalkswamy.com

Marie-Eve Levasseur lives and works in Leipzig, Germany. She completed a bachelor in Visual and Media Arts at the Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada and obtained her master and postmaster diploma at the Academy of Visual Arts of Leipzig. Using diverse forms and techniques like video, installation, sculpture and 3D animation, she questions the proximity of technological and organic surfaces in a posthuman context as well as our perception of device-mediated content. Inspired by thinkers such as Donna Haraway and Rosi Braidotti, her projects use speculative fabulation; imagined situations with fictive devices to open a space to reflect upon the way we get along in the system we live in. Her works have been shown in many group exhibitions in Montreal, Berlin, London, Paris, Hong Kong and Zurich. In 2020, she receives a research and creation grant from the KdFS (Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen), Germany.

http://marieevelevasseur.com/

Zarina Muhammad is an art critic @ the white pube (thewhitepube.com // @thewhitepube) where she writes about exhibitions, how art makes her feel, and how institutions operate. cancer sun/aries moon/sagittarius ascendant. ‘intellectual charlatan’, ‘sociopathic pseudo-critic’, leading proponent of ‘The Philosophy of the Warm Tummy’ & cowboy in the art world.

https://www.zarinamuhammad.co.uk/

Stephen Oram writes thought provoking stories that mix science fiction with social comment, mainly in a recognisable near-future. He is one of the writers for SciFutures and, as 2016 Author in Residence at Virtual Futures – described by the Guardian as “the Glastonbury of cyberculture” – he was one of the masterminds behind the new Near-Future Fiction series and continues to be a lead curator. Oram is a member of the Clockhouse London Writers and a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors. He has two published novels: Fluence and Quantum Confessions, and a collection of sci-fi shorts, Eating Robots and Other Stories. As the Author in Residence for Virtual Futures Salons he wrote stories on the new and exciting worlds of neurostimulation, bionic prosthetics and bio-art. These Salons bring together artists, philosophers, cultural theorists, technologists and fiction writers to consider the future of humanity and technology. Recently, his focus has been on collaborating with experts to understand the work that’s going on in neuroscience, artificial intelligence and deep machine learning. From this Oram writes short pieces of near-future science fiction as thought experiments and use them as a starting point for discussion between himself, scientists and the public. Oram is always interested in creating and contributing to debate about potential futures.

www.stephenoram.net

Allison Parrish is a computer programmer, poet, educator and game designer whose teaching and practice address the unusual phenomena that blossom when language and computers meet, with a focus on artificial intelligence and computational creativity. She is an Assistant Arts Professor at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, where she earned her master’s degree in 2008. Named “Best Maker of Poetry Bots” by the Village Voice in 2016, Allison’s computer-generated poetry has recently been published in Ninth Letter and Vetch. Her first full-length book of computer-generated poetry, “Articulations,” was published by Counterpath in 2018.

https://www.decontextualize.com/

Nye Thompson is an artist turned software designer turned artist. She creates data-gathering software systems to explore new technology paradigms, and has a particular interest in the machinic gaze and its underlying power dynamics. She has exhibited internationally including Tate Modern, The Barbican, The V&A, ZKM Karlsruhe, Ars Electronica and The Lowry. Her first solo show Backdoored.io – described by C4 News as “too shocking to broadcast” – became global clickbait and triggered an international government complaint. Her work has been featured on BBC, C4, CNN, the Guardian and Wired, and she was a guest presenter on BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Art of Now: Surveillance’. She has been called “the new Big Brother” (Vogue) and “a contemporary Jacques Cousteau” (Bob & Roberta Smith). She has received several Arts Council England and British Council awards. She was a Lumen Prize finalist in 2018 & 2019, and shortlisted for the 2019 Rapoport Award for Women in Art and Technology. Her work was recently acquired for the V&A Museum’s permanent collection.

http://www.nyethompson.co.uk

Cassie Thornton is an artist and activist who makes a “safe space” for the unknown, for disobedience and for unanticipated collectivity. She uses social practices including institutional critique, insurgent architecture, and “healing modalities” like hypnosis and yoga to find soft spots in the hard surfaces of capitalist life. Cassie has invented a grassroots alternative credit reporting service for the survivors of gentrification, has hypnotized hedge fund managers, has finger-painted with the grime found inside banks, has donated cursed paintings to profiteering bankers, and has taught feminist economics to yogis (and vice versa). She has worked in close collaboration with freelance curators and producers including Taraneh Fazeli, Magdalena Jadwiga Härtelova, Dani Admiss, Amanda Nudelman, Misha Rabinovich, Caitlin Foley and Laurel Ptak. Her projects, invited and uninvited, have appeared at (or in collaboration with) Transmediale Festival for Media Arts, San Francisco MoMA, West Den Haag, Moneylab, Swissnex San Francisco, Pro Arts Gallery & Commons, Dream Farm Commons, Furtherfield, Gallery 400, Strike Debt Bay Area, Red Bull Detroit, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Flux Factory, Bemis Center for the Arts, Berliner Gazette and more. Feministeconomicsdepartment.com

Studio Hyte is a London based multidisciplinary design studio who place research and concept above medium. Working between graphic design, interaction and emergent forms of visual communication, we aim to create meaningful and thought provoking work. Formed of a small group of individual practitioners, Studio Hyte is the middle ground where all of our interests and practices meet. As such our collective practice and research covers a broad spectrum of topics including; language, inclusion & accessibility, egalitarian politics & alternative protest and technology & the human. With an emphasis on process, we often create critical narratives through our work in order to conceptualise through making. Collectively, our visual practice is a means through which we can plot out a conceptual landscape in order to understand and explore real-world scenarios. Studio Hyte works on self-directed research projects, commissions and client-led projects for a small pool of like minded organisations and individuals.

http://studiohyte.com

UBERMORGEN is an artist duo founded 1995 in Vienna by lizvlx & Hans Bernhard. Part of the Net.Art avant-garde of the 1990s and 2000s digital actionism & concept art, UBERMORGEN celebrate a radical-subversive approach to data & matter. UBERMORGEN own 175 websites/domains and they have been featured in 3000+ news reports & reviews. CNN called them ‘Maverick Austrian Business People’, NY Times called them ‘simply brilliant’. UBERMORGEN was featured at Centre Pompidou, MoMA/PS1, Sydney Biennale, MACBA Barcelona, New Museum New York, SFMoma, ICC Tokyo, Gwangju Biennale, Serpentine Galleries, Whitney Museum. Main influences: Rammstein, Samantha Fox, XXXTentacion and Pixibücher, Olanzapine & LSD, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Coconut Shrimp Deluxe & Viennese Actionism. UBERMORGEN talk at international conferences, museums and symposia and they hold the professorship for Networks at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne.

http://ubermorgen.com/

A list of recommendations, reflecting the dynamic culture we are part of, straddling the fields of art, technology and social change.

Events, Exhibitions, Open Calls, Festivals and Conferences

News From Where We Are: The Furtherfield Podcast | First broadcast Friday 10th April 2020 | We may be confined to our homes by the Coronavirus emergency but we still have access to thriving networked cultures from around the world.  ‘News From Where We Are’ is the Furtherfield podcast hosted by co-founder and co-artistic director Marc Garrett, a conversation with many voices from the ground | Coming soon in April | Join us and send 90-second audio updates | Interviews with Cassie Thornton, Cade Diem & Joseph DeLappe. Contributions from Jaya Klara Brekke, Régine DeBatty, Jeremy Height, and more. More info at https://buff.ly/33C3kYG | Every 2nd Friday, on Soundcloud – https://soundcloud.com/furtherfield

Upcoming: Art & Animals in the Age of AI and Bio-Engineering | Next month, Regine DeBatty will be giving online classes on the theme of Art & Animals in the Age of AI and Bio-Engineering with the School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe | How do artists, designers and activists use artificial intelligence, virtual reality, robotics, synthetic biology, the blockchain or gaming to probe and communicate techno-scientific developments? To investigate the shifting paradigms of the living, thinking world? To make us accept that time has come to co-evolve in a more sympathetic and mutually beneficial way with other living entities, whether “natural”, lab-grown or hybrid? | Mon, Apr 6, 2020, 7:00 PM – Mon, May 4, 2020, 9:00 PM CEST – https://tinyurl.com/w9y6d2v

Distant Movement(s) | A series of performances experimenting with online togetherness and the possibility to experience dance in front of a screen, while we close our eyes. Exploring, being attentive and dancing together are the key concepts of this artistic experience. The project originated in 2018 from a combination of two different approaches, both anchored in exploring bodily sensation. Daniel Pinheiro and Annie Abrahams are interested in the limits and possibilities of online collaboration and communication and use telematic performance as a tool to understand more about it – https://distantmovements.tumblr.com/dm

Peoples Bank of Govanhill | Join us for remote exchange and collective imagining | Drawing Workshop | Monday 13th April 3pm | Join artists Raman Mundair and Ailie Rutherford to collectively imagine a post-capitalist future DRAWING WORKSHOP | This moment of global crisis and the Covid pandemic is likely to transform capitalism as we know it. While this is a difficult time for all of us, times of crisis can also open up space for new possibilities to emerge. It is in these times that large collective shifts in consciousness are possible and major shifts in political and economic structures can happen. We are already seeing lower pollution levels, reduced consumption and new mutual care networks. What else do we imagine happening that didn’t seem possibly before? https://tinyurl.com/wzua7vu

OPEN CALL FOR ART! In response to COVID-19 | Amplifier is launching an emergency open call for artwork around the themes of Public Health & Safety or Mental Health & Well-being. Throughout the month of April, 30 artists will be selected to receive $1k awards, starting next week! I’ll be one of the guest curators for this project, alongside Nancy Spector and Hank Willis Thomas. You can submit and vote on artwork here: bit.ly/globalopencall. These symbols will stand long after the virus is gone as a testament to our resilience, join Amplifier in this historic moment by submitting! – https://tinyurl.com/yx3v3nmb

Michael Szpakowski | Visit his latest phtographs on Flicker. An artist, composer & writer. His music has been performed all over the UK, in Russia & the USA. He has exhibited work in galleries in the UK, mainland Europe & the USA. His short films have been shown throughout the world. He is a joint editor of the online video resource DVblog – https://www.flickr.com/photos/szpako/

#Covid Creatives Toolkit: Mutual aid for digital spaces | Set up by Kat Braybrooke | A set of carefully-curated mutual aid resources, ideas and pathways for creative practitioners (including artists, makers, curators, designers, hackers, educators, facilitators, etc) who find themselves needing to migrate their practice onto digital spaces and places. The kit’s 7 sections are intended to support different aspects of this journey, from digital gathering to digital well-being – https://tinyurl.com/reakdoz

Books, Papers & Publications

Digitize and Punish: Racial Criminalization in the Digital Age | Brian Jefferson | Brian Jefferson explores the history of digital computing and criminal justice, revealing how big tech, computer scientists, university researchers, and state actors have digitized carceral governance over the past forty years. He shows how digital technology has expanded the wars on crime and drugs, enabling our current state of mass incarceration and further entrenching the nation’s racialized policing and punishment. Brian Jefferson is associate professor of geography and geographic information science at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign | University of Minnesota Press – https://tinyurl.com/ugkj2dq

Museums Inside Out: Artist Collaborations and New Exhibition Ecologies | Mark W. Rectanus | Rectanus investigates how museums are blurring the boundaries between their gallery walls and public spaces. He examines how artists are challenging and changing museums, taking readers deep into new experiments in exhibition making while also offering insights about how museums currently exemplify the fusion of the creative and digital economies. Museums Inside Out introduces a new vocabulary to understand the place of artists in redefining and contesting the museum in the context of globalization and the creative economy | University of Minnesota Press – https://tinyurl.com/tbwmgmq

Embodied Computing: Wearables, Implantables, Embeddables, Ingestibles | Edited by Isabel Pedersen and Andrew Iliadis | Practitioners and scholars explore ethical, social, and conceptual issues arising in relation to such devices as fitness monitors, neural implants, and a toe-controlled computer mouse. The contributors examine technologies that range from fitness monitors to neural implants to a toe-controlled mouse. They discuss topics that include the policy implications of ingestibles; the invasive potential of body area networks, which transmit data from bodily devices to the internet; cyborg experiments, linking a human brain directly to a computer; the evolution of the ankle monitor and other intrusive electronic monitoring devices; fashion tech, which offers users an aura of “cool” in exchange for their data; and the “final frontier” of techno-supremacism: technologies that seek to read our minds | MIT Press – https://tinyurl.com/s6bjrt6

The filth and the fury: punk graphics – in pictures | Guardian | Andrew Krivine has been collecting punk memorabilia since 1977. His book Too Fast to Live Too Young to Die contains over 650 posters, flyers, record sleeves and adverts, charting a DIY ethos that changed graphic design for ever | The book is published on 2 April by Pavilion Books – https://tinyurl.com/ut4aqn4

Articles, Interviews, Blogs, Presentations, videos

Is Accelerationism a Gateway Aesthetic to Fascism? On the Rise of Taboo in Contemporary Art | By Dorian Batycka | What does cancel culture have to do with the rise of techno-futurism and accelerationist ideas in contemporary art? Art critic Dorian Batycka analyzes the recent uptick in accelerationist inspired artworks, examining their manifestation in exhibitions such as the 6th Athens Biennale and the 9th Berlin Biennale, asking to what extent ideas inspired by the accelerationist philosopher Nick Land, have led to proto-fascist ideas percolating within the realm of contemporary art. Download PDF – https://tinyurl.com/rxusqrk

Tales of a DisCO, Straight from the Dancefloor | By Timothy McKeon and Sara Escribano | Guerilla Translation | DisCOs are a commons-oriented, feminist, cooperative way for people to work together. A set of ideals and criteria for ensuring that patterns of oppression and violence that permeate our society are not replicated within intentional, cooperative spaces. DisCOs systematize fairness and the recognition of care work. They help to keep projects geared towards the common good, towards the Commons. DisCOs are essentially a system, but systems are best understood when implemented and that’s where Guerrilla Translation comes in. Our small translation collective is the first DisCO—the pilot project – https://t.co/foEgIV4C2I?amp=1

Excursion to an Alien World | Living with Plan B | Blog post by Aileen Deirig disussing life since living in a commune in Spain | “Calafou has been described as giving the impression of a post-apocalyptic scene, and post-capitalist is one of the self-descriptions. As I have been living in Calafou since the end of last August, this has become so normal that it can feel quite jarring to go to other places and find that they are still pre-apocalyptic and apparently haven’t got the memo yet that capitalism is dying. When I stepped out of a train last Monday evening and found myself in the midst of a brightly illuminated shopping mall, I felt I had landed uncomfortably on the wrong planet.” Read on – https://tinyurl.com/wxzozao

Mutual aid for those who have lost work | Pirate Care Network | pirate.care.syllabus  ▒▒▒ 🐙 | Outlined forms of mutual aid to help those who are precarious and currently have no source of income, those who are being laid off, and in general those who have not enough money. It includes propositions where to start if you want to mutualise money, resources and labour — a solidarity fund, a common wallet, shared purchases, a library of things, common.coin, time bank and labour related legal and union support. All this assumes strikes at the point of production, circulation and care work, rent strikes, and demands for a universal sick pay and a quarantine universal basic income – https://tinyurl.com/vgehfbm

Ann Pettifor on Coronavirus Capitalism | Interview with author and campaigner Ann Pettifor, getting her take on the economic consequences of Coronavirus. I specifically ask Ann about the prospects of a debt write down, and whether we may be able to achieve lasting change from the embers of this crisis to capitalism. Hope & Action’s new Vodcasts, explore the need for urgent economic change. Join filmmakers Dan Edelstyn & Hilary Powell as they debate ideas of how to attack the financial crisis with leading thinkers | Youtube – https://tinyurl.com/roctuw4

Ideas to resist | CCCB Lab | Some inspiration to lift our mood during the days of confinement we’re experiencing in certain parts of the world. A couple of weeks before confinement started we asked some of our collaborators to send us inspiring texts to offset the wave of bad news about the current state of the world. We wanted to publish a plural post to inspire hope and optimism, with essential questions, bright ideas and simple solutions. This is the result, in the midst of the global pandemic with consequences and lessons that will define the near future | Víctor Recort Berta Gómez Santo Tomás Albert Lloreta João França Joana Moll Tania Adam Lucas Ramada Prieto Toni Navarro Míriam Hatibi – http://lab.cccb.org/en/ideas-to-resist/

This Is Not the Apocalypse You Were Looking For | Laurie Penny | Pop culture has been inundated with catastrophe porn for decades. None of it has prepared us for our new reality. For years, angry young idiots have fantasised about a shit-hits-the-fan collapse of civilisation scenario, where men would be real men again, and women would be grateful. But in this crisis, our heroes are not soldiers -they are healers and carers | Wired – https://tinyurl.com/uoswgws

Socialism in a time of pandemics | International Socialism | Joseph Choonara’s analysis of the Covid-19 crisis looks at the history of epidemics, the origins of the coronavirus in capitalist development and agriculture, what the outbreak means for the world economy and how the left can respond. “Above all, a pandemic on this scale intensifies the pre-existing fault lines of capitalism. At the most basic level it poses a choice: defend profits or save lives. The indications, thus far, are that the former has been the overriding priority for those presiding over the system. This article explores how pandemics enmesh with the logic of capital and offers some potential responses from the left | https://tinyurl.com/r6owqay

The Political Possibility of Sound. Interview with Salomé Voegelin  | By Leandro Pisano | Digicult | What are the political potentials of listening? How does sound define the crossing of the territories of contemporaneity, of the differences in race, gender, social belonging? How can we, in the invisible depth of sound, define our belonging to the contemporary world, taking an active position in issues that concern ethics, subjectivity, the principles of collective and individual living? After attempting to define a series of possible philosophical and post-phenomenological approaches to sound art in the previous two books – Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art (Continuum, 2010), and Sonic Possible Worlds: Hearing the Continuum of Sound (Bloomsbury, 2014) – the Swiss writer and artist Salomé Voegelin continues her analysis on listening practices, in a new book entitled The Political Possibility of Sound: Fragments of Listening (Bloomsbury) whose themes juxtapose and which reflects on the encounter between political processes and the sounds we are constantly immersed in – https://tinyurl.com/t9xzszo

Pandemic Inequalities, Pandemic Demands | By weareplanc |  We need to recognise that ‘staying at home’ doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. For some, homes are a sanctuary. For others, the home is another place of work, where cooking, cleaning and childcare take up the majority of their time and energy. There are many for whom the home is a place of danger, with time outside, if possible, being a respite from abuse. For people with mental or physical illness, for the elderly and disabled, the isolation they may face through being confined to the home can be deeply unhealthy, at times terrifying. Some people don’t have homes at all; being shunted from one sofa to another, sleeping in night shelters or out on the streets are dangerous “options” during this pandemic for those that have few already – https://bit.ly/2wJnynq

Is This a Dress Rehearsal? | Bruno Latour | The unforeseen coincidence between a general confinement and the period of Lent is still quite welcome for those who have been asked, out of solidarity, to do nothing and to remain at a distance from the battle front. This obligatory fast, this secular and republican Ramadan can be a good opportunity for them to reflect on what is important and what is derisory. . . . It is as though the intervention of the virus could serve as a dress rehearsal for the next crisis, the one in which the reorientation of living conditions is going to be posed as a challenge to all of us, as will all the details of daily existence that we will have to learn to sort out carefully. I am advancing the hypothesis, as have many others, that the health crisis prepares, induces, incites us to prepare for climate change. This hypothesis still needs to be tested – https://tinyurl.com/s2y9hcp

Image: An assemblage from an excellent collection of photographs taken by Michael Szpakowski. https://www.flickr.com/photos/szpako/

The FurtherList Archives
https://www.furtherfield.org/the-furtherlist-archives/

An Online Course for Developing Long-term Peer-to-Peer Health Strategies from within an Emergency

The Hologram is a viral distribution system for non-expert healthcare. Its protocol ensures that all caretakers are cared for, and regards properly supporting someone else’s wellbeing as therapeutic in itself.

This project was developed by a group of exhausted and anxious US artists, organizers and healers who experienced housing insecurity, inconsistent healthcare and massive debt, forced to scrounge and scam for care in between gigs.

The Hologram now lives on by different names with and through these people in venues all over the world. This workshop is aimed at anyone who is interested, and whose precariousness and fear of the (non-)future is the most reliable part of their life.

It is especially aimed at those whose waged or unwaged work is to transform the imagination (including artists, organizers, teachers, and activists). The wish is for all participants to connect to an “intentional community in exile” by learning to trust others in the same situation, and to rely on them for help navigating a world based on the capitalist sabotage of our health and thriving.

