This work explores the potential of doing collaborative data physicalization for discussing (un)sustainable practices. For this purpose, it draws on experiences from several data physicalization workshops during the period of 2018-2022, conducted in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, which were available to mostly inexpert groups of people, including almost a hundred primary school students. This paper particularly focuses on a recent held dataphys workshop with over 20 adult participants, such as including international students and climate activists. Based on learner reports (self-assessment questionnaires) (N=20), and observations, it was found that the process of making data physicalizations in workshop and educational settings can be beneficial for engaging in collaborative creative and critical discussion of (un)sustainable practices. Particularly, the participants positively indicated to have learned from the dataphys workshop on a 5-point Likert scale and agreed that it enabled (1) critical thinking, (2) data understanding, (3) creativity, (4) collaboration, and (5) awareness of (un)sustainable practices. This paper presents the workshop format, including ingredients such as live cartoon capturing, and challenges in realizing such value in the context of sustainability, such as including a wider public, the conscious use of data and materials, and discussable effective outcomes.
The Institute of Network Cultures and the Learning Community Critical Making are proud to present the Post-Precarity Zine, a toolbox for beginning artists.Times have changed. The art world and the creative economy are no longer the ones we used to know. The digital economy, the pandemic, and the cuts within the cultural field are some of the many factors that influence our practices and the way artists live nowadays. While some claim that the golden eras are gone, and maybe they are, a community of young artists and thinkers meets to discuss the ways in which the narrative around art and its practices has changed and can be geared towards the future.What does it mean to be an artist today? How to survive as a cultural worker while making what you want to make? How can we use contemporary platforms to turn our anger into transformative power? What are the many strategies of organization and obstacles artists have to face nowadays for their practice to remain? By better understanding the structures of the art world and its economies, how can we counteract them and use them to our benefit and create sustainable and collective actions?It is with such questions in mind that the first Post-Precarity Precarity Autumn Camp was organized by the Institute of Network Cultures, Platform BK and Hotel Maria Kapel from September 27th until October 1st, 2021. This zine collects extracts of texts, testimonials, precious reports, summaries of our daily programs, quotes, drawings and notes from the many participants, references to relevant sources, an open letter to Dutch art academies with four demands for change, an essay on principles for post-precarity, and exercises you can do at home to recalibrate your ‘artistic biotope’. With this mumble jumble, we give you a window to our inspiring week, a toolkit, and a fragmented manifesto. We hope to inspire you with our critical reflections, optimism, and the actions taken during the Post-Precarity Autumn Camp!
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All Gone is a series of experiments with AI that build on existing collections of climate fiction to create much-needed new climate imaginaries. As the climate crisis is also a “crisis of imagination” (Ghosh, 2016), this project turns to the art genre that is best at forecasting and imagining alternative futures: science fiction. Using collections of ‘cli-fi’ novels, in which science fiction meets natural disaster or heavy weather, algorithms are trained until they are able to render new climate imaginaries in textual and visual form. The edited texts and curated images are further developed into audio stories and a tarot deck as tools for reflection on present and future living with a changing climate.
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In ‘Verbeelding in Transities’ werken negen onderzoeksgroepen van de Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, de Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Hogeschool Inholland en de Hogeschool van Amsterdam samen als SPRONG-groep. Ze ontwikkelen in acht jaar met maatschappelijke partners een landelijk kenniscentrum voor creatieve innovatie en maatschappelijk verdienvermogen. De vier hogescholen zijn verenigd in het Centre of Expertise for Creative Innovation (CoECI). Als kennisinstellingen in de culturele en creatieve sector (CCS) ontwikkelen zij het maatschappelijk verdienvermogen van de professionals die zij opleiden. Juist in deze tijd van toenemende onzekerheid, ongelijkheid en maatschappelijke veranderingen is het wegvallen van activiteiten in deze sector een grote zorg. 1 De onderzoeksgroepen beschikken over een beproefde infrastructuur voor duurzame samenwerking. Er is al ervaring opgedaan in het werken in labs en het uitwisselen van kennis. Middels SPRONG werken we aan de doorontwikkeling van de onderzoeksinfrastructuur die de ontwikkeling van discipline- en domeinoverstijgende kennis mogelijk maakt, bestaande uit: 1. Een observatorium om creatieve methodieken - Key Enabling Methodologies, KEMs2 - in kaart te brengen, te ontsluiten en door te ontwikkelen vanuit culturele, etnologische en technologische onderzoeksbenaderingen, zodat ze breed inzetbaar worden; 2. Verbeeldingswerkplaatsen waar de KEMs en het maatschappelijk verdienvermogen van de CCS getoetst worden bij praktijkvragen uit het sociale domein; 3. Interventieonderzoek om de werking van de inzet van deze KEMs bij maatschappelijke transitievraagstukken inzichtelijker en beter toepasbaar te maken. De eerste vier jaar ligt de focus op de wijze waarop KEMs die verbeeldingskracht en vindingrijkheid stimuleren en bijdragen aan inclusieve participatie in maatschappelijke transitieopgaven. De investering in de kennisinfrastructuur draagt bij aan een transformatie van de onderzoeksgroepen naar een krachtige SPRONG-groep die verweven is met maatschappelijke contexten, lokaal geworteld in een robuust partnernetwerk. In de tweede vier jaar wordt de infrastructuur uitgebreid en op grotere schaal ingezet t.b.v. actuele maatschappelijke transitieopgaven.
