Digital Materiality

About

Digital technologies and processes are increasingly integrated in all aspects of our lives: from ubiquitous all-at-once social media, high frequency trading and smart cities to the instruments we use to make art and express ourselves. They open up new realms of experience and open up questions about who and what we are. In this seminar we will analyze digital technologies from their material properties to help grasp how they work, what they are, how they are changing us and maybe how we can change them. Our crash course will reference thinkers from the ancient physicists through the scientific revolution to today’s quantum physics, from Plato to Marx to contemporary political economy and out into speculative new Materialism and post-history. We will explore the ever diversifying, discipline-melting realms of creative digital practices, which may be art, design, propaganda, engineering, and all at once. We will discuss, research and prepare small presentations for each other, as we attempt to synthesize our understanding in texts, performances and objects.

This workshop is presented in cooperation with the Studium Generale at the University of the Arts. This means the course will be open to students of the University up to a maximum of 12 people. Thus the workshop-group is a mixture of regular students and international participants.