In a series of four free evening sessions, we will practice and discuss social skills, values, and priorities that are central to the Hologram model. These are powers that we may have forgotten or sold while fighting for our individual financial survival.

The course will involve a collective exploration of participants’ health as a common phenomenon. Each person will leave the course empowered to assemble and participate in their own Hologram and to network it with others.

BOOKING ESSENTIAL

Please note The Hologram talk and workshops are now taking place online due to pandemic restrictions. Contact info@furtherfield.org if you need any further information or assistance.

About the course co-facilitators

Cassie Thornton is an artist and activist who makes a “safe space” for the unknown, for disobedience and for unanticipated collectivity. She uses social practices including institutional critique, insurgent architecture, and “healing modalities” like hypnosis and yoga to find soft spots in the hard surfaces of capitalist life. Cassie has invented a grassroots alternative credit reporting service for the survivors of gentrification, has hypnotized hedge fund managers, has finger-painted with the grime found inside banks, has donated cursed paintings to profiteering bankers, and has taught feminist economics to yogis (and vice versa). She has worked in close collaboration with freelance curators and producers including Taraneh Fazeli, Magdalena Jadwiga Härtelova, Dani Admiss, Amanda Nudelman, Misha Rabinovich, Caitlin Foley, and Laurel Ptak. Her projects, invited and uninvited, have appeared at (or in collaboration with) Transmediale Festival for Media Arts, San Francisco MoMA, West Den Haag, Moneylab, Swissnex San Francisco, Pro Arts Gallery & Commons, Dream Farm Commons, Furtherfield, Gallery 400, Strike Debt Bay Area, Red Bull Detroit, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Flux Factory, Bemis Center for the Arts, Berliner Gazette and more.

Lita Wallis is a youth worker, organiser, and informal educator based in London. Whether in work or her personal life, Lita has spent much of her time experimenting with different shapes of supportive relationships (eg. cooperatives, triangles, flows and webs.) She is still working on ways to build sustainable support networks that challenge isolating social norms, and then how to commit to them in a social context that is so hostile to putting down roots. Four years ago she and two friends made a lifelong commitment to The Tripod, a platonic support system, which aims to provide much of the financial, emotional and housing support that many people end up relying on couple relationships for. She hopes to bring some learning from this experience, plus some seeds of inspiration from her work with young people and her avid sci-fi habit, to set founding Hologram members fourth in good stead.

The Hologram is part of Furtherfield’s three-year Citizen Sci-Fi programme crowdsourcing creative and technological visions of our communities and public spaces, together.

2020 is the year of Love Machines, nurturing living and machine systems for mutual care and respect on earth and beyond.

As the Covid-19 global pandemic hits, we would like to offer our help to arts organisations and individuals who need to speedily pivot their programmes to digitally accessible models. At Furtherfield we have more than 20 years experience of the conceptual, technical and financial issues of producing arts programmes that straddle digital and physical space.

Over 1-hour online consultation calls we can assess what is at stake in arts projects previously planned for public venues and advise on suitable ways to transfer the work online. Our aim is to find active solutions that suit the work itself as well as the organisation and audience. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to questions of digital programming but we’d like to help you quickly and efficiently find the answer to yours. 

Each call will be offered for a flat fee of £250 and will be with both Artistic Director Ruth Catlow and Executive Director Charlotte Frost. Please contact us now to schedule a call (info@furtherfield.org). 50% of income from calls will go towards honouring fees for artists within our own programmes.

Featured Image:
The Blockchain – Change Everything Forever, 2016
Still from a Furtherfield film directed by Pete Gomes

CultureStake is a web-based voting and connection system for decentralised cultural decision-making and investment.

Please DONATE to CultureStake by participating in the Gitcoin CLR matching experiment for funding public goods.

Your donation goes a LONG way!

Using quadratic voting on the blockchain, CultureStake’s playful front-end interface allows everyone to vote on the types of cultural activity they would like to see in their locality.

CultureStake democratises arts commissioning by providing communities and artists with a way to make cultural decisions together. It does this by giving communities a bigger say in the activities provided in their area, and by connecting artists and cultural organisations to better information about what is meaningful in different localities.

Using the CultureStake app, people are invited to consider the social and cultural relevance of particular artworks to their localities. And they are given a way to rank how strongly they feel about artworks and the issues they raise. Votes are tracked and made visible, giving evidence of the types of projects communities would most value.

Currently, major artists and cultural sponsors have the upper hand and this can result in one-size-fits-all ‘blockbuster’ programming. CultureStake is a practical response to a growing demand for greater transparency about how, and in whose interest, decisions about the public good are made. It opens the field for experimentation, for robust and sustainable alternatives to centralised and private decision-making practices.

The ultimate vision for CultureStake is that governance and funding of culture are put into the hands of audiences, artists and venues, acting together in and across localities and time.

In this way, we hope to increase a shared sense of agency, imagination, and alliances.

CultureStake Pilot at Leeds International Festival 2020

The CultureStake pilot is commissioned by the Leeds International Festival 2020 as part of Furtherfield’s Future Fairness. This is a family-friendly fair of art and technology activities to examine the future of the world we live in, and to invite participants to choose what they want to see in Leeds in the future. 

Using the CultureStake voting app they will decide together which project they would like to see commissioned on a larger scale in Leeds. 

CultureStake Uses Quadratic Voting and the Blockchain

Quadratic voting (QV) was developed as an improvement on one-person-one-vote collective decision-making processes. It attempts to address the associated “tyranny of the majority” problems and data loss about voter intentions (so well understood by Post Brexit citizens of the UK). 

The significance of election and referenda results are dangerously open to interpretation and manipulation by authorities. By providing more information QV has the potential to allow communities of people to better understand what vote results say about their values and intentions.

How Does Quadratic Voting Work?

All participants receive the same limited number of voting credits that they can distribute to express nuanced preferences. For this reason, voters only use their voting credits on things that matter to them. The quadratic system also enables participants to express the intensity of their preferences for all options, but it costs them proportionately (quadratically) more credits to express strong feelings. (See table)

The CultureStake system will store voting data about each artwork on the Ethereum blockchain (a cryptographically secured distributed database) to guarantee ongoing access to tamper-proof public data. 

CultureStake tests the ability of QV on the blockchain to produce trusted voting data – secure, transparent, and permanent – about culture experienced in places.

> Voting creates communally-owned information about what matters to people on the culture that happens in places.

> Voting contributes to shared knowledge about collective preferences, attitudes, and values.

Software

CultureStake Software is published under a GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 AGPL-3.0

Main Repository URL: https://github.com/lazaruslabs/culturestake

Smart Contracts Repository URL: https://github.com/lazaruslabs/culturestake-contracts

Subgraph Repository URL: https://github.com/lazaruslabs/culturestake-subgraph

Infrastructure Provisioning URL: https://github.com/lazaruslabs/culturestake-provisioning

Credits

CultureStake is a DECAL/Furtherfield project. 

Concept by Ruth Catlow, Charlotte Frost & Marc Garrett. Contributions by Sam Hart, Irene Lopez de Vallejo, Gretta Louw, Rhea Myers, Stacco Troncoso, and Ann Marie Utratel. 

Technical development by Sarah Friend & Andreas Dzialocha.

Visual identity by Studio Hyte

Birbirine hiper güçlü ağlarla bağlanmış bir dünyada yerel ötesi bir dayanışma kurmayı hedefleyen Birleşik Krallık, Sırbistan, Türkiye ve Yunanistan’dan sanatçılar arasındaki iş birliği ve bilgi paylaşımından doğan çalışmaların sergisi.

EXHIBITION NOW ONLINE

Exhibition Catalogue

SEE IMAGES FROM THE PRIVATE VIEW

TransLocal Cooperation exhibition, Connect for Creativity from Furtherfield on Vimeo.

Yerel Ötesi İş Birlikleri nedir?

Dünyamız hiper güçlü bağlarla birbirine bağlandıkça çok sayıda gerçek ve sanal mekânda eşzamanlı olarak bulunmak ya da bunların arasında seyahat etmek mümkün hâle geldi. Bunun sonucunda giderek artan bir hızla kendimizi birden fazla yer ya da kültürle özdeşleştirmeye başladık. Küreselleşmenin bu sosyal ve kültürel boyutu, genellikle belli bir yerde düzenlenen etkinliklerin, o yere özgü koşulların ve niteliklerin büyük bir hızla başka bir yeri etkilemesi ve o yerle bağlantı kurulmasını sağlaması anlamında ‘yerel ötesilik’ şeklinde tanımlanıyor.

Bu sergi ve bünyesindeki eserler, yerel ötesi topluluklarımızla ve onların kendileri arasındaki mesafeleri ve farklılıkları dikkate alarak nasıl örgütlenebileceğimizi ele alıyor. Sergi, Birleşik Krallık, Sırbistan, Türkiye ve Yunanistan’dan sanatçıların, Türkiye’de ATÖLYE, Yunanistan’da BIOS ve Sırbistan’da Nova Iskra yaratıcı platformlarının ev sahipliği yaptığı sanat ve teknoloji rezidans programları sırasında yarattıkları çalışmalardan bir seçkiye yer veriyor. Bu sanat eserleri çoğul kimliklerimizi ve onların yaratıcı dışavurumlarını nasıl kucaklayabileceğimiz, daha fazla iş birliği ve empati kurmak için oluşan yeni bağlantıları nasıl kullanabileceğimiz ve paylaşabileceğimiz sorularını yöneltiyor.

Kendileri de yerel ötesi olan Birleşik Krallık, Sırbistan, Türkiye ve Yunanistan’dan küratör ekibimizin sergilenmek üzere seçtiği eserler, sanal gerçeklikten üç boyutlu baskıya, probiyotik fermantasyondan etnografik dokümantasyona çok farklı araçlardan ve teknolojilerden yararlanarak yaratıldı. Sanatçılar, zaman ve mekândan koparılmış insanların, kültürlerin ve fikirlerin karşı karşıya oldukları güçlükleri görselleştirerek bu güçlüklerin hızla değişen bir dünyada yerel-ötesi dayanışma ve bilgi alışverişi için nasıl yeniden değerlendirileceğini ve oluşturulacağını inceliyor.

Simdi ve burada, geçmişte ve orada, Türkiye’de Hasankeyf’in sular altında kalması ve insanların yerlerinden edilmeleri ile Sırbistan’ın Belgrad şehrinde yaşayanların evlerinden tahliye edilerek yerlerinden edilmeleri arasındaki geçişkenliklere uzanan sanatçılar, bu proje vesilesiyle küreselleşmenin belli yerel topluluklar üzerindeki etkilerini inceliyorlar. Daha da önemlisi, bazı yerel kaygıların sınırlar ve kültürler ötesi izdüşümlerini, yansımalarını ve bağlantılarını ortaya çıkarmayı hedefliyorlar.

Connect for Creativity 

Connect for Creativity, British Council önderliğinde Türkiye’den ATÖLYE ve Abdullah Gül Üniversitesi, Yunanistan’dan BIOS ve Sırbistan’dan Nova Iskra ortaklığıyla yürütülen ve 18 ay boyunca devam eden bir proje. Proje, Yunus Emre Enstitüsü tarafından yürütülen ve Avrupa Birliği ile Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nin ortak finanse ettiği Kültürlerarası Diyalog Programı çerçevesinde hayata geçirilmektedir. Proje, Avrupa’da yaratıcı platformlardan oluşan bir ağ kurmak ve böylelikle daha uyum içinde, açık ve kenetlenmiş bir sivil toplum yaratmaya katkıda bulunacak yaratıcı keşif ve işbirliği olanaklarını desteklemeyi amaçlamaktadır.

Connect for Creativity Sanat ve Teknoloji Rezidans Programı, Birleşik Krallık, Sırbistan, Türkiye ve Yunanistan’dan sanatçıları, kültürlerarası iş birliği deneyimine odaklanmaları amacıyla bir araya getirdi. Dörder sanatçıya ev sahipliği yapan Atina, Belgrad ve İstanbul’da eş zamanlı olarak gerçekleşen program, toplam 12 sanatçıyı ağırladı. Son derece yoğun geçen altı haftalık rezidans programı boyunca sanatçılar, iş birliği ağlarıyla birbirine bağlanmış bir kültürün modern dünyaya egemen olan belirsizlik ve değişimiyle başa çıkmak için yakınlaşmayı nasıl sağlayabileceği sorununu ele aldı.

Sergi Mekânı

Eserler, Finsbury Park’ın ortasında bulunan Furtherfield Gallery’de sergilenecektir. Furtherfield Gallery, haftada aşağı yukarı 55 bin kişi tarafından ziyaret edilen bu kent parkının tam kalbinde yer alıyor ve Londra’nın yerel olarak neredeyse 200 dilin konuşulduğu üç semtinin sınırlarının ‘süper mozaik’ olarak anılan kesişim noktasında bulunuyor. Bölge, Birleşik Krallık’ta Türkiye ve Yunanistan göçmen nüfusun en yoğun olduğu mahalle ve Birleşik Krallık’taki en kalabalık Sırp topluluğun yaşadığı Batı Londra bölgesinin hemen yanında yer alıyor.

Eserler

Açık Bir Gazete (Bir hareketi tahliye edemezsiniz.) – Theo Prodromidis (Theodoros Karyotis, Tonia Katerini, Stathis Mitropoulos, Nemanja Pantović ve Ana Vilenica ile ortak çalışma)

Sırbistan’da konutlardan tahliyelerdeki muazzam artışa yol açan süreçleri ele alan bu çalışma, kişisel konutları korumaya dair yasal çerçevenin Nisan 2020’de ‘vadesinin dolacak olması’ nedeniyle Yunanistan’daki güncel durumla da bağlantı kuruyor. Kolektif çalışma sonucu ortaya çıkmış olan bu baskı eser, giderek tırmanan küresel konut krizi bağlamında yaşanan mücadelelerle ilgili bir bilgi aracı işlevi görüyor.

Download and distribute your own copies now

Probiyotik Ritüeller – Ioana Man

Şehirler karmaşık ekosistemlerdir ve içlerindeki insanların varoluşu, bakımın çeşitli katmanlara yayılan ilişkilerle sağlanmasına bağlıdır. Probiyotik Ritüeller şehirde insandan-daha-fazlasını temsil eden bir yaşam için yeni gelenekler oluşturmayı amaçlıyor. Ölçeği büyütülmüş mikroplar, artırılmış gerçeklik arayüzü, bir internet sitesi ve bir dizi ritüel, gözlemci konumundaki insanı biyosferde bir vızıltı ile aynı konuma indirger ve toplumun mikroskopik hayata olan bağımlılığı gösterir. Birden fazla türün dâhil olduğu ritüeller ve görseller, şehrin daha küçük sakinleriyle birlikte yaşamayı güçlendirecek bir süreç ortaya koyar.

Öz Yaratım: Birlikte Oluşmanın Katmanları – Yağmur Uyanık

British Museum’daki iki ‘özgün’ heykelin dijital modellerini birleştirerek yaratılmış melez bir karakterin üç boyutlu baskı sonucu elde edilmiş kumtaşı heykeli: Makedonyalı III. İskender (Büyük İskender olarak anılır) ve antik Yunanlı Periskles. Öz Yaratım, ses ve heykeli bütünleştirerek kültürel bilgi yaratımının, yayılımının ve korunmasının coğrafi bağlamları, yerinden edilmişlik biçimlerini ve devletsizliği nasıl ön plana çıkardığını ortaya koyuyor. Kişisel anlatının ve kolektif belleğin kültürel mülkiyet, kültürel değer ve onlara içkin sembolik anlamlar sayesinde nasıl biçimlendirildiğini irdeliyor.

Bilinç Akışı / Hasankeyf‘in Mağaraları – Emmy Bacharach

Sanal gerçeklik deneyimi biçiminde olan bu çalışma, Türkiye’nin güneydoğusunda bulunan antik yerleşim bölgesi Hasankeyf’in yerel ve yerel ötesi önemine dikkat çekiyor. Yerleşim bölgesi, Dicle nehrinin sularının yükselmesine neden olacak Ilısu Barajı yüzünden sular altında kalarak yok olma tehdidi altında. Fotogrametri yöntemi ve bölgeden toplanan görsel malzemelerle Hasankeyf’in temsilini yaratan çalışmada ziyaretçilere, çoğu kısa süre sonra sular altında kalacak olan mağaraların benzersiz ortamıyla ilgili bir resim çiziliyor. Mağaralar yavaş yavaş suyla dolarken, bu deneyimi suyun bakış açısından yaşayan ziyaretçiler, aynı zamanda yerlerinden edilmiş yerel halkın travmasını da hissetmiş oluyor.

Taşa Kazınmış – Tamara Kametani

GDPR (Avrupa Birliği’nin Genel Veri Koruma Tüzüğü) kapsamında ‘unutulma hakkı’, herhangi bir kişinin bazı tartışmalı durumlarda kendisiyle ilgili olumsuz bilgilerin arama listelerinden silinmesini talep edebilmesi anlamına gelir. Taşa Kazınmış, maddelerin, yerel ötesi kültürlerin maddi değilmiş gibi görünen boyutları üzerindeki etkisi üstünde şiirsel bir meditasyon oluşturur. İnternet ortamında hem mahremiyet hem de ifade özgürlüğünün meşru ve gayrimeşru kullanımlarıyla ilgili hararetli tartışmalar devam ederken, bu çalışma Atina mermerine elle işlenmiş verilerin ömrü ile ilgili cümleler kuruyor ve böylelikle eylemlerin hem çevrimiçi hem de çevrimdışı ortamdaki sonuçlarını tarihsel olarak düşündürmeyi hatta belleğe kazımayı amaçlıyor.

Kurtuluş’a Dört Durak – Georgios Makkas

Bu çok kanallı video, 20 bini aşan Rum nüfusu nedeniyle eskiden beri ‘Küçük Atina’ olarak anılan Kurtuluş mahallesini ele alıyor. Günümüzde de bu kozmopolit mahalle, Rum nüfusun etkisi ve sayısı giderek azalmakla birlikte Türk, Rum, Ermeni, Kürt ve Musevi toplulukların yaygın olarak yaşadığı bir mahalle olmaya devam ediyor. Makkas’ın hâlâ bu mahallede yaşamayı sürdüren Rumlarla yaptığı görüşmeleri merkeze alan çalışması, ebediyen yok olacak bir şeyleri belgelendirme fırsatını değerlendirerek eski Kurtuluş’un belleğini korumayı amaçlıyor.

