Taking Care of Things! [event]

:: co-conception/coordination (w/ Christina Kral>) : 140115-18 : Stadtarchiv Lüneburg> : part of Post-Media Lab/Habits of Living

(i): CareBears. Elisabeth Crary.
2011 – CCby-nc-sa
>


: Jan 15-18, 2014
: Venue: Stadtarchiv Lüneburg, Germany

short synopsis

From the perspective of current theoretical approaches the figure of the archive seems to have lost its central status and its fever. In our medial and cultural set-up new (kinds of) archives seem to crop up everywhere, accelerated by new means of production and distribution. Cultural repertoires are being remixed alongside technological repositories – often giving new life to almost forgotten relics. Ever more things, valuables, processes, projects, constituencies, even movements, need to be taken care of. It is not only cultural and critical theory that is being challenged, but also law, the natural sciences and design, alongside other applied sciences. But what are the complex dynamics and contexts of these new (non-)archives? Do they really make sense? And if so, by and for whom? To address these questions, ‘Taking Care of Things!’ focuses on the transformation of things – analog and digital – into life-cycles and specific practices of care. This will be done in different thematic groups dealing with topics, like Mesh Media!, Civil Archaeology, Measure Drones, Unearthing the Archive, Translating Ontologies and Extinction in Context.

This workshop will address such fundamental changes in archiving and objects by generating practices and chances to take care of things. That is, we will seek to extend (or sometimes end) the life-cycle of objects not by simply preserving them (this usually guarantees they will be forgotten), but rather through acts that respond, react, and/or reuse.

‘Taking Care of Things!’ will be based at and operating from the Stadtarchiv Lüneburg, the city’s rich and still to-be-further-explored archive, headed by Danny Kolbe.

‘Taking Care of Things!’ will start Wednesday evening (Jan 15) with a public talk by Kelly Dobson (Brown University) and followed by short introductions by Oliver Lerone Schutz, Nishant Shah and Wendy Chun to set the scene for the following days. Clemens Apprich together with Marcell Mars will then turn the evening into a Public Library offering the first charge of Post-Media Lab publications.

Thursday and Friday (Jan 16-17) will be reserved for intensive exchanges and workshops among the invited participants, all of whom deal very differently and critically with post-medial (non-)archives. There will be the opportunity to interface with the Lüneburg public, assembling archival objects of different kinds. On Saturday (Jan 18) all these activities will culminate in a public presentation and fair under the umbrella of ‘Parliament of Things’ held at the Stadtarchiv.

‘Taking Care of Things!’ will create multiple interweavings not only with the rich repository of the Stadtarchiv, but also with the multiple potentials of existing and new collaborations around the Center for Digital Cultures.

who is involved

‘Taking Care of Things!’ is a collaborative event between Habits of Living (Brown University, CIS Bangalore) and the Post-Media Lab in conjunction with Stadtarchiv Lüneburg.  This event will mark the conclusion of the first life-cycle of the Post-Media Lab by bringing together former fellows and new participants.

Among the participants are: Adnan Hadzi and James Steven (DeckspaceTV>), Femke Snelting and Michael Murtaugh (Constant/Active Archives>), Eric Kluitenberg and David Garcia (Tactical Media Files >), Boaz Levin> and Daniel Herleth and Adam Kaplan (The Rise of Data), Fabian Giraud and Inigo Wilkins > (Glass Bead), Jonathan Kemp > and Martin Howse > („Stack, Frame, Heap (SFH)”), as well as Memory of the World (Marcell Mars)>, Cornelia Sollfrank (Giving What You Don´t Have)>, Mathias Fuchs > (Gamification Lab) >, Hauke Winkler (Freifunk), Robert Ochshorn (InterLace)>, Tapio Makela (M.A.R.I.N.)>, Fabrizio Augusto Poltronieri (MaisZero)>>, Rodrigo Novaes>) (Flusser Archiv >)/UdK) Owen Mundy>, Erich Berger, Connie Mendoza, Kristian Lukic (NAPON), Vahida Ramujkic (irational)>, Volker Grassmuck > (CDC/Grundversorgung 2.0>), Kilian Froitzhuber (netzpolitik.org>)) and more.

Coordination & Care
Christina Kral: christina.kral[at]inkubator.leuphana.de
Oliver Lerone Schultz: oschultz[at]leuphana.de

Team
Wendy Chun, Nishant Shah, Clemens Apprich, Josie Berry Slater, Anthony Iles; and Nora Hannemann, Sina Hurnik, Nina Kersten, Ann-Kathrin Wagner, Nicolas Stille

(i): Sina Hurnik (pml)
>


PROGRAM

Wednesday, Jan 15
18:00 Stadtarchiv
Introduction to Taking Care of Things
a lecture by Kelly Dobson (Brown University): ‘Why It Matters The Way Things Break’
– preceded by short event-introductions by Oliver Lerone Schultz and Nishant Shah, and a personal introduction by Wendy Chun>
… and a temporarily installed Public Library, hosted by Marcell Mars (Memory of the World), offering the first charge of Post-Media Lab publications. Bring your own devices to download them live!

Friday, Jan 17
21:00 (location to be announced)
Screening Things
a curated public screening including footage from the Stadtarchiv and works by ‘Taking Care of Things!’ participants
Zum Kollektiv | Scharffsche Haus, Heiligengeiststr. 38, 21335 Lüneburg

Saturday, Jan 18
11:00 - 13:00 Freiraum
lueneburg freifunk derive:
Freifunk – Grundversorgung 2.0 – tacticalmediafiles – interlace – Stadtarchiv Lüneburg
– introducing a commonly built local media mesh for Lüneburg with diverse and distributed, location specific media content
presentation + city walk – please pre-register at: http://tiny.cc/rhy98w registrieren.

13:00 - 17:00 Stadtarchiv
Parliament of Things
a public fair and exhibition displaying the results of the two-day workshop intermixed with city archive material—an opportunity for the public to engage with ‘Taking Care of Things!’ and the Stadtarchiv in a variety of activities igniting & deepening conversations around archives, life-cycles and care.

For a detailed program please visit PML event page for “Taking Care of Things!” or the CDC event schedule.






––– ‘Taking Care of Things’ @ Post-Media Lab website >
––– ‘Habits of Living website >
––– Stadtarchiv Lüneburg (Findbuch) >


– some first documentations done by participants:
––– documentation @ Constant / Active Archives : >
––– documentation @ Owen Mundy´s blog : >
––– documentation @ Deckspace : >

s.a. »Post-Media Lab [project]« >

:: ‘Taking Care of Things!’ announcement PDF (90kb) +
:: ‘Taking Care of Things!’ event-flyer PDF (335kb) +