Talks & Events

Giving the keynote lecture (in person!) at the "New visual narratives" conference 1-3 July, Lodz + online.

Immersion as Escapism, Control or Coexistence
01-07-2022 10:30:00

Coming from film-making or other visual arts, we tend to think of immersion as a technical condition (VR, 360 projections, various forms of expanded cinema, etc.). But we can also think of immersion as an existential condition, as a way of being-in-the-world. Contemporary technology then gives us new ways of expressing this condition. But to what end? I propose that we can look at immersion as offering three different qualities of relationship: escape, control and co-existence.

This is part of the conference: "Économies de la création numérique. Dans les économies et écologies actuelles de la création numérique, quels peuvent être les usages des métavers et NFT?"

14h30 : Conférence de Felix Stalder en visioconférence (en anglais) « Des communs aux NFT : Objets numériques et imagination radicale ».

Cette conférence est en relation avec la chaîne d’essais publiée depuis le 31 janvier 2022 sur makery.info, série d’écriture initiée par Shu Lea Cheang (Kingdom Of Piracy), Felix Stalder (World-Information.Org) et Ewen Chardronnet (Makery).

Geben und Schenken.
Gabenökonomie im Horizont der Digitalisierung
16.–18. März 2022
IFK
Reichsratsstraße 17
1010 Wien

»Open source«, »file-sharing«, »crowdfunding«, »peer production« – die Welt der digitalen Kommunikation ist voller Wirtschaftspraktiken, die dem Geben und Schenken näher sind als dem Marktkauf. Zwar ist die Gabe durch Marcel Mauss’ »Essai sur le don« in den Kanon der Kulturethnologie aufgestiegen, aber in der Wirtschaftswissenschaft gilt das Schenken eher als Fossil eines vorökonomischen Zeitalters.

Im Horizont der Digitalisierung wird eine Wirtschaftswissenschaft notwendig, die, um mögliche Entwicklungen einer global vernetzten Kooperationsgesellschaft zu reflektieren, neben dem Paradigma der jeweils abgeschlossenen Tauschhandlungen zwischen beliebigen Personen auch das Paradigma der endlos unabgeschlossenen Gabe zwischen miteinander verbundenen Personen gelten lässt. Die Tagung versammelt Autor*innen, deren Forschungen die sozialen Phänomene des reziproken Gebens und des ostentativen Schenkens beschreiben und verständlich machen. Sie thematisieren die sozial- wissenschaftliche Wiederaufnahme des »Gabenparadigmas« (Frank Adloff), sein Wirken in Organisationen und Gemeinwesen, seine Ausprägung in der Logik des Rechts und in den Narrativen der Literatur, und seine Erscheinungsform in Kulturen, in denen die Versorgung mittels Markt transaktionen eine geringere Rolle spielte. Ihren gemeinsamen Bezugspunkt finden diese Studien in Beiträgen, die ausgewählte Fälle von Geben und Schenken in digitalen Netzwerken vorstellen.

Donnerstag, 17.03. 14:00

Jasmin Schreyer. Praktiken des Gebens und Teilens in der digitalen Ökonomie

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DDD - NFTs and Blockchain culture

10th of March – 6.30 pm zoom (Rome time)
Link: https://zoom.us/j/95402909513

Felix Stalder
Geraldine Juàrez
Andrea Baronchelli

10-15 mins presentations each + discussion + questions – total length: 1h/1.15 (6.30-7.30/45)

In the early days, blockchains held the promise to transform monetary systems. Nowadays, the promise is that of returning the power back into the hands of digital artists and makers, against the hierarchy of platforms. They also fuel corporate plans over the web3, and drive the hallucinatory dream of the metaverse. NFTs are indeed surging as the new building blocks of techno-driven societies, affirming the potential of a decentralised and tokenised, crypto future for digital cultures. This panel aims to offer a critical perspective on the matter by discussing the individualistic, self-entrepreneurial capitalist nihilism of NFTs and the techno-promises of a blockchain future and culture.

Digital Matters
December 1 – 3, 2021 at Siegen University and online

Organizers: Thomas Haigh (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee & Siegen University), Valérie Schafer (University of Luxembourg), Axel Volmar (Siegen University) & Sebastian Giessmann (Siegen University). This event is part of projects A01 and A02 of the SFB 1187: Media of Cooperation.