Küratörler

Ruth Catlow, Lina Džuverović, Diana Georgiou, Huma Kabakcı

Sergi Ortakları

Furtherfield
Furtherfield, Londra’nın en uzun süredir faaliyette olan sanat ve teknoloji (adem-i) merkezi. 20 yılı aşan deneyimimiz, 50’den fazla sergimiz ve 100’den fazla uluslararası ortaklığımızla alternatif örgütlenme ve ortak yaratım sistemlerinde uzmanlık geliştirdik. BBC, Guardian, New Scientist, Wired, Art Newspaper ve Hyperallergic çalışmalarımıza yayınlarında yer verdi. Piccadilly Metro Hattı haritasında Buckingham Sarayı’nın yanı sıra görülmesi gereken yerler arasında gösterilen Furtherfield Gallery, gelir eşitsizliğinin en yüksek oranlarda seyrettiği Haringey semtinde bulunuyor. İnsanlara hayatlarına ve yaşadıkları yere ortaklaşa sahip oldukları hissini veren çalışmalar üretmeye çalışıyoruz.
furtherfield.org

British Council
British Council, Birleşik Krallık’ın kültürel ilişkiler ve eğitim fırsatlarından sorumlu uluslararası kuruluşudur. 100’ü aşkın ülkeyle, kültür-sanat, İngilizce, eğitim ve sivil toplum alanlarında çalışmaktadır. Geçen yıl 65 milyondan fazla kişiyle yüz yüze, 731 milyonun üzerinde kişiyle de internet üzerinden, radyo ve TV programları ve basılı yayınlarla iletişim kurdu. Fırsatlar yaratarak, bağlantılar kurarak ve güven inşa ederek değiştirdiği yaşamlarla, beraber çalıştığımız ülkelere olumlu katkılar sunuyor. 1934 yılında kurulan British Council, Kraliyet Tüzüğü ile tüzel kişilik kazanmış bir hayır kurumu ve bir kamu kuruluşudur. Gelirinin yüzde 15’i ise Birleşik Krallık hükümeti tarafından karşılanmaktadır.
https://www.britishcouncil.org.tr

ATÖLYE
ATÖLYE, ödüllü Stratejik Tasarım Stüdyosu’nu canlı bir topluluk aracılığıyla iş birlikleri geliştiren Yaratıcı Platform’unun içine yerleştiren ve 21. yüzyıla ait yaratıcı hizmetler geliştiren bir organizasyondur. ATÖLYE, 2020’den itibaren değişimin öncülerini güçlendirmeyi amaçlayan Akademi’yi de hayata geçirmiştir. ATÖLYE, aynı zamanda, ekonomiyi ve toplumu harekete geçirecek yaratıcılığa kaynak olmak amacıyla kurulmuş ve stratejik olarak seçilerek özenle bir araya getirilmiş yaratıcı şirketlerden oluşan bir kolektif olan kyu Collective’in de bir parçasıdır. ATÖLYE’nin üstlendiği projeler strateji, tasarım, mimari ve teknoloji alanlarında yaratıcı danışmanlığın bütün açılarını kapsamaktadır. ATÖLYE, bu hizmetleri modern ve eşsiz bir yetenek ağı ile sunar. ATÖLYE, aynı zamanda Avrupa Yaratıcı Platformlar Ağı’nın yönetim kurulunda temsil edilen bir üyesidir. https://atolye.io/en/home/

BIOS
BIOS, Atina’da günümüz sanatı ve çapraz medyaları üzerine uzmanlaşmış bir merkezdir. BIOS iki konser sahnesi, dört barı, tiyatro ve performans mekânları, prova alanları, grafik tasarım ofisi, sinema ve enstalasyon alanıyla esnek, çok amaçlı bir merkez konumundadır.
https://www.bios.gr/

Nova Iskra
Nova Iskra, Balkanlar’da öncü bir yaratıcı platformdur. Nova Iskra, yaratıcı endüstriler, teknoloji ve insanlar arasında elle tutulur bağlantılar kurulmasını destekleyerek eleştirel düşünmeyi teşvik etme, fikirleri besleme, sürekli değişen günümüz koşullarına karşı duyarlılığını korurken gelecekte ayakta kalabilecek kurumlar tasarlama ve işletmeler kurma amacıyla kurulmuştur.
https://novaiskra.com/en/

Abdullah Gül University
Abdullah Gül Üniversitesi (AGÜ), Türkiye’de ilk vakıf destekli devlet üniversitesi modeli ile 21 Temmuz 2010 tarihinde kurulmuştur. Üniversite, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nin ilk ve en büyük sanayi yerleşkelerinden biri olan Sümerbank Bez Fabrikası’nın eğitim kampüsüne dönüşümü projesidir. İlk öğrencilerini 2013-2014 akademik yılında almıştır. Üniversitenin ikinci kampüsü olan Mimar Sinan Kampüsü’nün yapımı da devam etmektedir. Kayseri’ye yeni bir devlet üniversitesi kazandırılmasına yönelik çalışmalar, Büyükşehir Belediye Başkanlığı girişimiyle bir araya gelen Kayseri’nin kanaat önderleri tarafından 2007 yılında başlatılmıştır. Üniversitenin, kalkınması ve girişimciliği ile Türkiye’de örnek gösterilen Kayseri’nin vizyonuna uygun olarak, kenti eğitimde de öne çıkarması amaçlanmıştır.
http://www.agu.edu.tr/

Merkezi Finans ve İhale Birimi (CFCU)
Türkiye’yi aday ülke olarak kabul eden 10-11 Aralık 1999 tarihli Avrupa Konseyi Helsinki Zirvesi kararının ardından, Türkiye-AB mali işbirliğinin ana çerçevesi değişmiş ve AB mali yardımları katılım öncesi amaçlarına ve nihai olarak tam üyelik hedefine yönelmiştir. Bu değişiklik Türkiye’yi CFCU’nun da içinde yer aldığı, kısaca ‘‘DIS’’ olarak bilinen ‘Merkezi Olmayan Uygulama Sistemi’ ni kurmaya yönlendirmiştir. Merkezi Finans ve İhale Birimi bir uygulayıcı kurum olarak, Avrupa Birliği tarafından finanse edilen programlar kapsamındaki tüm mal ve hizmet alımları ile yapım işi ve hibelere ilişkin projelerin genel bütçeleme, ihaleye çıkma, sözleşme, ödeme, muhasebe ve mali raporlama işlerinden sorumludur. Bir ‘Program Yetkilendirme Görevlisi’ nin sorumluluğu altında çalışan CFCU, ihalelere ilişkin AB kural, düzenleme ve usullerine bağlı kalınmasını ve düzgün bir raporlama sisteminin işlemesini temin eder.
https://www.cfcu.gov.tr/

Yunus Emre Enstitüsü
Yunus Emre Enstitüsü, Türkiye’yi, kültürel mirasını, Türk dilini, kültürünü ve sanatını tanıtmak, Türkiye’nin diğer ülkelerle ilişkilerini ve dostluğunu geliştirmek, kültürel alışverişini artırmak ve Türk dili, kültürü ve sanatı alanlarında eğitim almak isteyenlere yurt dışında hizmet vermek amacıyla kurulmuştur. Eğitim, bilim ve kültür-sanat alanlarında faaliyetlerini sürdüren Enstitü, Türkiye’nin uluslararası alanda bilinirliğini, güvenilirliğini ve itibarını artırmak misyonuyla hareket ederken dünyanın her yerinde Türkiye ile bağ kuran ve Türkiye’ye dost insan sayısını artırmayı hedeflemektedir. Yunus Emre Enstitüsü, kültürel etkileşim ve diyalogu artıracak birçok farklı proje yürütmektedir. Enstitünün Avrupa Birliği ortak fonuyla hayata geçirdiği ilk projesi olan Türkiye-AB Kültürlerarası Diyalog Programını ile Türkiye ve AB ülkeleri arasındaki kültürel alışverişin ve ilişkilerin geliştirilmesi, güçlendirilmesi hedeflenmektedir. Aynı zamanda, Yunus Emre Enstitüsü’nün Avrupa ulusal kültürel enstitüleri ve onların çatı kuruluşu EUNIC ile ilişkilerinin artmasına ve güçlenmesine yönelik çalışmalar da yürütülmektedir.
https://www.yee.org.tr/en

Kültürlerarası Diyalog
Yunus Emre Enstitüsü tarafından yürütülen ve Avrupa Birliği ile Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nin eş finansmanı ile hayata geçen AB-Türkiye Kültürlerarası Diyalog Programı, farklı kültürlerden gelen çeşitli kurumları sanat ve kültüre tahsis edilen finansal destek sayesinde bir araya getirerek AB ve Türkiye arasında kültürel diyaloğun güçlenmesini amaçlamaktadır.
https://icd.yee.org.tr

Katılımcı Biyografileri

Emmy Bacharach mimarlık, ses, sinema ve çok boyutlu teknolojilerin kesişim noktasında duran bir mekân tasarımcısı, DJ ve görsel-işitsel sanatçı. Çalışmalarında dijital teknolojilerin yarattığı toplumsal, siyasi ve uzamsal olanakları inceliyor. Emmy, Cambridge Üniversitesi’nde mimarlık eğitimini tamamladıktan Royal College of Art’ta yüksek lisans yaptı ve bu sırada ses, animasyon ve çok boyutlu gerçeklikle tanıştı. Goldsmiths Digital Studios’taki Volumetric Ecologies: Environments, Bodies and Mediated Worlds sergisinde gösterilen enstalasyon çalışması ‘Proxy Architecture’, izleyiciyi sanal bir dünyayla çevreliyor. İstanbul’un dijital görüntülerinden oluşan bir yüzer şehir, sanal ortamın kolektif potansiyelini tartışmaya açıyor. Araştırma projesi ‘Sonic Urbanism in Detroit: Techno as a Spatial Act’ (Detroit’te Sonik Şehircilik: Mekânsal Bir Eylem Olarak Tekno) kentsel mekânların müzik alt kültürü üzerindeki etkisini araştırırken tekno üretiminin mekânsal özneliği ve Detroit’in sanayi-sonrası kentsel koşullarının ortaya çıkardığı sonik kolektifliği savunuyor. İnşa edilmiş ortamlarda verileri ve artırılmış gerçekliği inceleyen disiplinlerarası tasarım kolektifi Xcessive Aestehtics’in kurucularından biri. https://www.rca.ac.uk/students/emmy-bacharach/

Ruth Catlow, Furtherfield’in Eş Kurucu Sanat Direktörü ve özgürleştirici iş birliği kültürleri, uygulamaları ve poetikaları konusunda önde gelen bir otorite. Mekân yaratma, alternatif ekonomiler ve ortak paydalar temalarına odaklanan 60’tan fazla dijital sanat sergisinin eş küratörlüğünü üstlendi. Konferanslarda konuşmacı ve sanat, teknoloji ve toplumsal değişimi konu alan sayısız yayının yazarı olmasının yanı sıra uluslararası saygınlığa sahip Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchain’in editörlüğünü yaptı. 2019’da Ben Vickers (Serpentine Galleries) ve Goethe-Institut ile ortaklaşa geliştirdiği blok zinciri ve sanat laboratuvarı serisi DAOWO, Avrupa Yaratıcı Ekonomi Merkezi (European Centre for Creative Economy) ‘NICE’ ödülünü kazandı. Furtherfield bünyesindeki DeCentralised Arts Lab’in (DECAL) başındaki isim olarak sanatta yeni ekonomik modeller için sektörler arası ortaklıklar geliştirilmesine yönelik çalışmalar yürütüyor.

Dr Lina Džuverović, University of London’a bağlı Birkbeck College’de Sanat Politikası ve Yönetimi dalında küratör ve öğretim görevlisi olarak çalışıyor. Araştırmalarında güncel sanat evreninin dayanışma ve topluluk oluşturma platformu hâline gelmesini sağlayacak yöntemlere odaklanıyor. Lina’nın geçmiş yıllarda üstlendiği görevler arasında IZK – Institute for Contemporary Art, TU Graz, Avusturya bünyesindeki University of Reading’de öğretim görevlisi, Calvert 22 Foundation sanat direktörlüğü, Londra merkezli Electra’nın kurucu direktörlüğü, ICA ve Lux Centre, Londra ve Momentum Bienali, Norveç’te küratörlük sayılabilir. 2006’da Arts Council England tarafından verilen Decibel Mid-Career Curatorial Fellow ödülüne de lâyık görüldü.

Diana Georgiou, Londra’da yaşayan bir yazar ve küratör. Küratoryal çalışmalarında eşcinsel, feminist ve sömürgecilik karşıtı uygulamaları ve kuramları kullanarak kurumsal parametrelerin içinde ve dışında diyalogu, deneyimleri ve iş birliğini güçlendirecek karşılaşma mekânları yaratmaya çalışıyor. En son eş küratörlüğünü üstlendiği projelerden EcoFutures (Londra, 2019) ekolojik sorunların toplumsal cinsiyet, ırk ve cinsellik üzerindeki etkilerine odaklandı ve 70’ten fazla sanatçının, kuramcının ve aktivistin katılımıyla on ortak kuruluşu bir araya getirdi. Seçilmiş projelerinin arasında gezici video sanat sergisi Transitional States: Hormones at the Intersection of Art & Science (Londra, Lincoln, Barselona, Bolonya, 2017-18); Deep Trash Live Art Programme (Londra, 2017-18); düşünce, sanat ve aktivizmi konu alan ve The Showroom, ICA, Space Studios ve Raven Row’da gösterilmiş olan iki haftalık Now You Can Go (Londra, 2015) programı sayılabilir. Georgiou, University of London’a bağlı Goldsmiths’ten Görsel Kültür dalında doktora derecesine sahip ve tezi, feminist psikanalitik kuramlar ışığında sanat yazımı ve öznellik arasındaki ilişkiyi yenilikçi bir gözle değerlendiriyor.

Huma Kabakçı, 1990, Londra doğumlu ikinci nesil koleksiyoncu, bağımsız küratör ve Open Space’in kurucu direktörü. Londra ve İstanbul arasında hem işi hem de yaşamı nedeniyle mekik dokuyor. Kabakçı, London College of Communication’da Reklam ve Pazarlama üzerine aldığı lisans eğitiminin ardından Royal College of Art’ta Çağdaş Sanatta Kürasyon alanında yüksek lisans yaptı. Aralarında Sotheby’s’e bağlı Çağdaş Sanat Satış departmanı (Londra), The Albion Gallery (Londra) ve Pera Müzesi (İstanbul) olmak üzere Birleşik Krallık ve Türkiye’de bulunan pek çok galeri, müze ve müzayede evinde çalıştı. Kabakçı, Londra’daki Türkiye ve Orta Doğu çağdaş sanatına ve gelişmekte olan ülkelerin çağdaş sanat uygulamalarına özel olarak ilgi duyuyor. Küratoryal araştırmalarının merkezinde diaspora, göç, kültürel kimlik, kültürlerarası diyalog ve bellek konuları yer alıyor. Border_less, FAD Magazine, Guggenheim Blog, Istanbul Art News ve SYRUP Magazine gibi yayınlara katkı veriyor. Kabakçı 2018’de Liverpool Bienali kapsamında bir küratöryel ‘fellowship’ programı tamamladı. En yeni projesi ise kürasyonunu Inês Neto dos Santos ile birlikte üstlendiği, Open Space’de sergilenen Tender Touches (Yumuşak Dokunuşlar) (Londra) çalışması.

Tamara Kametani, Slovakya doğumlu, Londra’da yaşayan bir görsel sanatçı. Mekâna özgü sanatı merkeze alan enstalasyon, video, fotoğraf ve heykel gibi farklı mecraları kullanıyor. Çalışmalarında dert edindiği konular, iktidar ilişkileri, denetim, mahremiyet ve bilgiye erişim. Çağdaş ve tarihsel anlatıların üretilmesinde ve yeni deneyimlerin ortaya çıkarılmasında teknolojinin oynadığı role özel olarak ilgi duyuyor. 2017 yılında Royal College of Art’ta Çağdaş Sanat Uygulamaları programından yüksek lisans derecesi aldı. Kametani, çeşitli sanatçı rezidans programlarına katıldı; eserleri uluslararası düzeyde sergilendi. En son işleri ve sergileri arasında kürasyonunu AGORAMA, Londra’nın yaptığı (2019); Swayze ffect (Swayze Etkisi), Platform Southwark 404 – Resistance at Digital Age (Dijital Çağda Direniş), RAGE Collective, CFCCA, Manchester (2019); For the Time Being (Şimdilik), The Photographers’ Gallery, kürasyon CCA Royal College of Art, Londra (2019); Digital Diaspora (Dijital Diaspora), Studio 44, Stockholm (2019); Summer Show (Yaz Gösterisi), Florence Trust, Londra (2018) ve Triennial of Photography (Fotoğraf Trienali), Hamburg (2018) sayılabilir.
https://www.tamarakametani.com/

Georgios Makkas 1977’de Atina’da doğdu ve erken yaşlardan itibaren fotoğrafla yakından ilgilenmeye başladı. Birleşik Krallık, Newport’ta Belgesel Fotoğrafçılığı programından mezun oldu. Arnavutluk’un kırsal kesimlerinden kentlere göç konusundaki çalışması Observer Hodge Ödülleri’nde birinci seçildi. 2010 yılında Polonya’nın Poznan kentindeki Academy of Fine Arts’ın ’SETSE’ rezidans programına sanatçı olarak kabul edildi. İşleri, Londra’da National Portrait Gallery’de, Atina Fotoğraf Festivali’nde, Rethymno MedPhoto Festivali’nde, Valensiya Fotonoviembre’de, Reggio Emilia Fotografia Europea’da, Pordenone Le Voci dell’Inchiesta’da, New York DUMBO Arts Festivali’nde ve İstanbul Tasarım Bienali’nde sergilendi. Ayrıca Selanik Fotoğraf Müzesi’nde de kalıcı bir sergisi yer aldı. Makkas, mercek bazlı medyalar yoluyla belleğin korunmasıyla ilgileniyor. İnsanların portre fotoğraflarını çekmekten, hikâyelerini dinlemek ve filme almaktan, ayrıca kentlerin yok olan yüzlerini belgelemekten hoşlanıyor.
https://www.gmakkas.com/about/index

Ioana Man mimarlık, set tasarımı ve eleştirel uygulamalar alanlarında farklı disiplinleri bir araya getiren bir tasarımcı. Alternatif gelecekleri biçimlendirmek, yaratmak ve yeniden tahayyül etmek için mimari, set tasarımı ve ritüeller arasında yeni karşılaşmalar ortaya çıkarıyor. Bu günlerde mimarları ve uygulayıcı konumdaki bilim insanlarını mikroskopik ölçeğe daha da yaklaştıracak uzun soluklu bir proje üzerinde çalışıyor. Open Platform’un talebiyle Wellcome Collection için hazırladığı çalışması, Londra’da Architectural Association’da sergilendi.
www.ioanaman.com
www.probiotic-rituals.com

Theo Prodromidis, Yunanistan’ın Atina kentinde yaşayan bir görsel sanatçı ve yönetmen. Çalışmaları Galerija, State of Concept, Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt, 1. ve 5. Selanik Bienali, 4. Atina Bienali, Werkleitz Zentrum für Medienkunst ve Haus der Kulturen der Welt gibi galerilerde, müzelerde ve festivallerde sergilendi ve gösterildi. 2017’den bu yana National and Kapodistrian University of Athens’ta Bilim Felsefesi ve Tarihi bölümünde Risk Değişimi programında misafir sanatçı olarak görev alıyor ve Open School for Immigrants of Piraeus’ta gönüllü olarak çalışıyor. Institute Of Radical Imagination ve Solidarity Schools Network üyesi. 2019-2020 yıllarında ise Stavros Niarchos Vakfı Sanatçı Destek Programı’nda sanat eserleri kurulu üyesi olarak çalışmalarını yürütmeye devam edecek. www.theoprodromidis.info

Yağmur Uyanık San Francisco’da yaşayan mimarlık, yeni medya ve müzik alanlarında çalışan Türkiyeli bir sanatçı. Çalışmalarında ışık, ses ve mekânı kullanarak yer değiştirme araçlarını yaratıyor, böylelikle tekrarlama, süreç ve elle tutulamazlığa odaklanıyor. Amacı dijital medyanın sınırlarını, fiziksel bir deneyime dönüştürünceye kadar genişletmek. Uyanık, yüksek lisans derecesini Fulbright bursuyla okuduğu San Francisco Art Institute, Sanat ve Teknoloji bölümünden aldı. İşleri, Ars Electronica, Sonar +D, Signal Light Festival, MUTEK, Exploratorium, California Academy of Sciences ve Diego Rivera Gallery gibi enstitülerde uluslararası düzeyde sergilendi.
https://yagmuruyanik.com

Bu yayın Avrupa Birliğinin maddi desteği ile hazırlanmıştır. İçerik tamamıyla British Council’ın sorumluluğu altındadır ve Avrupa Birliğinin görüşlerini yansıtmak zorunda değildir

Furtherfield Gallery at the McKenzie Pavilion is located in the middle of Finsbury Park in North London, across the children’s playground from the cafe, next to the boating pond. Accessible between the gates near Finsbury Park Station and Manor House Station.

Изложба радова насталих кроз сарадњу и размену информација између турских, грчких, српских и британских уметника који покушавају да остваре транслокалну солидарност на локалном нивоу, у нашем хипер-повезаном свету.

EXHIBITION NOW ONLINE

Exhibition Catalogue

SEE IMAGES FROM THE PRIVATE VIEW

TransLocal Cooperation exhibition, Connect for Creativity from Furtherfield on Vimeo.

Шта подразумева појам транслокалне сарадње?

Откада је наш свет постао многоструко увезан, можемо истовремено боравити или кретати се по многоструким физичким и виртуелним просторима. Последица је да се, као појединци, све више поистовећујемо са већим бројем места или култура. Овај друштвени и културни аспект глобализације често се описује као “транслокалност”(translocality), што је ситуација у којој се догађаји, условљености и везе могу брзо преносити са једног на друго место.

Ова изложба, и радови изложени на њој, баве се питањем како се треба организовати да бисмо могли водити рачуна једни о другима, на даљину и без обзира на разлике између наших локалних заједница. Приказан је избор радова настaлих током боравака турских, грчких, српских и британских уметника на уметничким и технолошким резиденцијама, у креативним центрима какви су Радионица (ATÖLYE) у Турској, биос у Грчкој и Нова искра у Србији. Кроз ове уметничке радове, поставља се питање како можемо да подржавамо многоструке идентитете и креативне изразе кроз отварање према другима и успостављање нових веза ради јачања сарадње и ширења емпатије.

Уметничке радове одабрао је наш транслокални тим турских, грчких, српских и британских кустоса, специјално за ову изложбу која се ослања на читав низ различитих медија и технологија, од виртуелне реалности и тродимензионалног штампања, па све до пробиотичке ферментације и етнографских докумената. Уметници визуелно приказују потешкоће и проблеме народа, култура и идеја расељених у простору и времену, постављајући питања о томе како их можемо преиспитати и поново вредновати ради веће транслокалне солидарности и боље размене информација у свету који се убрзано мења.

