CRITICAL ENGINEERING / Radical Tools for Interventions in Infrastructure - Conference, workshop and exhibition curated by the Critical Engineering Working Group

  • Location:
    KINO ŠIŠKA CENTRE FOR URBAN CULTURE, TRG PREKOMORSKIH BRIGAD 3, LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA

PROGRAMME OVERVIEW

THE TALKS:
Kino Šiška, Trg prekomorskih brigad 3, Ljubljana
Tuesday, 26 March 2019
17:00 Julian Oliver & Danja Vasiliev: Dark Internet Topologies
17:45 Gordan Savičić & Bengt Sjölén: Electromagnetic Situationism
18:30 Joana Moll: An Autopsy of Data Business
19:15 Sarah Grant: Radical Networks

THE WORKSHOP:
Kino Šiška, Trg prekomorskih brigad 3, Ljubljana
Wednesday, 27 March 2019
9:00–18:00 Sarah Grant & Joana Moll: Surveillance Override

THE EXHIBITION:
Aksioma | Project Space, Komenskega 18, Ljubljana
Wednesday, 27 March 2019
19:00 Critical Engineering – opening (open through 26 April 2019)

Free admission.
Please fill in the online registration form by 24 March 2019.

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In 2011, a group of artists and engineers published the “Critical Engineering Manifesto”, since translated into 18 languages. Around the manifesto, originally written by Julian Oliver, Gordan Savičić and Danja Vasiliev, gathered a larger group – the Critical Engineering Working Group – now including also Sarah Grant, Bengt Sjölén and Joana Moll.
In true avant-garde fashion, the “Manifesto” launches by describing Engineering as “the most transformative language of our time, shaping the way we move, communicate and think”, thus, it is the work of the Critical Engineer “to study and exploit this language, exposing its influence”. Further, a Critical Engineer “recognises that each work of engineering engineers its user”, considering “any technology depended upon to be both a challenge and a threat”. And so the manifesto unfolds.
Nearly ten years later, the relevance of the “Critical Engineering Manifesto” has only become more evident, as an ever-growing public becomes aware of the techno-political implications of using – and depending upon – integrated systems and complex, networked technologies. Today, one can find its 11 points listed on the walls of hacklabs, museums, engineering and media-art academies, and in a great many texts, the world over.
The Tactics&Practice event entitled Critical Engineering comprises an exhibition, a seminar and a workshop, underlining the artistic, theoretical and educational work done by the Critical Engineering Working Group along the last decade. The seminar will host all the members of the group – all of them recognised artists with long individual artistic careers – using their statements and their projects as case studies to analyse the transformative potential of Critical Engineering in the context of a tactical and technical arts practice.



PRODUCTION: Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2019
COPRODUCTION: Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, Ljubljana and Drugo more, Rijeka
MEDIA SPONSOR: Radio Študent and TAM-TAM
SUPPORTED BY: the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, the Municipality of Ljubljana.

Critical Engineering is realised in the framework of State Machines, a joint project by Aksioma (SI), Drugo more (HR), Furtherfield (UK), Institute of Network Cultures (NL) and NeMe (CY).

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Aksioma's programme is additionally supported by the Ministry of Public Administration as part of the public call for co-financing projects for the development and professionalisation of NGOs and volunteerism and JSKD.