The course ‘Technologies/Practices | Digital Communication and Media Worlds Mz* Baltazar's Lab’ is taught collectively. This semester, Lale Rodgarkia-Dara, Evamaria Müller and Sarah George Wilhelmy will design the first part of the course. Anna Watzinger and Olivia Jaques are responsible for the exhibition concept, its joint design and joint setup.

Strömungen

Currents and Tendencies

 

Ocean currents are large-scale movements of water within the Earth’s oceans, says the French based AI-Text-Machine Mistral. They are driven by wind, temperature, salinity, and the Earth’s rotation (Coriolis effect).The term 'current' is also used to refer to air currents and electric currents, as well as cultural and social currents.

 

We are combining these electrical and physical currents with social and cultural questions.

What if we just float with the current or act against the current?

 

What gives us a sense of self: a sense that we exist in a place, that we are able to act and have agency. In order to feel ourselves in space-time, we need to know our locality and direction. The German language has a word for this: Handlungsspielraum (scope for action depending on our resources and abilities). Local stories are everyday stories; they are incomplete fragments, the phrases and situations we repeat to our neighbors, coworkers, friends we meet regularly.

 

These fragments of everyday life are not interchangeable surfaces that we simply attach to some abstract meaning. Every little interaction has the innate potential to transform us in some small or big way. We can place an object or obstacle to encourage, shape or divert currents. Local stories are not detached "objective" dialogues. Their motivations and actions are part of the business of living.

 

We will examine ourselves in space and time: where we are, when, who we are with. We will use location and direction to see the possibilities for action and relationally. Using methods such as encoding, examination, imaginative mapping and current-shaping, we will explore telling incomplete or inconclusive stories in ways that preserve and expand their relevance and helpfulness.

 

 

Theoretical resources include readings and discussion from bell hooks, Agnes Heller "Everyday Life", Paulo Friere, Darren J. Ranco and Fredric Jameson. Practical exercises include verbal and written storytelling, 3D-scanning, and use of the studio praxistest for experiments in artistic storytelling, map-making and encoding.

 

Creation of an own (transmedia) artwork with reference to the course content and presentation as part of a collective exhibition towards the end of the semester at Mz*Baltazar's Laboratory (Jägerstraße 52-54, 1200 Wien)

 

 

 

Mz* Baltazar's Lab, founded in 2009 and rooted in Vienna, defines itself as an art, feminist* hacking and safer space, as a constantly changing collective of currently five artists, activists and theorists: who have set themselves the goal of creating a safe, subversive creative infrastructure for making/hacking, community building/networking and the realization/support of exhibitions and workshops at the intersection of media art, science, hacking/making and gender politics at Mz* Baltazar's Lab in Vienna's 20th district. district of Vienna.