Остављајући по страни границе између овде и сада, тамо и онда, обухватајући на истом месту поплаве и расељавања у Хасан-Кејфу у Турској и избацивање грађана из станова у у Београду, у Србији, уметници користе ову прилику да проуче и испитују ефекте глобализације на поједине земље, али и да истакну као најважније питање шта треба учинити да би се сазнања о тим локалним бригама проширила изван оквира тих заједница, како да се на њих одговори и успоставе везе неспутане границама и различитим културама.

Connect for Creativity

connectforcreativity.eu

Реч је о 18-месечном пројекту који води Британски савет, у сарадњи са Атолие и Универзитетом Абдуллах Гул у Турској, те организацијама биос у Грчкој и Нова искра у Србији. Пројекат је део програма интеркултуралног дијалога који води Институт Јунус Емре, а суфинансирају га Европска унија и Република Турска. Пројекат има за циљ формирање мреже креативних центара широм Европе, са циљем подстицања креативног истраживања и сарадње који ће допринети изградњи кохезивнијег, отворенијег и боље повезаног цивилног друштва.

Програм уметничких и технолошких резиденцијалних боравака уметника из Грчке, Србије, Турске и Велике Британије у фокусу има искуство интеркултуралне сарадње. ,,Повежи се ради креативности“ је програм који је истовремено реализиован у Атини, Београду и Истанбулу кроз симултане боравке уметника у сваком од ових градова, који су били домаћини за укупно 12 учесника. Учесници су током свеобухватног шестонедељног програма откривали како умрежене културе могу допринети јачој повезаности ради успешнијег суочавања са неизвесностима и променама које доноси савремени живот.

Локација изложбе

Уметничка дела представљена су у галерији ,,Фердерфилд“, у срцу парка Финсбури. Финсбури Парк је урбани зелени простор који сваке недеље користи око 55.000 људи, а налази се у кварту који стоји на граници три лондонска округа. За тај кварт кажу да је “супер-разноврстан”, јер се у њему говори око 200 језика који припадају великим имигрантским заједницама. У овом делу града лоциране су највеће турске и грчке заједнице у Енглеској, а повезан је и са највећом српском заједницом у Енглеској, настањеном у западном Лондону.

Уметнички радови

„Отворене новине“ (Не можете избацити покрет) Теа Продромидиса (Theo Prodromidis) – у сарадњи са Teoдоросом Кариотисом, Тоњом Катерини, Статисом Митропулосом, Немањом Пантовићем и Аном Виленицом – Açık Gazete (Отворене новине)

Ова студија, која се бави процесима који доводе до све чешће појаве избацивања људи из станова у Србији, повезује се са грчким контекстом у коме законски и правни оквир за заштиту првобитних станара „истиче“ у априлу 2020. године. Ово колективно дело, створено уз помоћ штампача, служи и делује као средство информисања о борбама које се воде у контексту све веће глобалне стамбене кризе.

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Пробиотички ритуали (Probiotic Rituals) – Јоана Ман

Градови су сложени екосистеми и људско присуство у њима зависи од слојевитих односа пажње која им се посвећује. Пробиотички ритуали (Probiotic Rituals) теже стварању нових обичаја за живот људи у граду, који обухвата много више од самих односа међу људима. Скалирани микроби, интерфејс проширене реалности, вебстранице и низ других ритуала, изједначавају људског посматрача са зујањем биосфере и показују зависност заједнице од микроскопског живота. Ритуали и слике живота међу разним врстама развијају процесе за побољшање суживота у коме се обраћа пажња и на оне ситније учеснике градског живота.

Самостално стварање (Kendikendiniyetiştirme): Yağmur Uyanık – „Формирање слојева постојања са“ (Selfmaking: Layers of Becoming With)

Скулптура од пешчара, настала уз помоћ 3Д штампача, хибридног је карактера, створена спајањем дигиталних модела две “оригиналне” скулптуре у Британском музеју (British Museum): скулптуре Александра Македонског трећег (познатог као Александар Велики); и старо-грчког Перикла. “Самостално стварање” комбинује звук и скулптуру, показујући како стварање, преношење и чување културног знања почива на географским контекстима, обрасцима одлазака и останка без домовине расељавања и апатридије. Пројект приказује како се индивидуалне приче и колективно сећање обликују кроз културно власништво, културну валуту и кроз симболичка значења која су им својствена.

Ток свести – Пећине Хасанкеифа – Еми Бакарак (Emmy Bacharach), 2019.

У форми искуства виртуелне стварности, овај рад скреће пажњу на локални и транслокални значај Хасанкеифа, древног града који се налази на југу Турске, а угрожен је пројектом Бране Илису (Ilisu Barajı), која прети да подигне водостај реке Диџле и поплави овај град. Хасанкејф је представљен уз коришћење фотограметрије и визуелног материјала сакупљеног са терена, пружајући људима јединствено окружење пећина, а већина ових пећина биће временом поплављена. Публика зна шта ће вода донети, и да ће пећине полако бити потопљене – искуство које је одјекнуло траумом расељеног локалног становништва.

Уклесано у камену  – Тамара Каметани

„Право да будеш заборављен“ као део ГДПР-а (Опште уредбе Европске Уније о заштити података), указује на уклањање негативних информација са интернетских листа за претрагу у одређеним дискутабилним ситуацијама. ”Уклесано у камену” (Set In Stone) представља поетичну медитацију о утицају материјала на разлчичите аспекте транслокалних култура који су често нематеријалне природе. Док на мрежама букте полемике у вези легитимног коришћења, злоупотреба приватности и слободе говора, овај рад користи фразе о животу чињеница руком уклесаних у атински мермер, изазивајући историјске рефлексије или урезивање резултата ових акција у памћење, на мрежи и изван ње.

”Четири станице до Куртулуса” (Four stops to Kurtuluş) – Георгиос Макас (Georgios Makkas)

Овај вишеканални видео бави се округом Куртулуш, који је кроз историју био познат као „Мала Атина“ (на турском – Küçük Atina) због својих више од 20.000 становника грчког порекла. Данас је ово космополитско насеље дом турске, грчке, арменске, курдске и јеврејске заједнице, док његов историјски грчки утицај и број становника и даље опадају. Фокусиран на интервјуе са Грцима који живе у региону, Макасов рад покушава да сачува сећање на „Стари Куртулуш“ (“Еski Kurtuluş”) чиме користи прилику да документује нешто што ће ускоро заувек нестати.

Кустоси

Рут Катлоу (Ruth Catlow), Лина Џуверовић, Диана Георгију, Хума Кабакчи.

Партнери

Фердерфилд (Furtherfield)
Фердерфилд је најстарији центар за уметност и технологију у Лондону, давно основан и дубоко укорењен. Са више од 20 година искуства, преко 50 реалиѕованих изложби и више од 100 међународних партнерстава, развили смо експертизу у алтернативним системима организације и здруженог стварања. Наш рад су представили ББЦ (BBC), Гардијан (Guardian), Нови научник (New Scientist), Wired, the Art Newspaper и Hyperallergic. Истакнута на мапи подземне железнице на станици Пикадили (Piccadilly Underground line) поред главних знаменитости као што је Бакингемска палата (Buckingham Palace), галерија Фердерфилд налази се у власништву локалне управе Харингеј што је локална власт са највећом неједнакошћу у дохотку у Британији. Покушавамо да произведемо дела која људима дају осећај заједничког власништва над њиховим животима и местима у којима бораве.
https://www.furtherfield.org/

Британски савет
Британски савет је британска међународна институција која се бави британским културним односима и могућностима у области образовања. Радимо са више од 100 земаља у домену уметности и културе, енглеског језика, образовања и цивилног друштва. Прошле године директно смо стигли до више од 65 милиона људи. Ако укључимо и онлајн публикације, стижемо до 731 милиона људи. Ми дајемо позитиван допринос земљама са којима радимо отварањем могућности, успостављањем веза, стварањем атмосфере поверења и утицањем на промене у начину живота. Основана 1934. године, наша институција је јавна и добротворна организација из Велике Британије створена путем краљевског едикта. Од владе Велике Британије добијамо грант који представља 15 процената нашег основног фонда.
https://www.britishcouncil.org.tr

ATÖLYE is a 21st-century creative organization with an award-winning Strategic Design Studio that is nested within a creative hub. A is a member of the European Creative Hubs Network and is represented in the Steering Committee. ATÖLYE is also part of the kyu Collective, a collective of strategically curated creative businesses whose purpose is to be a source of creativity which propels economies and societies forward. ATÖLYE’s work encompasses all facets of creative consulting including strategy, design, architecture, and technology. It provides these services through a unique modern network of practitioners. https://atolye.io/en/home/

БИОС
БИОС је центар савремене уметности и умрежених медија у Атини. БИОС је флексибилно мултифункционално подручје које обухвата два простора за музику уживо, четири бара, простор за позориште/перформанс, простор за пробе, канцеларију за графички дизајн, биоскоп и просторе за уметничћке инсталације.
https://www.bios.gr/

НОВА ИСКРА
Нова Искра има пионирску улогу међу креативним хабовима на Балкану. Нова Искра је настала на идеји стварања конкретних веза између креативних индустрија, технологије и људи како би се подржало критичко размишљање, неговале идеје и подржале дизајнерске организације уз развијање пословања оријентисаног ка будућности. Док стреми ка будућности, Нова Искра не губи из вида потребе стварности, која је у стању непрестане промене. https://novaiskra.com/en/

УНИВЕРЗИТЕТ АБДУЛЛАХ ГУЛ
Прве кораке ка оснивању Универзитета Абдуллах Гул предузели су 2007.године Општинско веће града Кајсери и значајни појединци у граду. Циљ је био подићи образовни профил у Кајсерију у складу са властитом визијом развоја града. Универзитет, прихватајући ту част, добио је име по 11. Председнику Републике Турске Абдулаху Гулу. Овај универзитет настоји да се уврсти међу високо-квалитетне елитне универзите у Турској не заостајући у надметању са другим међународним институцијама. То је први државни универзитет у Турској подржан од стране фондације. Званично је основан 21. јула 2010. године. Универзитет Абдуллах Гул (AGÜ) примио је своје прве студенте у академској 2013 – 2014. години. Универзитет је лоциран на тлу где се налазио први турски индустријски комплекс и сада је на путу да се претвори у образовну институцију историјског значаја.
http://www.agu.edu.tr/

CFCU- ЦЕНТРАЛНА ЈЕДИНИЦА ЗА ФИНАНСИЈЕ И УГОВОРЕ.
Након прихватања Турске као земље кандидата на Самиту Савета Европе у Хелсинкију, 10. и 11. децембра 1999. године., промењен је Главни оквир за финансијску сарадњу Турске и ЕУ, Финансијска подршка ЕУ усмерена је на пред-приступне циљеве и коначно пуноправно чланство. Ова промена навела је Турску да оснује систем за финансирање уговора о активностима успостављања „Децентрализованог система примене“ (MOUS). Као извршна агенција, Централна јединица за финансије и уговоре одговорна је за укупни буџет, тендере, уговоре, плаћања, рачуноводство и питања финансијског извештавања за пружање свих услуга, материјала, послова и грантова у контексту програма финансираних од Европске Уније (ЕУ). Под одговорношћу лица надлежног за одобравање програма (СОП), Централна јединица за финансије и уговоре, осигурава да се поштују правила, прописи и процедуре ЕУ везане за тендере и да функционише одговарајући систем извештавања. Централна јединица за финансије и уговоре повезана је са Под-секретаријатом за трезор, који је административно одговоран за финансијско управљање програмима које финансира ЕУ.
https://www.cfcu.gov.tr/

ИНСТИТУЦИЈА ЈУНУС ЕМРЕ
Фондација Јунус Емре је јавна организација која је основана са циљем да доприноси повећању културне размене и промовише пријатељство између Турске и других земаља, да стави на располагање релевантне документа у свету, да промовише Турску, турски језик, историју, културу и уметност, да пружа услуге и обавештења људима у иностранству у вези са турским језиком, културом и уметносшћу који желе да студирају у иностранству, у Турској. Институт Јунус Емре као институција повезана са фондацијом, поред наставка рада на достизању циљева овог закона за подучавање турског језика у културним центрима основаним у иностранству, спроводи културне и уметничке активности на промоцији наше земље и подржава научна истраживања.
https://www.yee.org.tr/en

ИНТЕРКУЛТУРАЛНИ ДИЈАЛОГ
Програмом Интеркултурални дијалог измећу ЕУ и Турске, управља институција Јунус Емре, која промовише културни дијалог између ЕУ и Турске, окупљајући различите институције различитог културног профила у контексту пружања финансијске подршке уметности и култури.
https://icd.yee.org.tr/

У припреми изложбе учествовали су:

Еми Бакарак (Emmy Bacharach) је просторни практичар, аудио-визуелна уметница и ДЈ која ради на пресеку архитектуре, звука, филма и имерзивних технологија. Рад уметнице истражује друштвене, политичке и просторне могућности усвајања дигиталних технологија. Еми је завршила постдипломски програм на aрхитектури, на Универзитету Кембриџ (University of Cambridge), касније је завршила магистарски програм на Краљевском колеџу уметности, где почиње да се бави покретним сликама, звуцима, имерзивним (свепрожимајућим) технологијама. Њена инсталација “Proxy Architecture (Прокси Архитектура)”, приказана је у оквиру Волуметријске екологије у Дигиталним студијама Goldsmiths – Инсталацијски радови на изложби у окружењу, телима и световима за размишљање уронио је публику у виртуални свет, плутајући град дигиталних делова Истанбула, спекулирајући о колективном потенцијалу виртуалног простора. Истраживачки пројекат „Сонична урбанизација у Детроиту: Технологија у смислу просторног покрета“ говори о утицају урбаног простора на музичку суб-културу расправљајући о техно’-продукцији и звучној колективности за просторну агенцију у контексту постиндустријске урбане ситуације у Детроиту. Суоснивач је компаније ,,Xcessive Aesthetics,,То је интердисциплинарни дизајнерски колектив, који истражује проширену стварност у изграђеном окружењу
https://www.rca.ac.uk/students/emmy-bacharach/

Рут Катлоу (Ruth Catlow), је оснивач и уметничка директорка Мorefield-а. Она је успешни стручњак који се бави ослобађањем мрежних култура, пракси и поезије. Сајт је организовао више од 60 изложби дигиталних уметности око алтернативних економија и заједничких тема. Ауторка је бројних публикација о уметности, технологији и друштвеним променама, а била је главни говорник и уредник међународно признатих Blockchain – Уметници који размишљају. Освојила је награду Центар за креативну економију Европе ‘NICE’, blockchain и арт лабораторија серије DAOWO, 2019. године од стране Ben Vickers (Serpantin) и Goethe-Institut. Она је директорка DECAL-а – Децентрализоване уметничка лабораторија, која развија међуиндустријска партнерства за нове економске моделе уметности.

Др Лина Џуверовић, је кустос и предавач у области уметничке политике и менаџмента на Лондонском универзитету – Колеџ Биркбек. Њено истраживање фокусира се на начине на које би област савремене уметности могла да постане центар солидарности и да доприноси учвршћивању заједница. Лина је претходно предавала на Универзитету Рединг, на Институту за савремену уметност (ИЗК), у ТУ у Грацу, у Аустрији, била је метнички директор Фондације „ Калверт 22,“ као и и оснивач и директорка агенције “ Електра“ са седиштем у Лондону. Радила је на пословима кустоса у ICA (Institute for Contemporary Art) и у Центру Лукс, у Лондону, као и на бијеналу Моментум у Норвешкој. 2006.године,била је сарадник кустошког програма „Десибел“, под покровитељством Уметничког савета Енглеске (Arts Council, England).

Диана Георгију (Diana Georgiou), писац и кустос која живи у Лондону. У свом кустошком раду користи различите, феминистичке и антиколонијалне праксе и теорије како би створила подручја сусрета која могу унапредити дијалог, експериментирање и сарадњу унутар и изван институционалних параметара. Најновији заједнички пројекат Eco Futures (Лондон, 2019), фокусирао се на ефекте еколошких питања нација, раса и сексуалности и укључивао је 10 партнерских организација уз учешће више од 70 уметника, теоретичара и активиста. Међу одабраним пројектима били су; видео уметничка изложба Земље у транзицији, Изложба : Хормони на раскрсницама науке и уметности (Лондон, Lincoln, Барцелона, Болоња, 2017-18); Deep Trash (Дубоко смеће), Уметнички програм уживо (Лондон, 2017-18); The Showroom, ICA, Space Studios ve Raven Row (Лондон, 2015); двонедељни програм ,,Now You Can Go, (Сада можеш да идеш) који је општеприхваћен као феминистичка мисао, уметност и активизам. Диана је докторирала јвизуалну културу на Goldsmiths-у, Универзитет у Лондону. На иновативан начин описује однос између феминистичке психоаналитичке теорије, уметничког писања и субјективности.

Хума Кабакчи (Huma Kabakcı) (рођена 1990.године, у Лондону) Колекционар друге генерације која живи и ради између Лондона и Истанбула, Независни је кустос и оснивач – директор Отвореног простора (Open Space). Хума Кабакчи, дипломирала је на курсу рекламе и маркетинг на Колеџу за комуникације у Лондону и магистрирала је Савремене уметности на Краљевском колеџу уметности. Радила је у Енглеској и Турској у разним галеријама, музејима и акцијским кућама укључујући Одељење за продају дела савремене уметности „Sotheby“ (у Лондону), Галерија Албион (у Лондону) и Музеј Пера (у Истанбулу). Хума Кабакчи, посебно се занима турско-блискоисточном савременом уметношћу и савременом уметношћу која се приказује у Лондону. Њена кустошка истраживања и аналазе се често односе на дијаспору, попут миграција, културног идентитета, интер-културалног дијалога и сећања. Доприносила је изради публикација као што су Border_less, FAD Magazine, Guggenheim Blog, IAN (Istanbul Art News) и SYRUP Magazine. Хума Кабакчи, је завршила кустошки курс на Liverpool Bienalе у Ливерпулу 2018. године. Најновији пројекат зове се ,,Додир понуде“, (Лондон), организован је од стране Open Space, где је кустос Инес Нето дос Сантос (Inês Neto dos Santos).

Тамара Каметани (Tamara Kametani), је словачка уметница из Лондона. Рођена је у Словачкој, али ради у различитим окружењима, укључујући и рад на инсталацијама, видео, фотографију и скулптуру. Кључна питања у њеном раду су односи између власти, надзора, приватности и приступа информацијама. Посебно је занима улога коју технологија игра у изградњи савремених и историјских наратива и нова искуства која она пружа. 2017. године магистрирала је из Праксе савремене уметности на Краљевском факултету уметности. Тамара Каметани је учествовала у већем броју уметничких резиденција и излагала на међународном нивоу. Међу најновијим комисијама и изложбама налази се: Swayze ефекат (Swayze effect), AGORAMA, Лондон (Лондон) (2019) кустос Platform Southwark; 404- Отпор у дигиталном добу (404-Resistance in the Digital Age) , RAGE Collective, CFCCA, Manchester (2019); За сада (For the Time Being) Галерија Уметника Фотографије, Лондон (2019). Кустос је CCA Краљевске колеџ за уметност; Дигитална дијаспора, Студио 44, Стокхолм (2019);Summer Show, Florence Trust, Londra (2018) ve Triennial of Photography, Hamburg(2018).
https://www.tamarakametani.com/

Георгиос Маккас (Georgios Makkas)
Рођен је у Атини 1977. године. Од раног детињства веома су га интересовале професије везане за Документарну фотографству. Тај студиј је завршио у Њупорту, у Енглеској. Освојио је низ признања и прво место, награду ,,Observer Hodge Award”, zahvaqujući свом радu o становништву руралне Албаније. Маккас je у 2010. години, bio уметник-резидент у Познану, где је учетвовао на резиденцијалном програму „СЕТСЕ“ на Пољској Академији ликовних уметности. Његов рад је изложен у Националној галерији портрета у Лондону, на Атинском фотографском фестивалу, Med-photo Festivalnу Ретимну, Foto Noviembre, Валенциа, Фотографиа Еуропеа у Регио Емилиа, (Le Vocidell’Inchiesta) у Порденонеу, ДУМБО АртФестивал у Њујорку и на Истанбулском бијеналу дизајна и такође је организован у сталној колекцији Музеја фотографије у Солуну. Макас, се бавио чувањем сећања кроз објектив. Ова његова апликација фотографисањa портрета, слушање причa и снимање прича људи, документовање несталог лица градова. За више информација: https://www.gmakkas.com/about/index

Јоана Ман (Ioana Man), је мултидисциплинарни дизајнер са архитектуром, сценографијом и критичком праксом. Њен приступ омогућава нове сусрете између областима архитектуре, науке и ритуала како би се обликовало, пронашло и редизајнирало алтернативно опредељење будућности. Тренутно је тежиште на дугорочном пројекту чији је циљ приближити архитекте микроскопској скали и научницима који је користе. Њен рад је откупљен од стране Отворене платформе у колекцији Wellcome, изложеној у Лондонском архитектонском удружењу. www.ioanaman.com
www.probiotic-rituals.com

Тео Продромидис (Theo Prodromidis), је визуелни уметник и филмски режисер који живи у Атини. Његови радови су излагани у галеријама, музејима и фестивалима као што су Галерија Нова, тање концепта, прво и пето Солунско Бијенале, Четврто Атинско Бијенале, WerkleitzZentrum Für Medienkunst и Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt. Од 2017. Године добровољно је радио на Одељењу за историју и филозофију Националног и Каподистријског Универзитету у Атини као извођач у оквиру програма Промена ризика и волантирао је у Отвореној школи „Имигранти Пиреја“. Члан је Института за радикалну имагинацију и члан Савета мреже школа солидарности. Тренутно је члан 2019-2020 -Artworks, Програм за стипендије уметничке Фондације Stavros Niarchos.
www.theoprodromidis.info

Јагмур Ујаник (Yağmur Uyanık) је турска уметница која живи у Сан Франциску и бави се областима архитектуре, нових медија и музике. Својим радовима, ова уметница истражује понављања, процесе и нематеријалне ствари стварајући медије за премештање помоћу светлости, звука и простим ширењем дигиталних медија у физичко искуство. Јагмур Ујаник је магистрирала уметност и технологију на Институту за уметност у Сан Франциску као прималац Фулбрајтове стипендије. Рад уметнице је приказан у институцијама као што су Ars Electronica, Sonar D+, Signal Light Festival, MUTEK, Exploratorium, Академија наука, у Калифорнији и у Галерији „ Diego Rivera“.
https://yagmuruyanik.com

Ова публикација произведена је уз финансијску подршку Европске уније. За њену садржину одговоран је искључиво Европски савет, па изнети ставови не морају да се поклапају са ставовима Европске уније.