Theme: In popular discussion digitality is increasingly equated with networked immateriality: disembodied algorithms float rhetorically in an ethereal cloud of big data. Think, for example, of the “digital edition” of the PlayStation 5 console, so called because it has no optical drive to read games, which must instead be downloaded. The implication is that the regular PS5 console is somehow not digital because its storage medium is visible to the unaided human eye. This presupposition of digital immateriality is not just a misconception to be corrected, but a productive site for interdisciplinary scholarly inquiry into media and data practices. In Digital Matters, historians, media theorists and information scholars come together for three days to examine the socio-material constituents of digital systems and artifacts. How and why did people come to deny the materiality of the digital? What can we learn by recovering it? What if we rethink digital materialities as ongoing cooperative accomplishments?

Venue: This is a hybrid event. Most speakers will be online, but several speakers and three of the organizers will be sitting together in Siegen during the conference. To allow for participation from North America each day’s sessions start after lunch.

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Algorithmic Controversies. Dialogues towards an unveiling of architectural agency

PhD Symposium
Architectural Association School of Architecture
Friday, 26 November 2021

09:30 – Introduction
Pier Vittorio Aureli
Aylin Tarlan

Biopolitic of data
Introduction by Claudia Nitschze
10:00 - Georg Vrachliotis
10:40 - George Jepson
11:20 - Aylin Tarlan
Round Table

13:00 - Lunch break

Technologies of production
Introduction by George Jepson
14:00 - Mollie Claypool & Gilles Retsin
14:50 - Alessandro Bava
Round Table

16:00 - Coffee break

Digital infrastructures
Introduction by Mathilde Redouté
16:15 - Felix Stalder
17:20 - Evgeny Morozov
Round Table

Governmentality, an expression originally formulated by the 20th-century French philosopher Michel Foucault, combines the terms ‘government” and “rationality”. Government in this sense refers to an activity meant to shape, guide, or affect the conduct of people. In architecture, its early practical application can already be found in Ildefons Cerdà’s 1860 proposal for the redevelopment of Barcelona, a work grounded in an in-depth socio-statistical study transforming population in numbers. Here the possibility emerges to define a given social reality as a calculable, measurable object, thus transforming the paradigm of town-planning into a series of mathematical actions, no longer based on ‘natural’ life but on numbers, measurements, and calculated predictions.

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ELEPHANT JUICE, SIMONE C NIQUILLE, 2020

An increasing number of images are produced autonomously by machines
for machines with a gradual exclusion of any human intervention. Automated Photography is a research project developed by the Master Photography at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne that addresses this situation by examining image production and distribution technologies, such as machine learning, CGI and photogrammetry.

On the occasion of Paris Photo, an immersive audiovisual exhibition, a symposium and a book present critical views and a selection of projects that explore the aesthetic and conceptual potential of automated photography.

My talk at the symposium is titled "The truth is artificial. Technology and epistemology in the account for complex situations." and will update some of the arguments I developed for my contribution to the book.

EXHIBITION
10.11.21 12:00-20:00
12.11.21 12:00-20:00
13.11.21 12:00-20:00

Artists

Nora Al-Badri
Simone C Niquille
Alan Warburton
Florian Amoser
Sara Bastai
Emidio Battipaglia
Emma Bedos
Alexey Chernikov
Gaël Corboz
Nikolai Frerichs
Sally Jo
Gohan Keller
Philipp Klak
Augustin Lignier
Valentin Woeffray

SYMPOSIUM
11.11.21 09:00-19:00

Speakers

Emmanuel Alloa
Yung Au
Ann-Christin Bertrand
Estelle Blaschke
Claus Gunti
Milo Keller
Marco De Mutiis
Clément Lambelet
Boris Magrini
Simone C Niquille
Felix Stalder
Joël Vacheron
Anne-Katrin Weber

automated-photography.ch

Arbeitskultur im Wandel. Eine Online-Vortragsreihe

Die Arbeitswelt unterliegt einem stetigen Wandel. Wo früher mit Schreibmaschinen gearbeitet wurde, stehen nun Computer. Wo früher Berechnungen von Hand vorgenommen wurden, erledigt dies heute Software. Doch nicht nur Technik und Methoden haben sich im Laufe der Jahrzehnte geändert, sondern auch das Miteinander in Arbeitskontexten und unsere Haltung zur Arbeit an sich.

