At this lab-meeting we will discuss m-e-t-h-o-d-o-l-o-g-i-e-s (or not) for knotting together the expertise of artists, activists, theorists and computer scientists. Through collaborative projects such as Cqrrelations, The Techno-Galactic Software Observatory, The Libre Graphics Research Unit and Queering Damage, Femke Snelting will argue that it is urgent to create situations for thinking-together about what is going on with digital technology. How can we imagine forms of proximate critique that stay with the trouble of computation and informatics?

Femke takes Free Software seriously as a trans*feminist invitation to explore how digital tools and practices might co-construct each other. Constant (association for art and media), Possible Bodies (with Jara Rocha) and a.pass (advanced performance and scenography studies) are some of the constellations through which this disobedient-action-research operates.

The afternoon will be dedicated to a collective workshop of applying different methodologies to computational and design issues.

Femke Snelting works as artist and designer, developing projects at the intersection of design, feminism and free software. In various constellations she has been exploring how digital tools and practices might co-construct each other. She is member of Constant, a non-profit, artist-run association for art and media based in Brussels. Since 1997, Constant generates performative publishing, curatorial processes, poetic software, experimental research and educational prototypes in local and international contexts. With Jara Rocha she activates Possible Bodies, a collective research project that interrogates the concrete and at the same time fictional entities of “bodies” in the context of 3D tracking, modelling and scanning. She co-initiated the design/research team Open Source Publishing (OSP) and formed De Geuzen (a foundation for multi-visual research) with Renée Turner and Riek Sijbring. Femke teaches at the Piet Zwart Institute (experimental publishing, Rotterdam) and is currently curator of the Research Centre at a.pass (advanced performance and scenography studies, Brussels).

Registration

If you wish to participate in the event, please register by sending an email to Loren Britton, Loren.Britton[at]uni-kassel[dot]de 

If you wish to become part of the broader CF+ network of scholars, artists and designers interested in the intersection between computer science and feminist theory, please also send your short biographical note to Loren.Britton[at]uni-kassel[dot]de 

About CF+

CF+ is a project of the Gender/Diversity in Informatics Systems research lab at the University of Kassel, Germany. The project aims to lay the groundwork for revisiting dominant modes and practices of knowledge and artefact production in computer science through cyberfeminist and feminist new materialist lenses. It also aims to consolidate a network of researchers, artists and designers working on and interested in these issues for on-going collaboration.