Furtherfield Gallery at the McKenzie Pavilion is located in the middle of Finsbury Park in North London, across the children’s playground from the cafe, next to the boating pond. Accessible between the gates near Finsbury Park Station and Manor House Station.

Μία έκθεση έργων που προέκυψε μέσα από την συνεργασία και ανταλλαγή γνώσεων μεταξύ καλλιτεχνών από την Τουρκία, την Ελλάδα, την Σερβία και την Αγγλία σε αναζήτηση διατοπικής αλληλεγγύης σε έναν υπερσυνδεδεμένο κόσμο.

EXHIBITION NOW ONLINE

Exhibition Catalogue

SEE IMAGES FROM THE PRIVATE VIEW

TransLocal Cooperation exhibition, Connect for Creativity from Furtherfield on Vimeo.

Τι είναι οι Διατοπικές Συνεργασίες;

Το γεγονός ότι ο κόσμος μας είναι πλέον υπερσυνδεδεμένος μας έχει δώσει τη δυνατότητα να ταξιδεύουμε ή και να βρισκόμαστε ταυτόχρονα, σε διαφορετικούς φυσικούς και ψηφιακούς τόπους. Αποτέλεσμα αυτής της δυνατότητας είναι το ότι οι ταυτότητές μας καθορίζονται αυξανόμενα από παραπάνω από έναν τόπο και πολιτισμικό πλαίσιο. Αυτή η κοινωνική και πολιτισμική πλευρά της παγκοσμιοποίησης περιγράφεται συχνά με όρους «διατοπικότητας», όπου τα γεγονότα, οι συνθήκες και οι σχέσεις που συναντώνται σε μία περιοχή μπορούν να επηρεάσουν και να συνδεθούν ταχύτατα με τις ιδιαίτερες συνθήκες που επικρατούν σε μία άλλη.

Η έκθεση «Διατοπικές Συνεργασίες» και τα έργα αυτής, εξερευνούν τους τρόπους με τους οποίους μπορούμε να οργανώσουμε από κοινού τις αποστάσεις και τις διαφορές μέσα αλλά και προς όφελος των διατοπικών μας κοινωνιών. Η έκθεση παρουσιάζει μία επιλογή έργων που δημιουργήθηκαν από καλλιτέχνιδες και καλλιτέχνες με καταγωγή από την Τουρκία, την Ελλάδα, την Σερβία και το Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο κατά τη διάρκεια της συμμετοχής τους σε residencies στο ATÖLYE στην Τουρκία, Bios στην Ελλάδα και Nova Iskra στην Σερβία. Τα έργα θέτουν το ερώτημα πώς πιθανά θα μπορούσαμε να γιορτάσουμε αυτές τις πολλαπλές ταυτότητες και τις δημιουργικές εκφράσεις τους καθώς μοιραζόμαστε αυτές τις νέες συνδέσεις και είμαστε ανοιχτοί για μεγαλύτερη συνεργασία και ενσυναίσθηση.

Τα έργα επιλέχθηκαν από την επιμελητική ομάδα μας που απαρτίζεται από επιμελήτριες με καταγωγή από την Τουρκία, την Κύπρο, την Σερβία και την Αγγλία, και περιλαμβάνουν μέσα και τεχνολογίες που ποικίλλουν από εικονική πραγματικότητα και 3D printing έως προβιοτική ζύμωση και εθνογραφική τεκμηρίωση. Οι καλλιτέχνες εξερευνούν τις προκλήσεις των ανθρώπων, των πολιτισμών και των ιδεών που έχουν εκτοπιστεί χωρικά και χρονικά, καθώς και τις δυνατότητες επανεκτίμησης και επαναδιαπραγμάτευσής τους με στόχο την διατοπική αλληλεγγύη και την ανταλλαγή γνώσης μέσα σε έναν συνεχώς μεταβαλλόμενο κόσμο.

Ανάμεσα στο εδώ και τώρα, το εκεί και τότε, μεταξύ της ορμητικής και εξελισσόμενης μετατόπισης των ανθρώπων στο Hasan Keyif της Τουρκίας και τον εκτοπισμό των πολιτών που υφίστανται εξώσεις στο Βελιγράδι της Σερβίας, οι καλλιτέχνες εξετάζουν τις επιδράσεις της παγκοσμιοποίησης σε συγκεκριμένες γεωγραφικές περιοχές και αναδεικνύουν το πώς τα «τοπικά» ζητήματα μπορούν να πληροφορήσουν και να δώσουν απαντήσεις με έναν τρόπο που υπερβαίνει τα σύνορα και τα πολιτισμικά πλαίσια.

Connect for Creativity / Ένωση για Δημιουργικότητα

To 18μηνο έργο Connect for Creativity πραγματοποιείται υπό την εποπτεία του Βρετανικού Συμβουλίου σε συνεργασία με το ATÖLYE και το Abdullah Gül University στην Τουρκία, το Bios στην Ελλάδα και το Nova Iskra στην Σερβία. Το έργο είναι μέρος του προγράμματος Intercultural Dialogue που πραγματοποιείται από το Yunus Emre Institute και συγχρηματοδοτείται από την Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση και την Δημοκρατία της Τουρκίας. Το έργο στοχεύει στη δημιουργία ενός δικτύου δημιουργικών κόμβων ανά την Ευρώπη το οποίο θα προάγει τις δημιουργικές αναζητήσεις και συνεργασίες και θα συμβάλλει σε μία πιο συνεκτική, ανοιχτή και συνδεδεμένη κοινωνία των πολιτών.

Το Πρόγραμμα Art and Technology Residency εστιάζει στην διαπολιτισμική συνεργατική εμπειρία και φέρνει κοντά καλλιτέχνες από την Ελλάδα, την Σερβία, την Τουρκία και την Αγγλία. Το πρόγραμμα διεξήχθη παράλληλα στην Αθήνα, το Βελιγράδι και την Κωνσταντινούπολη και φιλοξένησε τέσσερις καλλιτέχνες σε κάθε πόλη, συνολικά δώδεκα συμμετέχοντες στο πρόγραμμα. Μέσω του προγράμματος που διήρκησε έξι εβδομάδες οι συμμετέχοντας διερεύνησαν το πώς οι δικτυωμένες κοινωνίες μπορούν να αναπτύξουν μεγαλύτερη συνοχή έτσι ώστε να αντιμετωπίσουν την αβεβαιότητα και τις μεταβολές που χαρακτηρίζουν τον σύγχρονο τρόπο ζωής.

Περιοχή Έκθεσης

Τα έργα εκτίθενται στην γκαλερί Furtherfield, στην καρδιά του πάρκου Finsbury. Ένας αστικός πράσινος χώρος που χρησιμοποιείται από περίπου 55.000 άτομα κάθε εβδομάδα, το πάρκο Finsbury βρίσκεται στα σύνορα τριών δήμων του Λονδίνου, σε μία πολυπολιτισμική γειτονιά, με περίπου 200 διαφορετικές γλώσσες να ομιλούνται τοπικά από μεγάλες κοινότητες μεταναστών. Συγκεκριμένα, η περιοχή στεγάζει τις μεγαλύτερες τουρκικές και ελληνικές κοινότητες της Αγγλίας και συνορεύει με την μεγαλύτερη σερβική κοινότητα στο Δυτικό Λονδίνο.

Έργα

Θεόδωρος Καρυώτης, Τόνια Κατερίνη, Στάθης Μητρόπουλος, Nemanja Pantovic και Ana Vilenica

Το έργο διερευνά τις διαδικασίες που οδήγησαν σε ένα μεγάλο κύμα εξώσεων στην Σερβία και το συνδέει με την ελληνική πραγματικότητα όπου το νομικό πλαίσιο για την προστασία της πρώτης κατοικίας είναι προγραμματισμένο να «λήξει» τον Απρίλιο του 2020. Πρόκειται για μία έκδοση που έχει παραχθεί συλλογικά και λειτουργεί ως ένα όχημα πληροφόρησης για τους αγώνες στο πλαίσιο μίας διαρκώς αυξανόμενης παγκόσμιας στεγαστικής κρίσης.

Κατεβάστε και μοιραστείτε τα δικά σας αντίτυπα τώρα

Προβιοτικές Τελετουργίες, Ioanna Man

Οι πόλεις είναι πολύπλοκα οικοσυστήματα και η ανθρώπινη ύπαρξη εντός αυτών εξαρτάται από διαστρωματωμένες σχέσεις φροντίδας. Οι Προβιοτικές Τελετουργίες επιδιώκουν να καθιερώσουν νέες συνήθειες για μία ζωή στην πόλη που δεν συμπεριλαμβάνει μόνο τον ανθρώπινο παράγοντα. Μεγεθυμένα μικρόβια, επαυξημένη πραγματικότητα, ένας διαδικτυακός τόπος και μία σειρά τελετουργιών καθιστούν τον ανθρώπινο παρατηρητή ισότιμο με τον βόμβο της βιόσφαιρας και αναδεικνύουν την εξάρτηση της κοινωνίας από την μικροσκοπική ζωή. Τελετουργίες και εικονογραφίες ποικίλων οργανισμών αναπτύσσουν μία διαδικασία για την βελτίωση της συνύπαρξης με τα μικρότερα στοιχεία της πόλης.

Το ποιείν του εαυτού: επίπεδα του συν-γίγνεσθαι, Yağmur Uyanık

Ένα 3D printed γλυπτό από ψαμμίτη που απεικονίζει έναν υβριδικό χαρακτήρα ο οποίος δημιουργήθηκε από την ένωση των ψηφιακών μοντέλων δύο «αυθεντικών» γλυπτών του Βρετανικού Μουσείου: του Αλεξάνδρου ΙΙΙ του Μακεδόνα (Μέγας Αλέξανδρος), και του Περικλή της αρχαίας Ελλάδας. To έργο συνδυάζει τον ήχο και την γλυπτική, τονίζοντας πως η δημιουργία, η διάδοση και η προστασία της πολιτισμικής πληροφορίας βρίσκονται στα θεμέλια των γεωγραφικών συνθηκών, των μοτίβων εκτοπισμού μετατοπίσεων και της ανιθαγένειας (statelessness). Διερευνά το πώς η ατομική αφήγηση και η συλλογική μνήμη διαμορφώνονται μέσα από την πολιτισμική περιουσία, την πολιτισμική κληρονομιά και τις συμβολικές τους ερμηνείες.

Ροή Συνείδησης / Οι Σπηλιές του Hasankeyf, της Emmy Bacharach

Έχοντας τη μορφή μιας εμπειρίας εικονικής πραγματικότητας, το έργο αυτό εφιστά την προσοχή στην τοπική και διατοπική σημασία του Hasankey, μίας αρχαίας πόλης στην νοτιοανατολική Τουρκία, η ύπαρξη της οποίας απειλείται από το πρότζεκτ Ilisu Dam – που θα προκαλέσει την άνοδο της στάθμης του ποταμού Τίγρη και το επακόλουθο πλημμύρισμα της πόλης. Το έργο αναπαριστά το Hasankey χρησιμοποιώντας φωτογραμμετρία και οπτικό υλικό που έχει συλλεχθεί από την περιοχή, δίνοντας μία γεύση από το μοναδικό περιβάλλον των σπηλαίων, πολλά από τα οποία σύντομα θα πλημμυρίσουν. Ο θεατής βιώνει την εμπειρία από τη θέση του νερού και έτσι, όσο τα σπήλαια σταδιακά βυθίζονται, μία συνθήκη που ομοιάζει με το τραύμα του εκτοπισμένου τοπικού πληθυσμού.

Επάνω στην Πέτρα, της Tamara Kametani

Ως μέρος του GDPR (Γενικός Κανονισμός Προστασίας Δεδομένων της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης) το «δικαίωμα στη λήθη» σημαίνει ότι ένα άτομο μπορεί, υπό ορισμένες προϋποθέσεις, να αιτηθεί να αφαιρεθούν αρνητικές πληροφορίες που το αφορούν από λίστες αναζήτησης. Το Set in Stone αποτελεί έναν ποιητικό διαλογισμό σχετικά με την επίδραση των υλικών σε φαινομενικά άυλες πτυχές των διατοπικών πολιτισμών. Εν μέσω οργισμένων συζητήσεων σχετικά με τις νόμιμες χρήσεις και παραβιάσεις τόσο της ιδιωτικότητας όσο και ελευθερίας έκφρασης στο διαδίκτυο, το λεργο παρουσιάζει φράσεις για τη ζωή των δεδομένων, χαραγμένες με το χέρι σε αθηναΐκά μάρμαρα, με σκοπό την πρόκληση μιας ιστορικής αντανάκλασης, ή έστω μιας υπενθύμισης των συνεπειών των πράξεων εντός και εκτός των δικτύων.

Τέσσερις στάσεις για τα Ταταύλα (Kurtuluş), του Γεώργιος Μάκκας

Το πολλαπλών καναλιών αυτό βίντεο εξερευνά τη γειτονιά των Ταταύλων (Kurtuluş), που είναι γνωστή ιστορικά ως «Μικρή Αθήνα» (“Küçük Atina” στα Τουρκικά), λόγω ενός ελληνικού πληθυσμού μεγαλύτερου των 20,000 ανθρώπων. Η κοσμοπολίτικη αυτή γειτονιά σήμερα αποτελεί στέγη για τουρκικές, ελληνικές, αρμένικες, κουρδικές και εβραϊκές κοινότητες, ενώ η ιστορική ελληνική επιρροή εξακολουθεί να υπάρχει. Το έργο του Μάκκα απαρτίζεται από συνεντεύξεις των Ελλήνων ανθρώπων που ζουν ακόμη εκεί (Rum), ενώ επιδιώκει να διατηρήσει τη μνήμη του «παλιού Kurtuluş» με το να καταγράψει κάτι το οποίο πρόκειται να εξαφανιστεί για πάντα.

Επιμελήτριες

Ruth Catlow, Lina Džuverović, Diana Georgiou, Huma Kabakcı

Συνεργάτες της Έκθεσης

Το Furtherfield είναι το μεγαλύτερο (απο)κέντρο τέχνης και τεχνολογίας του Λονδίνου. Με εμπειρία μεγαλύτερη των 20 ετών, με 50+ εκθέσεις και παραπάνω από 100 διεθνείς συνεργασίες, το Furtherfield ειδικεύεται σε εναλλακτικά συστήματα οργάνωσης και συν-δημιουργίας. Το έργο του έχει προβληθεί στο BBC, το Guardian, το New Scientist, το Wired, το the Art Newspaper και το Hyperallergic. Συνυπάρχοντας στον χάρτη της γραμμής μετρό Piccadilly με κεντρικούς προορισμούς όπως το Παλάτι του Buckingham, η γκαλερί Furtherfield βρίσκεται στον δήμο Haringey – την τοπική αρχή της Αγγλίας με τα υψηλότερα ποσοστά εισοδηματικής ανισότητας. Το Furtherfield επιδιώκει να παράγει έργο που δίνει στους ανθρώπους την αίσθηση ότι είναι κάτοχοι των ζωών και των τοποθεσιών τους. https://www.furtherfield.org/

Το Βρετανικό Συμβούλιο είναι ο διεθνής οργανισμός της Αγγλίας που προωθεί τις διαπολιτισμικές σχέσεις και τις ευκαιρίες εκπαίδευσης με δραστηριότητα σε πάνω από 100 χώρες στα πεδία της τέχνης και του πολιτισμού, της Αγγλικής γλώσσας, εκπαίδευσης και της αστικής κοινωνίας. Η άμεση απήχηση του έργου του Βρετανικού Συμβουλίου τον τελευταίο χρόνο έφτασε τα 65 εκατομμύρια ανθρώπους και τα 731 εκατομμύρια ανθρώπους συνολικά, συμπεριλαμβανομένων διαδικτυακών μεταδόσεων και δημοσιεύσεων. Το Βρετανικό Συμβούλιο συνεισφέρει θετικά στις χώρες με τις οποίες συνεργάζεται, αλλάζοντας τη ζωή των ανθρώπων μέσω της προσφοράς ευκαιριών και του χτισίματος διασυνδέσεων και εμπιστοσύνης. Με έτος ίδρυσης το 1934, το British Council αποτελεί μία Αγγλική κοινωνική προσφορά με Βασιλικό Καταστατικό κι ένα δημόσιο σώμα της Αγγλίας. Λαμβάνει 15 τοις εκατό χρηματοδότηση από την Αγγλική κυβέρνηση. https://www.britishcouncil.org.tr

Το ATÖLYE αποτελεί έναν δημιουργικό οργανισμό του 21ου αιώνα, με ένα Στούντιο Στρατηγικής Δημιουργίας που στεγάζεται σε έναν δημιουργικό κόμβο. Είναι μέλος του Διοικητικού Συμβουλίου των Δημιουργικών Κόμβων Ευρώπης. Το ATÖLYE είναι επίσης μέλος του kyu Collective, ενός συνεταιρισμού δημιουργικών επιχειρήσεων, στόχος του οποίου είναι να αποτελεί πηγή δημιουργίας που προωθεί οικονομίες και κοινωνίες. Η δραστηριότητα του ATÖLYE περικλείει όλα τα πεδία δημιουργικής συμβουλευτικής, όπως στρατηγικές, σχεδιασμός, αρχιτεκτονική και τεχνολογία. Παρέχει τις υπηρεσίες αυτές μέσα από ένα μοναδικό, μοντέρνο δίκτυο συμμετεχόντων. https://atolye.io/en/home/

Το BIOS είναι ένας πολιτιστικός οργανισμός που από το 2002 προωθεί τις τέχνες, τους νέους δημιουργούς και τη νέα επιχειρηματικότητα στην Αθήνα. Στηρίζει τις πρωτοπόρες δημιουργικές δυνάμεις, δημιουργεί πεδία διασύνδεσης των τεχνών, της επιστήμης, της κοινωνικής και επιχειρηματικής ζωής και συμβάλλει /επιδρά στην διαμόρφωση της πολιτιστικής ταυτότητας της πόλης. https://www.bios.gr/

Το Nova Iskra είναι ένας πρωτοπόρος δημιουργικός κόμβος στα Βαλκάνια. Δημιουργήθηκε με την ιδέα να προωθήσει δεσμούς μεταξύ δημιουργικών βιομηχανιών, τεχνολογιών και ανθρώπων, με στόχο να υποστηρίξει την κριτική σκέψη, να ενισχύσει ιδέες, να σχεδιάσει οργανώσεις και να αναπτύξει επιχειρήσεις που καθιστούν ασφαλές το μέλλον, ενώ παράλληλα να παραμείνει ευαίσθητο στο συνεχώς μεταβαλλόμενο παρόν. https://novaiskra.com/en/