Die VHS Hannover wagt einen Blick in die Zukunft und beschäftigt sich daher im Rahmen der Vortragsreihe „Arbeitskultur im Wandel“ mit den Themen:

Herausforderungen der Digitalität - Prof. Dr. Felix Stalder
Influencer-Relations - Prof. Dr. Annika Schach
Klassismus und die neue Arbeitswelt - Prof. Dr. Francis Seeck
BYOD - Einsatz von privaten Geräten in Arbeitskontexten - Phil Höfer
Podcast als Marketinginstrument - Georg Dahm
Superkräfte der Kommunikationskultur - Susanne Lorenz
Kulturwandel durch agiles Mindset - Frank Golinsky
Krisen als Chance für die Unternehmenskultur - Dr. Andreas Kohne
Arbeiten an der Zukunft - MA BA BSc Alexander Wöran (ars electronica)

Im Rahmen dieser Vorträge informieren Expert*innen Sie über neueste Erkenntnisse aus der Forschung, geben Ihnen Best Practice-Beispiel und stellen sich natürlich auch Ihren Fragen. Diskussionen sind ausdrücklich erwünscht!

https://www.vhs-hannover.de/aus-den-programmbereichen/arbeitskultur-im-w...

The Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), the UOC's research institute specializing in the study of the internet and the effects of interactions between digital technologies and human activity, is celebrating 20 years since its founding.

The event to mark this will coincide with the 25th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Manuel Castells' The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Castells, Professor of Sociology at the UOC and the current Spanish Minister for Universities, was formerly director of the IN3 and will take part in the event.

The key part of the event will be a talk by Castells himself: “The Network Society in the age of pandemics”.

There will then be a round table discussion moderated by philosopher and member of the UOC's Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Marina Garcés. The members of the panel will analyse Castells' work and the implications for today. The panel will include Diana Roig Sanz, ERC grant holder and ICREA Research Professor at the IN3; John Thompson, Professor of Sociology and Emeritus Fellow of Jesus College, University of Cambridge; Fernando Calderón, Professor at Argentina's Universidad Nacional San Martín (UNSAM) and Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO); Ida Susser, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center; Felix Stalder, Professor of Digital Culture at Zurich University of the Arts, and Hana Jalloul, lecturer of International Relations at Univeristy Carlos III (Madrid).

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Najbliższe spotkanie: Prof. Felix Stalder "The digital city as laboratory for the more-than-human society."

Spotkanie odbędzie się 13 maja 2021 o godzinie 18:00 na MS Teams (kliknij TUTAJ, aby przejść do seminarium)

Abstract
This talk starts from three assumptions. First, digital media have contributed to social diversity and polarization by leading people into ever more self-enclosed worlds, some of which are constructive, while others are destructive. Commercial social media have amplified the destructive ones for their own interests. Second, digitization and the informational economy are a driver of the “great acceleration” pushing the earth system beyond the relatively steady-state during which human civilization has so far existed. Third, digital infrastructures are necessary to manage the sharply increased complexity of the “post-industrial” society. From this, a major challenge emerges: how to use new digital infrastructures to bring people together, establish new forms of participation in the res publica, that is, the things that are shared by and affect, everyone. This is a daunting task because the institutions of the res publica cannot simply extend participation by citizens, as important as this is, but they need to account for the massively extended range of actors – technical as well as biological and even geological – that make up the dynamic system in which we live. I will look at the city-scale for practical examples of new social institutions.

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Tuesday, 11. Mai, 19.00 @ Depot Vienna -- online (Zoom Link)
Digital Unconscious
Book Launch

With:
Franco Berardi "Bifo", philopher, activist, Bologna
Cécilia Calheiros, writer, Paris
Steve Kurz, Critical Art Ensemble, USA
Katja Mayer, sociologist, University Vienna
hosted by Felix Stalder and Konrad Becker (eds.), World Information Institute, Vienna

In hyper-normal hybrids the boundaries between man and machine have dissolved. Inside their nervous systems lies a strange but fascinating theme: the digital unconscious.

Which forces act through algorithmic processes?
What secrets be found in the shadowy realm of technology, welded to human nervous systems?
How can the complexity of these relationships be described and what forms of access can cultural approaches offer?

