"What is Feminist Hardware? Feminist Hacking: Building Circuits as an Artistic Practice"
Stefanie Wuschitz, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna; wuschitz[at]tu-berlin[dot]de

We are a group of female* art based researchers that will intervene in the hardware production cycle by connecting with ethical hardware manufacturers. We will work in a systematic manner with manufacturers who are specialized in open and ethical hardware to find as many fair sourced hardware components as possible. In this workshop we propose to experiment with circuits that consist entirely of these special materials we have collected in recent months. We believe the development of individual positions through collaboratively developed hardware to be the most appropriate way to demonstrate what feminist hardware entails. This methodology aims to support, on the one hand, the production of new knowledge acquainted by the interaction between artists, hardware developers/manufacturers, and, on the other, the playful prototyping with fair traded open hardware.

"Constraints as chance. On ontological prospects of material, instrumental and operational boundary conditions from design to science"

Frank Bauer, Cluster of Excellence "Matters of Activity. Image Space Material", HU Berlin, Germany; Department of Digital and Experimental Design, Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning, UdK Berlin, Germany;
Maxie Schneider, Academy of Art and Design Weißensee; Department of textile and surface design;
f.bauer[at]udk-berlin[dot]de

The workshop is conceived as an experimental encounter on ontological foundings and prospects of digital workflows. It nurtures new understandings of the co-authorship of those materials/instruments/operations at our disposal – opening perspectives on how scientists and designers may render them more productive at large through a little change of viewpoint. An introductory 1st session applies the context of recent techno-anthropological research on the matter; which, coming from Actor-Network-Theory, revealed the roles of manifold, human and non-human agents (materials/processes/interfaces) (Latour 2011) and the importance of collaborative and uncommon practices across distributed agencies (Rheinberger/Krauthausen/Nasim 2011). More specific, the media philosophical concept of 'operative ontologies' will suggest how manifold ontological operations of making result in just as manifold forms of being (Engell/Siegert 2017). In the 2nd session we collectively exemplify this on two cases: (A) How software-driven design is facing the question of projective distance, i.e. whether CAD/CAM bridges gaps of building or how these gaps are just dislocated into the everyday realities of office work; and how, while not so long ago, designers were facing the bottleneck of translating intent to clients or craftsmen, fabricational constraints have emerged as the manifold choking points of so-called 'digital chains'. (B) A joint assessment of examples from the younger scientific history presents the co-authorship of their related instruments, softwares and materials for academic progress. Throughout the 3rd session, the participants share tools/interfaces/materials and respective constraints from their own (scientific/designing/professional) workflows. Short inputs on respective boundary conditions are followed by extra-disciplinary perspectives on them by the group. Such instances of looking on routines off routine, so to say, may fertilize a joint inquiry how unbiased attention may reveal unexpected epistemic potentials – eventually shifting technological discourses from possibility to constraint space.

"Inquiring the digital interstice through a data sprint: Ethnographic research where front and back end meet"
Laura Kocksch, Stefan Laser, Estrid Sørensen, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum;
Fabian Pitroff, Jakob Roschka, University of Kassel, Germany;
pittroff[at]uni-kassel[dot]de
(Please note that only those participants who explicitly registered to attend the workshops will be able to do so.)

Our workshop tackles a key distinction of everyday life with digital data: the “front” and “back end.” This distinction marks not only interconnected layers of programming but also diverse approaches to digital infrastructures. The front/back dichotomy has performative effects: they become different contexts for understanding and dealing with data in distinct ways. These contexts found
divisions of labour and expertise and keep data practices apart. How can ethnographic methods help in following and attuning to the performance of the front/back dichotomy? Our workshop will focus on the indeterminate space and time between the front and back end. The goal is to address flows, impasses, tipping points, where actors switch from the “front” to the “back”. On the one hand, we will explore how the division between front/back end shapes data practices, their separation and interconnectedness. On the other hand, we will discuss how data flows and data practices challenge the front/back division. For our workshop, we’ll provide data alongside short inputs from two exemplary case studies to trigger a collective discussion and group interpretation. The workshop thus follows the structure of a “sprint” method. The goal of this data sprint – an intensive research workshop where participants from different background work together on a set of data and research questions – is to prototype research tools to make sense of digital situations that span beyond front/back ends. Time-wise, the workshop is divided into short empirical inputs on the one hand and extensive group work on the other. We will use (auto)ethnographic data as well as digital data produced by users and machines. Our research emphasises how data flows, database architectures and organisational structures are mutually shaped and how changes in one have considerable effects on the others.

"Queering narrative structures in technology studies from the perspective of art education"
Workshop by Konstanze Schütze,Universität zu Köln, Germany;
Martina Leeker, Universität Nürnberg, Germany;
k.schuetze[at]uni-koeln[dot]de
(Please note that only those participants who explicitly registered to attend the workshops will be able to do so.)

In a transdisciplinary research lab, we will ask about the complex interrelations of analog and digital devices with human textures and investigate the extent to which the presence and performance of high-performance technologies and so-called artificial intelligences condition and change the perception of the world and the body. On the basis of artistically condensed material (audiovisual essays and installations), approaches for alternative models of knowledge formation are to be explored on the challenges of the present. How do we realize our emotional and unconscious entanglements with contemporary technologies? How do we want to live with artificial intelligence (AI)? How are algorithms, bots, and Big Data changing power topographies and approaches to the world? How is human-machine interaction changing our attitudes toward work and our notions of private and public life? How are we making sense of it? What part do we have in these changes, and what are the challenges of a growing digital divide? How will we be able to process it? The workshop hopes to develop a first draft for an understanding of artworks as constellations within a postdigital condition and aims to summarize aspects of this potential for a speculative understanding of the world.