Τα πρώτα βήματα για την ίδρυση του Πανεπιστημίου Abdullah Gül έγιναν το 2007 από το Δημοτικό Συμβούλιο και άλλα εξέχοντα πρόσωπα της Πόλης της Καισαρείας. Στόχος ήταν η βελτίωση του εκπαιδευτικού προφίλ της Καισαρείας ώστε να συμβαδίσει με το αναπτυξιακό όραμα της πόλης. Το Πανεπιστήμιο πήρε το όνομά του από τον 11ο πρόεδρο της Τουρκικής Δημοκρατίας, Abdullah Gül, ο οποίος δέχθηκε αυτήν την τιμή. Το πανεπιστήμιο δημιουργήθηκε με στόχο να γίνει ένα υψηλά διακεκριμένο πανεπιστήμιο στην Τουρκία και να συναγωνίζεται τα διεθνή ιδρύματα. Το πανεπιστήμιο ιδρύθηκε επίσημα στις 21 Ιουλίου 2010 ως το πρώτο ίδρυμα της Τουρκίας που υποστήριζε το Κρατικό Πανεπιστήμιο. Δέχθηκε τους πρώτους του φοιτητές την ακαδημαϊκή χρονιά 2013-2014. Η εκπαίδευση λαμβάνει χώρα σε μία περιοχή της Τουρκίας όπου βρισκόταν το πρώτο βιομηχανικό σύμπλεγμα, το οποίο μεταμορφώθηκε από ένα μέρος με μεγάλη ιστορική σημασία σε έναν σημαντικό εκπαιδευτικό χώρο. http://www.agu.edu.tr/

Μετά την απόφαση της Συνόδου Κορυφής στο Ελσίνκι του Ευρωπαϊκού Συμβουλίου στις 10-11 Δεκεμβρίου 1999, με την οποία η Τουρκία έγινε δεκτή ως υποψήφια χώρα, το κύριο πλαίσιο της οικονομικής συνεργασίας Τουρκίας – Ευρώπης άλλαξε και η οικονομική υποστήριξη της Ευρώπης στράφηκε στους στόχους της πορείας ένταξης και τελικά της πλήρους συμμετοχής. Η αλλαγή αυτή οδήγησε την Τουρκία να καθιερώσει ένα “Αποκεντρωμένο Σύστημα Εφαρμογής” (DIS) στα πλαίσια του οποίου λειτουργεί και το CFCU. Το CFCU, ως Εφαρμοστικό Όργανο, είναι υπεύθυνο για τον συνολικό προϋπολογισμό, τις προσφορές, τα συμβόλαια, τις πληρωμές, τους λογαριασμούς και τις οικονομικές πτυχές όλων των υπηρεσιών, των εφοδίων, των έργων και των επιχορηγήσεων στα πλαίσια των χρηματοδοτούμενων από την Ευρώπη προγραμμάτων. Έχοντας την ευθύνη της “Διεύθυνσης για την Εξουσιοδότηση Προγραμμάτων” (PAO), το CFCU διασφαλίζει ότι οι ευρωπαϊκοί κανόνες, νόμοι και διαδικασίες ακολουθούνται και ότι λειτουργεί ένα ορθό σύστημα αναφορών. Το CFCU συνδέεται διοικητικά με το Υφυπουργείο Οικονομικών, που είναι υπεύθυνο για την οικονομική διαχείριση των χρηματοδοτούμενων προγραμμάτων από την Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση. https://www.cfcu.gov.tr/

Ο οργανισμός Yunus Emre είναι ένας δημόσιος οργανισμός που ιδρύθηκε για να προωθήσει την Τουρκία, την τουρκική γλώσσα, την ιστορία, τον πολιτισμό και την τέχνη της χώρας, για να καταστήσει σχετικές πληροφορίες και αρχεία διαθέσιμα προς χρήση στο κοινό, να παρέχει υπηρεσίες διεθνώς σε ανθρώπους που επιθυμούν να λάβουν εκπαίδευση στους τομείς της τουρκικής γλώσσας, πολιτισμού και τέχνης, να βελτιώσει τη φιλία μεταξύ Τουρκίας και άλλων χωρών και να αυξήσει την πολιτισμική αλληλεπίδραση. Ως ένα ίδρυμα που σχετίζεται με τον Οργανισμό Yunus Emre, πραγματοποιεί μελέτες για τη διδασκαλία της Τουρκικής σε πολιτιστικά κέντρα ανά τον κόσμο, με στόχο την προώθηση της χώρας σε πολιτισμικό και καλλιτεχνικό επίπεδο, ενώ επιπλέον παρέχει στήριξη και σε επιστημονικές έρευνες. https://www.yee.org.tr/en

Το Πρόγραμμα Διαπολιτισμικού Διαλόγου Ευρώπης- Τουρκίας διοικείται από το ίδρυμα Yunus Emre και συγχρηματοδοτείται από την Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση και την Τουρκική Δημοκρατία και στόχο έχει να βελτιώσει τον πολιτισμικό διάλογο μεταξύ Ευρώπης και Τουρκίας φέρνοντας κοντά διαφορετικά ιδρύματα με ποικίλα πολιτισμικά προφίλ, μέσω της χρηματικής ενίσχυσης για τις τέχνες και τον πολιτισμό. https://icd.yee.org.tr

Βιογραφικά των Συνεργατών

Η Emmy Bacharach είναι επαγγελματίας ειδικευμένη σε θέματα χωροταξίας, οπτικοακουστική καλλιτέχνης και DJ και εργάζεται στο σταυροδρόμι της αρχιτεκτονικής, του ήχου, του κινηματογράφου και των τεχνολογιών εμβύθισης. Το έργο της ερευνά τις κοινωνικές, πολιτικές και χωροταξικές δυνατότητες εκμετάλλευσης των ψηφιακών τεχνολογιών. Η Emmy σπούδασε αρχιτεκτονική στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Cambridge και αργότερα ολοκλήρωσε το μεταπτυχιακό της στο Royal College of Art, όπου ξεκίνησε να μελετά την κινούμενη εικόνα, τον ήχο και τις τεχνολογίες εμβύθισης. Το έργο της “Proxy Architecture”, το οποίο παρουσιάστηκε στην έκθεση “Ecologies: Environments, Bodies and Mediated Worlds” στα Ψηφιακά Στούντιο του Goldsmiths, εισάγει τους θεατές σε έναν εικονικό κόσμο, σε μία αιωρούμενη πόλη που αποτελείται από ψηφιακά κομμάτια της Κωνσταντινούπολης και αποτυπώνει σκέψεις για την συλλογική δυνατότητα του εικονικού χώρου. Το ερευνητικό της έργο “Sonic Urbanism in Detroit: Techno as a Spatial Act” ερευνά την επίδραση του αστικού χώρου στην μουσική υποκουλτούρα, συζητώντας για την χωρική παρέμβαση της τεχνολογικής παραγωγής και της ηχητικής συλλογικότητας στα πλαίσια της μετα-βιομηχανικής αστικής κατάστασης του Ντιτρόιτ. Είναι συν-ιδρύτρια του Xcessive Aesthetics, μιας διεπιστημονικής συλλογικότητας που μελετά δεδομένα και ζητήματα εικονικής πραγματικότητας σε κατασκευασμένα περιβάλλοντα.
https://rca.ac.uk/students/emmy-bacharach

Η Ruth Catlow είναι συν-ιδρύτρια και Καλλιτεχνική Διευθύντρια του Furtherfield και ηγετική προσωπικότητα σε πολλά δίκτυα χειραφετητικής κουλτούρας, πρακτικών και λόγου. Έχει συνεπιμεληθεί παραπάνω από 60 εκθέσεις ψηφιακών έργων σχετικά με θέματα επαναδιαπραγμάτευσης του δημόσιου χώρου, εναλλακτικής οικονομίας και πολιτικών κοινότητας. Βασική ομιλήτρια και συγγραφέας αμέτρητων δημοσιεύσεων σχετικών με την τέχνη, την τεχνολογία και την κοινωνική αλλαγή, έχει υπάρξει και επιμελήτρια του διεθνώς αναγνωρισμένου έργου “Artist Re:Thinking the Blockchain”. Το 2019, η σειρά έργων της “DAOWO” που δημιουργήθηκαν με τον Ben Vickers (Γκαλερί Serpentine) κέρδισαν σε Ευρωπαϊκό Επίπεδο το βραβείο NICE για τη Δημιουργική Οικονομία. Διευθύνει τα Καλλιτεχνικά Εργαστήρια “DECAL” στο Furtherfield και αναπτύσσει συνεργασίες για νέα οικονομικά στο χώρο των τεχνών.

Η Dr. Lina Džuverović είναι επιμελήτρια και Λέκτορας της Καλλιτεχνικής Πολιτικής και Διοίκησης στο Κολλέγιο Birkbeck του Πανεπιστημίου του Λονδίνου. Η έρευνά της εστιάζει σε τρόπους με τους οποίους η σφαίρα της σύγχρονης τέχνης μπορεί να αποτελέσει τόπο αλληλεγγύης και ενίσχυσης της κοινότητας. Η Lina δίδασκε παλαιότερα στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Reading στο IZK- Ίδρυμα της Σύγχρονης Τέχνης, TU Graz της Αυστρίας, ήταν Καλλιτεχνική Διευθύντρια στην Οργάνωση Calvert 22, ιδρυτική διευθύντρια στο γραφείο Electra με έδρα το Λονδίνο, ενώ έχει συμβάλλει σε έργα επιμέλειας στο ICA και στο Lux Centre στο Λονδίνο και το Momentum Biennial στη Νορβηγία. Το 2006 έλαβε τον τίτλο “Decibel Mid-Career Curatorial Fellow” στο Συμβούλιο Τεχνών Αγγλίας.

Η Νταϊανα Γεωργίου είναι συγγραφέας και επιμελήτρια με έδρα το Λονδίνο. Στην επιμελητική της πρακτική επιστρατεύει κουήρ, φεμινιστικές και απο-αποικιακές θεωρίες με στόχο τη δημιουργία τόπων συνάντησης που προάγουν τον διάλογο, τον πειραματισμό και την συνεργασία εντός και εκτός θεσμικών παραμέτρων. Το “EcoFutures”, το πιο πρόσφατο πρότζεκτ που συνεπιμελήθηκε (Λονδίνο, 2019), εστίασε στις επιδράσεις των οικολογικών ζητημάτων στο φύλο, τη φυλή και τη σεξουαλικότητα και συμπεριλάμβανε τη συμμετοχή δέκα οργανώσεων και μιας ομάδας πάνω από 70 καλλιτεχνών, θεωρητικών και ακτιβιστών. Άλλα πρότζεκτ της συμπεριλαμβάνουν την έκθεση βίντεο “Transitional States: Hormones at the Intersections of Art & Science” (Λονδίνο, Λίνκολν, Βαρκελώνη, Μπολόνια, 2017-18), το πρόγραμμα “Deep Trash Live Art” (Λονδίνο, 2017-18), το πρόγραμμα “Now You Can Go” με θέμα την φεμινιστική σκέψη, την τέχνη και τον ακτιβισμό το οποίο έλαβε χώρα διαδοχικά στα Showroom, ICA, Space Studios and το Raven Row (Λονδίνο, 2015). Η Γεωργίου έχει διδακτορικό στον Οπτικό Πολιτισμό από το Πανεπιστήμιο Goldsmiths του Λονδίνου, στο οποίο ανέπτυξε μία καινοτόμα προσέγγιση της σχέσης ανάμεσα στη γραφή για την τέχνη και την υποκειμενικότητα, υπό το πρίσμα φεμινιστικών και ψυχαναλυτικών θεωριών.

Η Huma Kabakcı (γ. το 1990, Λονδίνο) είναι μία συλλέκτρια δεύτερης γενιάς, ανεξάρτητη επιμελήτρια και ιδρυτική διευθύντρια του Open Space, που ζει και εργάζεται μεταξύ Λονδίνου και Κωνσταντινούπολης. Η Kabakcı έχει πτυχίο Διαφήμισης & Μάρκετινγκ από το College of Communication του Λονδίνου και μεταπτυχιακό στην Επιμέλεια Σύγχρονης Τέχνης από το Royal College of Art. Έχει δουλέψει σε διάφορες γκαλερί, μουσεία και τόπους δημοπρασιών τόσο στην Αγγλία όσο και στην Τουρκία, συμπεριλαμβανομένων του τμήματος Πωλήσεων Σύγχρονης Τέχνης του Sotheby’s (Λονδίνο), της Γκαλερί Albion (Λονδίνο) και του Μουσείου Πέρα (Κωνσταντινούπολη). Η Kabakcı έχει ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον στην Τουρκική, Μεσανατολική σύγχρονη τέχνη και την αναδυόμενη σύγχρονη τέχνη στο Λονδίνο. Η έρευνά της αναφέρεται σε θέματα όπως η διασπορά, η μετανάστευση, η πολιτισμική ταυτότητα, ο διαπολιτισμικός διάλογος και η μνήμη. Έχει συνεισφέρει σε δημοσιεύσεις όπως στο Border_less, το περιοδικό FAD, το Guggenheim Blog, το IAN (Istanbul Art News) και το Περιοδικό SYRUP. Το 2018 η Kabakcı ολοκλήρωσε μία επιμελητική υποτροφία στo Biennial του Λίβερπουλ. Νεότερα πρότζεκτ της περιλαμβάνουν το “Tender Touches” (Λονδίνο), με τη συν-επιμέλεια της Inês Neto dos Santos, οργανωμένο από το Open Space.

Η Tamara Kametani γεννήθηκε στη Σλοβακία και κατοικεί στο Λονδίνο Σλοβάκα όπου και ασχολείται με οπτικά καλλιτεχνικά έργα σε ποικιλία από μίντια όπως εγκαταστάσεις, βίντεο, φωτογραφία και γλυπτική, με έμφαση στην διαδικτυακή εξειδίκευση. Από τα κυριότερα ζητήματα που την απασχολούν είναι οι σχέσεις εξουσίας, η παρακολούθηση, η ιδιωτικότητα και η πρόσβαση στις πληροφορίες. Ενδιαφέρεται εν μέρει για τον ρόλο που διαδραματίζει η τεχνολογία για την κατασκευή σύγχρονων και ιστορικών αφηγήσεων και οι νέες εμπειρίες που προσφέρουν. Έλαβε μεταπτυχιακό δίπλωμα στηνΣύγχρονη Καλλιτεχνική Πρακτική από το Royal College of Art το2017. Η Kametani έχει συμμετάσχει σε έναν αριθμό καλλιτεχνικών στεγάσεων και σε διεθνείς εκθέσεις. Πρόσφατες δραστηριότητες και εκθέσεις της περιλαμβάνουν το Swayze effect, Platform Southwark, χορηγούμενο από το AGORAMA. Λονδίνο (2019), 404-Resistance in the Digital Age, RAGE Collective, CFCCA, Manchester (2019); For the Time Being, The Photographers’ Gallery, χορηγούμενο από το CCA Royal College of Art, London (2019); Digital Diaspora, Studio 44, Stockholm (2019); Summer Show, Florence Trust, London (2018) και Triennial of Photography, Hamburg (2018). https://www.tamarakametani.com/

Ο Γεώργιος Μάκκας, γεννημένος στην Αθήνα το 1977, έχει ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον για την φωτογραφία από νεαρή ηλικία. Είναι απόφοιτος Φωτογραφίας Ντοκιμαντέρ στο Newport της Αγγλίας. Το έργο του σχετίζεται με τη πληθυσμιακή μείωση της αγροτικής Αλβανίας και κέρδισε το πρώτο βραβείο στο Observer Hodge Award. Το 2010 ο Μάκκας συμμετείχε στο καλλιτεχνικό πρόγραμμα “SETSE” στην Ακαδημία Καλών Τεχνών στο Ποζνάν της Πολωνίας. Το έργο του εκτέθηκε στη National Portrait Gallery στο Λονδίνο, στο Φεστιβάλ Φωτογραφίας Αθήνας, στο Φεστιβάλ MedPhoto στο Ρέθυμνο, στο Fotonoviembrein Valencia, στο Fotografia Europea στο Reggio Emilia, στο Le Voci dell’Inchiesta στο Pordenone, στο DUMBO Arts Festival στη Νέα Υόρκη και στο Design Biennial της Κωνσταντινούπολης, ενώ έργα του βρίσκονται στη μόνιμη συλλογή του Μουσείου Φωτογραφίας Θεσσαλονίκης. Ο Μάκκας ενδιαφέρεται για τη διατήρηση της μνήμης μέσα από την σκοπιά του φακού των μίντια. Οι πρακτικές περιλαμβάνουν τη φωτογραφία πορτραίτου, τη μαγνητοσκόπηση ανθρώπινων ιστοριών και την αποτύπωση του εξαφανισμένου προσώπου των πόλεων. Περισσότερα στο: https://www.gmakkas.com/about/index

Η Ioana Man είναι multidisciplinary designer με παρελθόν στην αρχιτεκτονική, στον σχεδιασμό και στην κριτική πρακτική. Το έργο της παράγει νέες συνδέσεις μεταξύ των πεδίων της αρχιτεκτονικής, της επιστήμης και των τελετουργιών με σκοπό να σχηματίσει, να ανακαλύψει και να φανταστεί εναλλακτικές μελλοντικές καταστάσεις. Πρόσφατα έχει εστιάσει την προσοχή της σε ένα μακροπρόθεσμο έργο που σκοπεύει να φέρει αρχιτέκτονες κοντύτερα στην μικροσκοπική κλίμακα και στους επιστήμονες που την αξιοποιούν μεθοδολογικά. Έργα της έχουν εκτεθεί με τη στήριξη του Open Platform στη Wellcome Collection και στην Αρχιτεκτονική Κοινότητα Λονδίνου. www.ioanaman.com

Ο Θοδωρής Προδρομίδης είναι visual artist και σκηνοθέτης που μένει στην Αθήνα. Έργα του έχουν εκτεθεί σε γκαλερί, μουσεία και φεστιβάλ όπως το Galerja Nova, το State of Concept, την 1η και 5η Biennale Θεσσαλονίκης, την 4η Biennale Αθήνας, το Werkleitz Zentrum Für Medienkunst και το Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt. Από το 2017 είναι Επισκέπτης Καλλιτέχνης στα πλαίσια του προγράμματος Risk Change στο Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Φιλοσοφίας της Επιστήμης του Εθνικού και Καποδιστριακού Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών και εθελοντής στο Ανοιχτό Σχολείο για Μετανάστες του Πειραιά. Είναι μέλος του Ιδρύματος Ριζοσπαστικής Φαντασίας, της κοινότητας του Δικτύου Σχολικής Αλληλεγγύης, καθώς και υπότροφος του Artworks, του Προγράμματος Καλλιτεχνικών Υποτροφιών του Ιδρύματος Σταύρος Νιάρχος για την περίοδο 2019-2020. www.theoprodromidis.info

Η Yağmur Uyanık είναι καλλιτέχνης από την Τουρκία με έδρα το Σαν Φρανσίσκο, με παρελθόν στα πεδία της αρχιτεκτονικής, των μίντια και της μουσικής. Το έργο της ερευνά την επανάληψη, την πρόοδο και την ασάφεια μέσα από τη δημιουργία οργάνων μετατόπισης με τη χρήση φωτός, ήχου και χώρου κι έχει ως στόχο να εκτείνει τα ψηφιακά μέσα σε τέτοιο σημείο ώστε να καταστούν φυσική εμπειρία. Η Uyanık έλαβε το Μεταπτυχιακό της στη Τέχνη & Τεχνολογία από Ίδρυμα Τέχνης του Σαν Φρανσίσκο ως υποτροφος Fulbright. Το έργο της έχει εκτεθεί σε διεθνές επίπεδο σε θεσμούς όπως το Ars Electronica, το Sonar D+, το Signal Light Festival, το MUTEK, το Exploratorium, την Ακαδημία Επιστημών της California και τη Diego Rivera Gallery. https://yagmuruyanik.com

Η παρούσα έκδοση δημιουργήθηκε με την οικονομική υποστήριξη της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης. Το περιεχόμενο αυτής είναι αποκλειστική ευθύνη του Βρετανικού Συμβουλίου και δεν αντανακλά απαραίτητα τις απόψεις της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης.

Furtherfield Gallery at the McKenzie Pavilion is located in the middle of Finsbury Park in North London, across the children’s playground from the cafe, next to the boating pond. Accessible between the gates near Finsbury Park Station and Manor House Station.

An exhibition of works born of cooperation and knowledge exchange between Turkish, Greek, Serbian and British artists seeking translocal solidarity in a hyper-connected world.