Autonomedia publishing: "Digital Unconscious - Nervous Systems and Uncanny Predictions!" S.M. Amadae, Franco Berardi Bifo, Cecilia Calheiros, Ewen Chardronnet, Critical Art Ensemble, Erik Davis, Graham Harwood, Eva Illiouz, Lydia H.Liu, Katja Mayer, El Iblis Shah, Felix Stalder, Michael Taussig, Peter Lamborn Wilson. ISBN: 978157027

http://www.depot.or.at/index.php?article_id=30&clang=0

Es freut mich sehr, an der Konferenz "Das digitale Bild – Die soziale Dimension, politische Perspektiven und ökonomische Zwänge" (28-30.04) eine Keynotezu halten. Die Konferenz wird im Rahmen des DFG-Schwerpunktprogramm: „Das digitale Bild“ ausgerichtet.

Composite Images. On the transformation of visual truth claims.

Forensic Architecture and the Invisible Institute, still from Six Durations of a Split Second: The Killing of Harith Augustus (2019).

Abstract:

It has been a peculiarity of Western modernity – the cultural constellation that extended, roughly, from the mid 15th to the mid 20th century – to assume that images represent the world as it is, in an objective, optical sense and that which can be seen is what counts. Contemporary digital technologies of image-making are, on the surface, extending this claim by creating ever more ‘realistically’ detailed images (HD, UltraHD, 4K, 8K, Gigapixel etc), yet, more importantly, they are fundamentally undermining it, by moving from the representation of an external reality to the generative production of images. At the same time, what constitutes reality is becoming ever more complex and distributed, eroding the value of representational images to make sense of it. With that, we need a new way of understanding images, as composites rather than indexes, and the role they play in the production of truth claims.

I'm very happy to give a keynote lecture at the ​​Art, Museums and Digital Cultures Conference, organized by MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon. The conference date is 22-23 April 2021, my talk is on the second day, 10:00 AM

The digital condition and reconstitution of the public(s)

The digital condition has eroded many of the categories that have structured modernity. In this talk, I want to focus on two of them which are directly relevant to museums and other memory organizations, defining institutions of modern culture. One is the distinction between "public" and "private", the other is between "professional" and "amateur". These categories are no longer useful to structure the relations between these institutions and the wider environment in which they are embedded. Contemporary cultural production is defined by ubiquitous patterns of referentiality, communality, and algorithmicity. They transform the public into publics and give rise to "mass creativity" that threatens to bypass existing memory institutions.

Abstract meines Beitrags:

"Geben lässt sich nicht ohne Nehmen denken. Gerade in komplexen
Problemlagen ist es die Freiheit der Aneignung, die erlaubt etwas
Generisches (für alle bereits Bestehendes) für einen spezifischen
Kontext relevant zu machen, sei das in Form eines Remixes, oder einer
Softwaremodifikation."

Zur Tagung:

„Open source, file-sharing, crowdfunding, peer production“ – die Welt der digitalen Kommunikation ist voller Wirtschaftspraktiken, die dem Geben und Schenken näher sind als dem Marktkauf. Zwar ist die Gabe durch Marcel Mauss’ „Essai sur le don“ in den Kanon der Kulturethnologie aufgestiegen, aber in der Wirtschaftswissenschaft gilt das Schenken eher als Fossil eines vorökonomischen Zeitalters.

Im Horizont der Digitalisierung wird eine Wirtschaftswissenschaft notwendig, die, um mögliche Entwicklungen einer global vernetzten Kooperationsgesellschaft zu reflektieren, neben dem Paradigma der jeweils abgeschlossenen Tauschhandlungen zwischen beliebigen Personen auch das Paradigma der endlos unabgeschlossenen Gabe zwischen miteinander verbundenen Personen gelten lässt. Die Tagung versammelt AutorInnen, deren Forschungen die sozialen Phänomene des reziproken Gebens und des ostentativen Schenkens beschreiben und verständlich machen. Sie thematisieren die sozialwissenschaftliche Wiederaufnahme des „Gabenparadigmas“ (Frank Adloff), sein Wirken in Organisationen und Gemeinwesen, seine Ausprägung in der Logik des Rechts und in den Narrativen der Literatur und seine Erscheinungsform in Kulturen, in denen die Versorgung mittels Markttransaktionen eine geringere Rolle spielte. Ihren gemeinsamen Bezugspunkt finden diese Studien in Beiträgen, die ausgewählte Fälle von Geben und Schenken in digitalen Netzwerken vorstellen.

KONZEPTION: Michael Hutter(Berlin) und Birger P. Priddat (Witten)

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