EXHIBITION NOW ONLINE

Exhibition Catalogue

SEE IMAGES FROM THE PRIVATE VIEW

EXHIBITION TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED
Due to universal restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic, Furtherfield Gallery is currently closed until further notice for the safety of staff and visitors. Please contact us at info@furtherfield.org if you need any information or assistance. Thank you for your understanding and patience. Stay safe.

TransLocal Cooperation exhibition, Connect for Creativity from Furtherfield on Vimeo.

What is TransLocal Cooperation?

As our world has become hyper-connected it has enabled us to simultaneously occupy or travel through numerous physical and virtual locations. A result of this is that we increasingly each identify with more than one place or culture. This social and cultural aspect of globalisation is often described in terms of ‘translocality’, where the events, conditions, and attachments of one location can rapidly influence and connect with another.

This exhibition and the works within it consider how we might organise for care across distances and differences with and for our translocal communities. It features a selection of artworks from those created by Turkish, Greek, Serbian and British artists during art and technology residences at the creative hubs ATÖLYE in Turkey, Bios in Greece, and Nova Iskra in Serbia. These artworks ask how we might celebrate plural identities and their creative expressions while opening up and sharing these new connections for greater cooperation and empathy.

Selected by our team of translocal Turkish, Greek, Serbian and British curators, the artworks in this exhibition employ a variety of media and technologies, from VR and 3D printing, to probiotic fermentation and ethnographic documentation. The artists visualise the challenges of peoples, cultures, and ideas, displaced over space and time, and explore how to re-evaluate and reconceive them for translocal solidarity and knowledge exchange in a rapidly changing world.

Crossing between the here and now, the there and then, between the flooding and ongoing displacement of people in Hasankeyf in Turkey to the displacement of citizens through evictions in Belgrade, Serbia, the artists use this occasion to examine the effects of globalisation on specific localities, but most significantly, to highlight how local concerns can inform, respond and interconnect across borders and cultures.

Connect for Creativity 

Connect for Creativity is an 18-month project led by the British Council, in collaboration with ATÖLYE and Abdullah Gül University in Turkey, Bios in Greece and Nova Iskra in Serbia. The project is part of the Intercultural Dialogue Programme that is led by the Yunus Emre Institute and is co-funded by the European Union and the Republic of Turkey. The project aims to form a network of creative hubs across Europe to foster creative exploration and collaboration that contributes to building a more cohesive, open and connected civil society.

Connect for Creativity’s Art and Technology Residency Programme brought together artists from Greece, Serbia, Turkey and the UK with a focus on the intercultural collaborative experience. Held simultaneously in Athens, Belgrade, and Istanbul, the residency hosted four artists in each city for a total of 12 participants in the programme. Throughout the immersive six-week programme, participants explored how a networked culture can develop cohesion to deal with the uncertainty and change that pervades modern life.

Exhibition Location 

The artworks are presented at Furtherfield Gallery in the heart of Finsbury Park. An urban green space used by roughly 55,000 people per week, Finsbury Park sits at the borders of three London boroughs in a neighbourhood described as ‘superdiverse’ for the nearly 200 languages spoken locally by large migrant communities. In particular, the area is home to the UK’s largest Turkish and Greek communities and sits adjacent to the UK’s largest Serbian community in West London. 

Artworks 

An Open Newspaper (You can’t evict a movement) by Theo Prodromidis in collaboration with Theodoros Karyotis, Tonia Katerini, Stathis Mitropoulos, Nemanja Pantović and Ana Vilenica

Addressing the processes that led to a surge of housing evictions in Serbia, this work connects to the Greek context where the legal framework for the protection of primary housing is planned to “expire” in April 2020. This collectively produced printed work acts as a vehicle of information about struggles in an ever-increasing global housing crisis.

Download and distribute your own copies now

Probiotic Rituals by Ioana Man

Cities are complex ecosystems and human existence within them depends on layered relations of care. Probiotic Rituals sets out to establish new customs for a more-than-human life in the city. Scaled up microbes, an AR interface, a website and a series of rituals, bring the human observer on par with the buzz of the biosphere and show society’s dependence on microscopic life. Multi-species rituals and imagery develop a process to improve cohabitation with the smaller elements of life in the city.

Selfmaking: Layers of Becoming With by Yağmur Uyanık

A 3D printed sandstone sculpture of a hybrid character created by fusing the digital models of two ‘original’ sculptures at the British Museum of: Alexander III of Macedon (commonly known as Alexander the Great); and Pericles of ancient Greek. Selfmaking combines sound and sculpture highlighting how creation, circulation and preservation of cultural information underlies geographical contexts, patterns of displacement, and statelessness. It reflects on how individual narrative and collective memory are shaped through cultural property, cultural currency, and their inherent symbolic meanings.

Stream of Consciousness / The Caves of Hasankeyf by Emmy Bacharach

In the form of a virtual reality experience, this work draws attention to the local and translocal significance of Hasankeyf, an ancient city in south-eastern Turkey whose existence is endangered by the Ilisu Dam project – which will cause the water levels of the Tigris river to rise and flood the town. It represents Hasankeyf using photogrammetry and visual material collected from the site, giving people a glimpse into the unique environment of the caves, many of which will shortly be flooded. Experienced from the point of view of the water, the viewer is present as the caves are gradually submerged, an experience that resonates with the trauma of a displaced local population.

Set In Stone by Tamara Kametani

As part of GDPR (The General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union) ‘the right to be forgotten’ means a person can have negative information about themselves removed from search listings under certain arguable instances. Set In Stone therefore forms a poetic meditation on the effect of materials on often immaterial-seeming aspects of translocal cultures. While debates rage about legitimate uses and abuses of both privacy and freedom of speech online, this work presents phrases about the life of data etched by hand onto Athenian marble, to provoke a historic reflection on or even memorialisation of the consequences of actions on and offline. 

Four stops to Kurtuluş by Georgios Makkas

This multichannel video explores the neighbourhood of Kurtuluş which has historically been known as ‘little Athens’ ( Küçük Atina in Turkish) thanks to a Greek population of over 20,000 people. Today this cosmopolitan neighborhood is home to Turkish, Greek, Armenian, Kurdish, and Jewish communities, while the historic Greek influence and population continue to dwindle. Centered around interviews with the Greek (Rum) people still living in the area, Makkas’s work seeks to preserve the memory of the ‘old Kurtuluş’, seizing a chance to document something that is about to disappear forever. 

Curators

Ruth Catlow, Lina Džuverović, Diana Georgiou, Huma Kabakcı

Exhibition Partners 

Furtherfield is London’s longest running art and technology (de)centre. With more than 20 years experience, through 50+ exhibitions, and over 100 international partnerships, they have developed a specialism in alternative systems of organisation and co-creation. Their work has been featured by the BBC, the Guardian, the New Scientist, Wired, the Art Newspaper and Hyperallergic. Highlighted on the Piccadilly Tube Line map of key destinations alongside Buckingham Palace, Furtherfield Gallery is in the Borough of Haringey – the UK’s local authority with the highest levels of income inequality. They strive to produce work that gives people a shared sense of ownership of their lives and localities.

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. They work with over 100 countries in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society. Last year, they reached over 65 million people directly and 731 million people overall including online, broadcasts and publications. They make a positive contribution to the countries we work with – changing lives by creating opportunities, building connections and engendering trust. Founded in 1934, they are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body. They receive 15 percent core funding grant from the UK government. https://www.britishcouncil.org.tr

ATÖLYE is a 21st-century creative organization with an award-winning Strategic Design Studio that is nested within a creative hub. A is a member of the European Creative Hubs Network and is represented in the Steering Committee. ATÖLYE is also part of the kyu Collective, a collective of strategically curated creative businesses whose purpose is to be a source of creativity which propels economies and societies forward. ATÖLYE’s work encompasses all facets of creative consulting including strategy, design, architecture, and technology. It provides these services through a unique modern network of practitioners. https://atolye.io/en/home/

Bios is the independent cultural organisation of Athens that promotes the arts, new media, young creatives and new entrepreneurship since 2002. Bios supports the innovative creative force of Athens, creates interdisciplinary common space for the arts and science, for social and entrepreneurial life and it influences and contributes in the shaping of the cultural identity of Athens. http://www.romantso.gr

Nova Iskra is a pioneering creative hub in the Balkans. Nova Iskra is created with the idea to incite tangible connections between creative industries, technology, and the people, with the goal to support critical thinking, nurture ideas, design organizations and develop businesses that are future-proof, while remaining sensible to the ever-changing present. https://novaiskra.com/en/

Abdullah Gül University was founded by the Kayseri City Council and other city notables in 2007. The aim was to raise the profile of education in Kayseri in line with the city’s own vision of its development. The University was named after the 11th president of the Turkish Republic, Abdullah Gül, who has accepted this honor, for the university is being dedicated to the quest to become a distinguished high-quality university in Turkey and be able to compete with international institutions. The university was formally founded on 21 July 2010 as Turkey’s first foundation-supported State University. AGU admitted its first students in 2013 – 2014 Academic Year. Education is being conducted at the site of Turkey’s first industrial complex, which is being transformed from a place of great historical significance to be a notable place of education. http://www.agu.edu.tr/

CFCU was established following the decision of the Helsinki Summit of the European Council on 10-11 December 1999 to accept Turkey as a candidate country. The main Framework of Turkey-EU financial cooperation has changed and EU financial assistance was directed towards the pre-accession goals and ultimately full membership. This change led Turkey to establish a ‘Decentralised Implementation System (DIS)’ under which the CFCU is also operating. The CFCU, as the Implementing Agency, is responsible for the overall budgeting, tendering, contracting, payments, accounting and financial reporting aspects of all procurement of services, supplies, works, and grants in the context of EU funded programmes. Under the responsibility of a ‘Programme Authorising Officer (PAO)’, the CFCU ensures that the EU rules, regulations and procedures pertaining to the procurement are adhered to and that a proper reporting system is functioning. The CFCU is administratively linked to the Undersecretariat of Treasury which is responsible for the financial management of EU funded programmes. https://www.cfcu.gov.tr/

Yunus Emre Foundation is a public foundation, which was founded to promote Turkey, Turkish language, its history and culture and art, make such related information and documents available for use in the world, provide services abroad to people who want to have education in the fields of Turkish language, culture and art, to improve the friendship between Turkey and other countries and increase the cultural exchange. As an institution affiliated to the Foundation, Yunus Emre Institute is carrying out studies for Turkish teaching in the cultural centers established abroad to accomplish the purposes of this law as well as conducting culture and art activities to promote our country, and giving support to scientific researches. https://www.yee.org.tr/en

The EU-Turkey Intercultural Dialogue Programme, led by the Yunus Emre Institute and co-financed by the European Union and Republic of Turkey will improve the cultural dialogue between the EU and Turkey by bringing different institutions with different cultural backgrounds together under a financial support allocated for arts and culture. https://icd.yee.org.tr

Contributor Biographies

Emmy Bacharach is a spatial practitioner, audio-visual artist, and DJ working at the intersection of architecture, sound, film and immersive technologies. Her work explores the social, political and spatial possibilities of appropriating digital technologies. Emmy’s background is in architecture, which she studied at the University of Cambridge and later completed her masters at the Royal College of Art, where she began to explore moving image, sound and immersive technologies. Her installation work ’Proxy Architecture’, which was featured at the Volumetric Ecologies: Environments, Bodies and Mediated Worlds showcase at Goldsmiths Digital Studios, immerses the viewer in a virtual world, a floating city composed of digital fragments of Istanbul, speculating on the collective potential of virtual space. Her research project ‘Sonic Urbanism in Detroit: Techno as a Spatial Act’, investigates the impact of urban space on musical subculture, arguing for the spatial agency of techno production and sonic collectivity in the context of Detroit’s post-industrial urban condition. She is a co-founder of Xcessive Aesthetics, an interdisciplinary design collective exploring data and augmented reality in the built environment . https://www.rca.ac.uk/students/emmy-bacharach/

Ruth Catlow is Co-Founding Artistic Director of Furtherfield and a leading authority on emancipatory network cultures, practices and poetics. She has co-curated over 60 digital arts exhibitions around themes of placemaking, alternative economies and the commons. Keynote speaker and author of countless publications on art, technology and social change, including editing the internationally acclaimed Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchain. In 2019 her blockchain and the arts lab series, DAOWO, produced with Ben Vickers (Serpentine Galleries) and Goethe-Institut won a European Centre for Creative Economy ‘NICE’ award. She heads DECAL, Furtherfield’s DeCentralised Arts Lab, developing cross sector partnerships for new economic models for the arts.

Dr Lina Džuverović is a curator and Lecturer in Arts Policy and Management at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her research focuses on ways in which the sphere of contemporary art can become a site of solidarity and community-building. Previously Lina taught at the University of Reading, at IZK –Institute for Contemporary Art, TU Graz, Austria, was Artistic Director of Calvert 22 Foundation, founding director of the London-based agency Electra and has held curatorial roles at ICA and the Lux Centre, London and Momentum Biennial, Norway. She was the 2006 Decibel Mid-Career Curatorial Fellow, Arts Council England.

Diana Georgiou is a writer and curator based in London. Her curatorial practice employs queer, feminist and decolonial practices and theories to generate spaces of encounter that can foster dialogue, experimentation and collaboration within and outside institutional parameters. Her most recent co-curated project EcoFutures (London, 2019) focused on the implications of ecological issues on gender, race and sexuality and involved 10 partner organisations with the participation of over 70 artists, theorists and activists. Selected projects include the touring video art exhibition Transitional States: Hormones at the Intersections of Art & Science (London, Lincoln, Barcelona, Bologna, 2017-18); Deep Trash Live Art Programme (London, 2017-18); the 2-week programme Now You Can Go which considered feminist thinking, art and activism, taking place across The Showroom, the ICA, Space Studios and Raven Row (London, 2015). Georgiou holds a PhD in Visual Culture from Goldsmiths, University of London, offering an innovative account of the relationship between art-writing and subjectivity through the lens of feminist psychoanalytic theories.

Huma Kabakcı (b. in 1990, London) is a second-generation collector, independent curator and founding director of Open Space, living and working between London and Istanbul. Kabakcı holds a BA in Advertising & Marketing from London College of Communication and a MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art. She has worked at various galleries, museums and auction houses, both in the UK and Turkey, including Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Sales department (London), The Albion Gallery (London) and Pera Museum (Istanbul). Kabakcı has a special interest in Turkish, Middle Eastern contemporary art and emerging contemporary art in London. Her curatorial research lies in subjects such as diaspora, migration, cultural identity, cross-cultural dialogue and memory. She has contributed to publications including Border_less, FAD Magazine, the Guggenheim Blog, IAN (Istanbul Art News) and SYRUP Magazine. In 2018 Kabakcı completed a curatorial fellowship at Liverpool Biennial. Most recent project includes Tender Touches (London) co-curated by Inês Neto dos Santos, organised by Open Space. 

Tamara Kametani is a Slovak born London based visual artist working across a variety of media including installation, video, photography and sculpture with an emphasis on site-specificity. Amongst the underlying concerns in her practice are the topics surrounding power relations, surveillance, privacy, and access to information. She is particularly interested in the role that technology plays in the construction of contemporary and historical narratives and the new experiences it enables. She received her master’s degree in Contemporary Art Practice from the Royal College of Art in 2017. Kametani has participated in a number of artist residencies and exhibited internationally. Recent commissions and exhibitions include Swayze effect, Platform Southwark curated by AGORAMA, London (2019); 404- Resistance in the Digital Age, RAGE Collective, CFCCA, Manchester (2019); For the Time Being, The Photographers’ Gallery, curated by CCA Royal College of Art, London (2019); Digital Diaspora, Studio 44, Stockholm (2019); Summer Show, Florence Trust, London (2018) and Triennial of Photography, Hamburg (2018).  https://www.tamarakametani.com/

Georgios Makkas was born in Athens in 1977 and had a strong interest in photography from an early age. He graduated from the Documentary Photography course in Newport, UK. His work about the depopulation of rural Albania won the first prize in the Observer Hodge Award. In 2010, Makkas participated in the artist in residence programme ‘SETSE’ at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, Poland. His work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London, Athens Photo Festival, MedPhoto Festival in Rethymno, Fotonoviembrein Valencia, Fotografia Europea in Reggio Emilia, Le Voci dell’Inchiesta in Pordenone, DUMBO Arts Festival in New York and the Istanbul Design Biennial, and also held in the permanent collection of the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography. Makkas is interested in the preservation of memory through lens-based media. His practice involves taking portraits, listening and filming people’s stories and documenting the disappearing face of cities. More at https://www.gmakkas.com/about/index

Ioana Man is a multidisciplinary designer with a background in architecture, set design and critical practice. She produces new encounters between the fields of architecture, science, and rituals in order to shape, invent and reimagine alternative futures. Currently, her focus is on a long-term project that aims to bring architects closer to the microscopic scale and to the scientists that harness it. She has had work commissioned by Open Platform at the Wellcome Collection and exhibited at the Architectural Association in London.
www.ioanaman.com
www.probiotic-rituals.com

Theo Prodromidis is a visual artist and film director based in Athens. His work has been exhibited and screened in galleries, museums and festivals including Galerija Nova, State of Concept, 1st and 5th Thessaloniki Biennale, 4th Athens Biennale, Werkleitz Zentrum Für Medienkunst and Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt.Since 2017, he has been a Visiting Artist under the program Risk Change at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and a volunteer at the Open School for Immigrants of Piraeus. Ηe is a member of the Institute of Radical Imagination and a member of the assembly of Solidarity Schools Network. He is currently a fellow of Artworks,  Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship Program, 2019-2020. www.theoprodromidis.info

Yağmur Uyanık is a Turkish artist based in San Francisco with backgrounds in architecture, new media and music. Her work explores repetition, process and intangibility through creating instruments of displacement using light, sound and space with an aim to extend the digital media to a point that it becomes a physical experience. Uyanık has received her MFA in Art & Technology from San Francisco Art Institute as a Fulbright scholar. Her work was shown internationally at institutions including Ars Electronica, Sonar D+, Signal Light Festival, MUTEK, Exploratorium, California Academy of Sciences and Diego Rivera Gallery. https://yagmuruyanik.com

This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of British Council and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

Furtherfield Gallery at the McKenzie Pavilion is located in the middle of Finsbury Park in North London, across the children’s playground from the cafe, next to the boating pond. Accessible between the gates near Finsbury Park Station and Manor House Station.

A list of recommendations, reflecting the dynamic culture we are part of, straddling the fields of art, technology and social change.

Events, Exhibitions, Festivals and Conferences

TransLocal Cooperation Exhibition | 13 March – 19 April | An exhibition of works born of cooperation and knowledge exchange between Turkish, Greek, Serbian and British artists seeking translocal solidarity in a hyper-connected world. As our world has become hyper-connected it has enabled us to simultaneously occupy or travel through numerous physical and virtual locations. A result of this is that we increasingly each identify with more than one place or culture. This social and cultural aspect of globalisation is often described in terms of ‘translocality’, where the events, conditions, and attachments of one location can rapidly influence and connect with another | Furtherfield Gallery | Finsbury Park, London | Opening Event | Thur, 12 Mar, 18:00 – 20:00 | Booking Essential – https://cutt.ly/ntwYrtw

Cassie Thornton presents The Hologram: Collective Health as a “Beautiful Art Work” | A series of talks from the Love Machines season | Artist Cassie Thornton, of the Feminist Economics Department (the FED), will discuss The Hologram, a mythoreal collective peer-to-peer health project currently incubating at Furtherfield Gallery in London. The Hologram, based on the understanding that all our crises are connected and everyone is a little sick, is a viral four-person health monitoring and diagnostic system practiced from couches all over the world. This health distribution system is based on the experimental care models developed in the Social Solidarity Clinics in Greece during the height of the financial and migration crisis. The result is the construction of a robust network of multi-dimensional health, collectively oriented social practices, and trust that can outlive racial capitalism as an act of resistance. Furtherfield Commons, Finsbury Park London, UK | 10 March 2020, Tues 18 March 2020, Weds 13:30 – 17:00 | Booking Required – https://cutt.ly/ntwYddK

Dawn of the Transhuman Era | Tuesday, 17 March 2020 | Transhumanism argues that we should preserve and extend the unique properties that make us human by radically altering ourselves and the environment around us. Recently transhumanist thinking has seen a resurgence thanks to new technological developments that point towards the possibility that many of its promises will be realised. This raises a number of challenging issues that aspiring transhumanists must soon face: from how they will choose to manipulate or upgrade their body; to how they will approach the taboo of death – especially if, in principle, you could live forever | Join transhumanist Prof. Steve Fuller and bioethics researcher Francesca Minerva for FUTURES Podcast LIVE, Hosted by The Truman Brewery, FUTURES Podcast, Schwabe Verlag, Experimental Thought Co, and Luke Robert Mason – Eventbrite – https://bit.ly/2TBEOT0

Deffffffficiency | Solo exhibition by Joana Moll | 18 March 2020 – 04 April 2020 | Panke gallery, Berlin | Joana Moll is a Barcelona/Berlin based artist and researcher. Her work critically explores the way post-capitalist narratives affect the alphabetization of machines, humans and ecosystems. Her main research topics include Internet materiality, surveillance, social profiling and interfaces – https://cutt.ly/ctekvX2

Workshop: Subvertising for the Right to Housing | Hosted by Disruption Network Lab | Thursday, 26 March 2020 | With Steal This Poster (Subvertising Collective IT/UK) and Kunstblock And Beyond (DE) | Subvertising is the combination between subvert and advertising. During this workshop we will work with Steal This Poster (Rome/London), and Kunstblock (Berlin) to learn tactics and techniques of subvertising related to aggressive corporations in the context of housing eviction.Part of the Disruption Network Lab 19th conference: “EVICTED BY GREED: Global finance,  Housing & Resistance” (27-28 March, 2020, Studio 1, Kunstquartier Bethanien). Location: Supermarkt Berlin, Mehringplatz 9, 10969 Berlin – https://pretix.eu/disruptionlab/evicted/

The Festival of Alternative Art Education | Festival of Alternative Art Education, London | Sat 21st March | Fuelled by economic crisis, austerity and the liberalisation of higher education, the landscape of alternative art education features a multitude of diverse organisations that offer free or affordable art education. Bringing together alternative art schools, peer-support groups and collectives in a range of events, performances, discussions, installations, stalls and workshops on education, pedagogy, peer-support, co-operation, self-organisation, labour and precarity. Come along to participate, learn, play and meet representatives from the schools to find out what they do, how to get involved or how to start your own art school – https://bit.ly/3ai94ZF

Zanele Muholi | Tate Modern presents the first major mid-career survey of visual activist Muholi in the UK | 29 April – 18 October 2020 | Born in South Africa, Muholi came to prominence in the early 2000s with photographs that sought to envision black lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex lives beyond deviance or victimhood. Muholi’s work challenges hetero-patriarchal ideologies and representations, presenting the participants in their photographs as confident and beautiful individuals bravely existing in the face of prejudice, intolerance and, frequently, violence. Muholi’s striking portraits will be on display in their upcoming exhibition at Tate Modern – https://bit.ly/2VEU97B

Books, Open Calls, Papers & Publications

Call Out | Let’s Create An Artist in Every Community (and let’s create it now)… | Stephen Pritchard | This article sets out how we could easily and relatively cheaply employ artists in everyday community and how such a simple, yet radical system would create just the sort of transformative cultural change that is at the heart of Arts Council England’s new 10-year strategy, Let’s Create. Create a working group to develop this idea and hopefully trial it as a participatory action research project somewhere. So get in touch if you’re interested – https://cutt.ly/5twO1Uy

Control Shift | Call out open for artworks, workshops and provocations | Deadline 15th March | An exciting new arts programme coming to Bristol (UK) in June 2020 exploring creative and critical approaches to technology, rooted in embodiment and materiality. Control Shift asks how we can reframe and rethink our relationships with technology. How could we conceive of new possibilities beyond neoliberal versions of computing? What might happen if there was more space for poetic or tactile engagements with the digital? Can we reconsider our connections, responsibilities and embodied entanglements with technology? – https://www.control-shift.network/

Call Out: Piet Zwart Institute Experimental Publishing (XPUB) | A two-year master focussed on the acts of making things public and creating publics in the age of post-digital networks. Calling all AI hiding blockchain comics, adults screaming hyper-binary screensavers, governments designing multi-DIWO architectures, viruses disrupting top-down traditions, hobbyists sending non-industrial software, teachers seeing copyrighted blogs, whistleblowers spamming shared files, celebrities criticizing homemade synthesizers, judges demanding AI carpets, individuals showing inter-anarcho-capitalist corruption, more here – https://www.pzwart.nl/experimental-publishing/

Applications Deadlines: 06.03.2020: NON-EU + EU priority | 24.04.2020: Final EU deadline

The new Neural issue | (co-edited with Nicolas Maigret, Maria Roszkowska) is hot from the press. Subscribe now! Because only subscribers will get a free extra Post-Growth Toolkit by Nicolas Maigret and Maria Roszkowska. You can also subscribe to the magazine Digital Edition accessing all issues since #29. Or you can buy the magazine from the closest of the almost 300 stores stocking it. A back issues pack is available – http://neural.it/issues/neural-64-post-growth/

Mycelium Network Society | An open, living, organic network. Observing the concept of nature’s distributed network in self-expanding mode, we seek your participation as a node, a node that cultivates locally and connects globally. Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information-sharing membranes. The mycelium stays in constant molecular communication with its environment, devising diverse enzymatic and chemical responses to complex challenges. To become a node join Mycelium Network Society – http://mns.stwst.at/

Open Call: Summer Sessions 2020 | V2_Lab for Unstable Media | The Summer Sessions are short-term international art and technology residencies for emerging artists and designers. A network of cultural organizations all over the world sponsors and hosts the residencies. Every summer we offer early-career artists and designers support so they can take part in production residencies abroad. If selected, you will gain an opportunity to work in a highly productive atmosphere with support, feedback and expert supervision. Each Summer Sessions residency lasts approximately eight weeks and takes place between June and September. During this period you will develop your project from concept to presentable work, ready to show – https://cutt.ly/1twSy99

A Course in: Feminist Art and Exhibitions: History and Challenges | Online Course by Node Center, Berlin | By Anja Foerschner | Duration: Apr 08 – Apr 29, 2020, Enroll before: Apr 4, 2020 | This course will look at how feminist thinking has influenced the arts since the 1960s, both in Western as well as selected non-Western contexts. It will present the foundational feminist theories that furthered the radicalization of female artists and trace their manifestation in the visual arts. Due to its strong political content and often taboo-breaking visuality, feminist art continues to present its own set of challenges to curators and museum professionals. The course will introduce students to the most important exhibitions of feminist art and discuss their strategies, premises, and criticism. In addition, the course will present curatorial practices and exhibition formats that follow feminist premises – https://nodecenter.net/course/feminist-art

A DAO of One’s Own? Feminist strategies for P2P Organisations | White paper by Denise Thwaites | On P2Pmodels | Experiments in building and deploying Decentralized Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) have proliferated, marking a transition (in many cases) from software design and development towards alpha and beta testing stages. From a technical perspective this is a key moment in the evolution of such systems, as communities of users test and provide feedback on the functionality of these products. For those interested in the potential social impact of DAOs, the stakes of this moment are even higher: it is the period where community needs are defined beyond the theoretical user. It provides opportunities to challenge the form and functionality of these decentralized socio-technical infrastructures while they are still relatively plastic. For this reason, we must look closely at the composition of participants at this stage of DAO development, to consider whether their engagement can lay foundations for alternative social configurations, or further entrench existing social biases – https://cutt.ly/PtwYbcL

The Ghost In You by Jeremy Hight | On WTBC Radio | Is your life like a ghost… or is a ghost living in your life? Would either of you know it? In this novel, a teacher comes to grips with the emptiness of her life, while a ghost attempts to do the same. This novel explores the places where many of us live, inside and outside of our heads. Limited to 100 Print copies, with a translucent cover. Get yours today – https://cutt.ly/itri9Xs

Women Warriors: An Unexpected History | By Pamela D. Toler | Who says women don’t go to war? From Vikings and African queens to cross-dressing military doctors and WWII Russian fighter pilots, these are the stories of women for whom battle was not a metaphor. The woman warrior is always cast as an anomaly—Joan of Arc, not GI Jane. But women, it turns out, have always gone to war. In this fascinating and lively world history, Pamela Toler not only introduces us to women who took up arms, she also shows why they did it and what happened when they stepped out of their traditional female roles to take on other identities | Published by Beacon Press – https://cutt.ly/2twwAqO

Articles, Interviews, Presentations, videos

Silvia Federici: The joyful militancy of feminism | By Julius Gavroche | Interview conducted by Victoria Furtado and Mariana Menéndez | While throughout the world the fourth feminist strike is being prepared in hundreds of meetings, activities and assemblies, listening to Silvia Federici is inspiring. In a stop in her travelling about the world, sharing keys of understanding and giving courage, Silvia met with us at her home in New York to discuss current feminist struggles, the popular revolts of recent months, the tensions of feminism with the left and the highlights of her latest book – https://cutt.ly/utwOPn5

B-hind. Celebrating the internet of anal things| Regine Debatty reviews the product launch performance of B-hind: intimate innovation by Dani Ploeger | V2_, the Lab for the Unstable Media in Rotterdam, and In4Art, an organisation dedicated to “art-driven innovation”, challenged artists to select one of the works realised at V2_ over the course of its 40 year old history and to reimagine, reengineer and reenact it today. The first experiment in the series is by Dani Ploeger. The artist and cultural critic decided to revisit Stelarc’s Amplified Body, a performance that took place in 1994 and engaged with the relationship between humans, machines and the surrounding space and ultimately the role and functioning of the body – https://cutt.ly/EtwYJkz

Oceans between Sound | An album from intercultural tele-improvisation internet based music ensemble Ethernet Orchestra. A selection of live improvisations by the internet based music ensemble, Ethernet Orchestra. The album was recorded during located venue performances and online sessions between 2014-2019, featuring musicians from a diverse range of cultures, performing across international time-zones and physical locations in Brazil, the USA, Canada, UK, Germany and Australia. The music was inspired by the ebb and flow of network data as a metaphor for the world’s oceans and waterways separating the members of the ensemble, and their geographically dispersed lives | Published on the Pueblo Nuevo Netlabel – https://cutt.ly/7tebPQ6

For sale: Sponsored Influenza Pandemic Evacuation Rehearsal booklet by Heath Bunting & Kayle Brandon 2005/6 | “A flu pandemic would inevitably take the Cube Microplex and other entertainment venues out of business. We intend to sow the seeds of rebirth by preserving the values and methods embodied within our workers by providing effective advice and procedures for their physical survival. This report is a developmental first step in this DIY health programme.” Price 200.00 eur (plus packaging and postage)

Artist signed booklet from 2005 Pandemic Evacuation Rehearsal. http://duo.irational.org/siper/report/siper_document01.pdf
http://duo.irational.org/siper/

Bus Regulation: The Musical | Ellie Harrison | Video of performance | Inspired by the 1980s hit musical ‘Starlight Express’, the new performance / event re-enacts the history of public transport provision in Greater Manchester from the post-war period to the present day… on roller skates!Staged at Manchester Art Gallery for the closing celebration of the Get Together & Get Things Done exhibition on Saturday 28 September 2019, Bus Regulation: The Musical is produced in collaboration with the Better Buses for Greater Manchester campaign, the Association of British Commuters and local roller skaters – https://www.ellieharrison.com/busregulation/

The Smithsonian Puts 2.8 Million High-Res Images Online and Into the Public Domain | Open Culture | The Smithsonian has released 2.8 million images into the public domain, making them searchable, shareable, and downloadable through the museum’s Open Access platform. This huge release of “high resolution two- and three-dimensional images from across its collections,” notes Smithsonian Magazine, “is just the beginning. Throughout the rest of 2020, the Smithsonian will be rolling out another 200,000 or so images, with more to come as the Institution continues to digitize its collection of 155 million items and counting.” – https://cutt.ly/xtwY9Rm

Let’s Talk about Sex (and Race and Colonialism) | By Layla-Roxanne Hill | As Western societies continue to experience social, environmental and economic crises, our ideas and beliefs on what constitutes work and what kinds of work are valued are ever changing: whether it be the ways care and sexual labour are regarded, the role of exploitation and criminalisation, or imagining what a post-work terrain could look like. Combined with an ever-increasing awareness the impact automation technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics will have on jobs, skills, and wages, the future of work continues to be one of the most debatable topics of 2019 – https://cutt.ly/ltwYNRX

Image: from Panke Gallery, Berlin, for Deffffffficiency. Solo exhibition by Joana Moll. 18 March 2020 – 04 April 2020.

The FurtherList Archives
https://www.furtherfield.org/the-furtherlist-archives/

Please join us to help make and play a game for multispecies cooperation. 

How do we collectively care for Finsbury Park?

Which people and which creatures? 

What part would you like to play?

We invite you to join us at Furtherfield to explore these questions. Together we will make and play a game with various characters, imagining Finsbury Park in 2025 as the place where a global multispecies revolution begins – and changes the world forever. 

How can you get involved?

Originally planned for the Summer of 2020, the first community meetings took place in March, however Covid-19 has paused the development of this project. If you would like to work with the game designers Cade and Ruth, and each other, from Furtherfield Commons and online email Ruth at ruthcatlow [at] gmail.com. 

About The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025

At Summer Solstice a visiting delegation of artists, equipped with park blueprints, bylaws, data-sources, historical documents, and policies, will work with local envoys who present testimony from the many human and non-human lives of the park. Together, the two parties will work to mutually devise a treaty to govern the future actions of multispecies park users, turning the park itself into a “love machine”. This culminates in a public ceremonial treaty signing event. 

With a bit of luck the game, final treaty, audio recordings, photographs, and resulting artistic responses are now planned for development and exhibition at Furtherfield in the Summer of 2021. Part role play game, part participatory performance, this event will be based at Furtherfield Commons and across Finsbury Park for three days at the Summer Solstice.

The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025: On systems, ecologies as networks, colonialism and seizing rituals of power.

Read the essay
Hear the discussion between Ruth and Cade on the Furtherfield Podcast
Illustration by Sajan Rai.

If you have any questions or would like more information email Ruth at ruthcatlow [at] gmail.com. 

This project is supported by CreaTures – Creative Practices for Transformational Futures. CreaTures project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870759. The content presented represents the views of the authors, and the European Commission has no liability in respect of the content.

This is an invitation to participate in focus group research that is also a game

How are attitudes to data transparency and consumer ethics shifting?

We would like to invite you to participate in our research study that takes the form of a game with many characters called Fictional Focus Group. 

If you decide to take part we you will join a role-play game with 10-15 other people. You will get to escape your lock-down reality and play the role of a unique character who faces all the complex challenges of contemporary life.

The event itself will involve group discussion about the tricky choices your characters make as consumers or providers of food, clothing and money services. The game reveals the possible consequences of their actions as their data is reused in unforeseen ways.

The event will last for about 3 hours including 2 hours in the game and two 15 minutes breaks. Due to Covid-19, we are hosting this event online, using Zoom.

There are two sessions available:
29 and 30th June 2020
13.30 – 16.30
(now to be run online due to Covid-19)

For any enquiries, please email info@furtherfield.org

About the project

Findings contribute to a report, Glass Houses: Understanding transparency in information economies 2020.

Glass Houses is a research project that aims to investigate an end-user’s perception, understanding, and expectation of transparency in their engagement with modern information society, and in particular the role technologies, such as distributed ledgers, play in such engagement. It is funded by EPSRC through their Digital Economy Theme. glass-houses.cs.ucl.ac.uk

UCL Glass Houses Research Team: Sarah Meiklejohn is an Associate Professor in Cryptography and Security at University College London (UCL). Kruakae Pothong is a Research Fellow in Distributed Ledgers at University College London (UCL).

Fictional Focus Group is a Furtherfield/DECAL project created by Ruth Catlow with the UCL Glass Houses research team, developed in collaboration with Max Dovey.

A collective health project by Cassie Thornton and The Feminist Economics Department (the FED)

An insurgency of sick artists is organising to resist the global crisis of care, from bed and over the phone. In these days of compulsive overwork in the so-called creative economy, we’re all sick artists. Using ancient technologies of peer-to-peer care, a grassroots health monitoring and diagnostic system is emerging, practiced from beds and couches all over the world. Participants co-produce a multi-dimensional image of each other’s physical, psychological, and social health. We call this image The Hologram. Through workshops in the spring and at Furtherfield Gallery or online in the autumn, visitors can learn about the Hologram and audition for a place in this viral sci-fi health system. Look out for couch-based performances throughout Finsbury Park.

The Hologram is part of Furtherfield’s three-year Citizen Sci-Fi  programme crowdsourcing creative and technological visions of our communities and public spaces, together.

2020 is the year of Love Machines, nurturing living and machine systems for mutual care and respect on earth and beyond.

Love Machines Exhibition: 15 May – 21 Oct, Sat – Sun, 11:00 – 17:00, or by apt, Furtherfield Gallery, Website, and Social Media

Events

• The Hologram presented for discussion by Cassie Thornton | ONLINE PRESENTATION | 1 April, Weds | 13:30 – 16:30 | Booking Essential

• The Hologram – Is this the end or the beginning? | ONLINE COURSE | 7, 14, 21, 28 April | Tuesday Evenings | 18:30 – 20:30 | Booking Essential

Please note The Hologram talk and workshops are now taking place online as a response to pandemic restrictions. Contact info@furtherfield.org if you need any further information or assistance.

Cassie Thornton is an artist and activist who makes a “safe space” for the unknown, for disobedience and for unanticipated collectivity. She uses social practices including institutional critique, insurgent architecture, and “healing modalities” like hypnosis and yoga to find soft spots in the hard surfaces of capitalist life. Cassie has invented a grassroots alternative credit reporting service for the survivors of gentrification, has hypnotized hedge fund managers, has finger-painted with the grime found inside banks, has donated cursed paintings to profiteering bankers, and has taught feminist economics to yogis (and vice versa). She has worked in close collaboration with freelance curators and producers including Taraneh Fazeli, Magdalena Jadwiga Härtelova, Dani Admiss, Amanda Nudelman, Misha Rabinovich, Caitlin Foley, and Laurel Ptak. Her projects, invited and uninvited, have appeared at (or in collaboration with) Transmediale Festival for Media Arts, San Francisco MoMA, West Den Haag, Moneylab, Swissnex San Francisco, Pro Arts Gallery & Commons, Dream Farm Commons, Furtherfield, Gallery 400, Strike Debt Bay Area, Red Bull Detroit, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Flux Factory, Bemis Center for the Arts, Berliner Gazette and more.

An Online Presentation + Workshop for Social Isolation in the Love Machines Season

Artist Cassie Thornton, of the Feminist Economics Department (the FED), will discuss The Hologram, a mythoreal collective peer-to-peer health project currently incubating at Furtherfield Gallery in London.

The Hologram, based on the understanding that all our crises are connected and everyone is a little sick, is a viral four-person health monitoring and diagnostic system practiced from couches all over the world.

Three non-expert participants create a three-dimensional “hologram” of a fourth participant’s physical, psychological and social health, and each becomes, in turn, the focus of three other people’s care in an expanding network.

This health distribution system is based on the experimental care models developed in the Social Solidarity Clinics in Greece during the height of the financial and migration crisis. The result is the construction of a robust network of multi-dimensional health, collectively oriented social practices, and trust that can outlive racial capitalism.

The presentation will be followed by a discussion of themes and topics. We welcome artists, healers, activists and system builders with an interest in alternative infrastructures and care as an act of resistance.

BOOKING ESSENTIAL

Please note The Hologram talk and workshops are now taking place online due to pandemic restrictions. Contact info@furtherfield.org if you need any further information or assistance.

About the artist

Cassie Thornton is an artist and activist who makes a “safe space” for the unknown, for disobedience and for unanticipated collectivity. She uses social practices including institutional critique, insurgent architecture, and “healing modalities” like hypnosis and yoga to find soft spots in the hard surfaces of capitalist life. Cassie has invented a grassroots alternative credit reporting service for the survivors of gentrification, has hypnotized hedge fund managers, has finger-painted with the grime found inside banks, has donated cursed paintings to profiteering bankers, and has taught feminist economics to yogis (and vice versa). She has worked in close collaboration with freelance curators and producers including Taraneh Fazeli, Magdalena Jadwiga Härtelova, Dani Admiss, Amanda Nudelman, Misha Rabinovich, Caitlin Foley and Laurel Ptak. Her projects, invited and uninvited, have appeared at (or in collaboration with) Transmediale Festival for Media Arts, San Francisco MoMA, West Den Haag, Moneylab, Swissnex San Francisco, Pro Arts Gallery & Commons, Dream Farm Commons, Furtherfield, Gallery 400, Strike Debt Bay Area, Red Bull Detroit, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Flux Factory, Bemis Center for the Arts, Berliner Gazette and more.

The Hologram is part of Furtherfield’s three-year Citizen Sci-Fi programme crowdsourcing creative and technological visions of our communities and public spaces, together.

2020 is the year of Love Machines, nurturing living and machine systems for mutual care and respect on earth and beyond.