ART CITIES:Berlin-1948 Unbound
With the beginning of the atomic, digital, and petrochemical era, the year 1948 marks a turning point in the history of Earth, as the planet is transformed into a space of technical operations. “1948 Unbound-Unleashing the technical present” is a meeting of International researchers and artists for an experimental conference in order to explore the meaning and implications of the project “Technosphere”.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: The Haus der Kulturen der Welt Archive
From 2015 to 2019 the explorative research project “Technosphere” that explores the dilemma of global technology and its identity, hosts three public events to spur conversations among scientists, artists, and the general public that explore the origins and future itineraries of the technosphere. The online publication Technosphere Magazine aims to fathom this new sphere on a continuous basis, sounding out its depths and properties, highlighting particular instances and phenomena, probing its logics and protocols. In “1948 Unbound-Unleashing the technical present” for three days lectures, performative elements, gatherings and installations, all differing in duration, visibility, and interaction investigate historic moments and the themes that tie them together. Diverse approaches from artistic research to historical groundwork will be taken to rework current epistemological categories and our ways of looking at the various histories that have striated this planet. “Switches”, “Seeds”, “Hydrocarbons”, “Tokens”, and “Chance” thus serve us as exemplary historical nuclides that contour the 1948 moment of the mobilization of the technosphere. Switches: The unleashing of the technosphere is, above all, the making of numerous tiny Switches. With the advent of the point-contact transistor, Claude Shannon’s information theory, and cybernetics, the year 1948 represents the material and theoretical starting point for a universal language of 0 and 1. From then on, the digital makes up the foundational cultural technique of a present saturated with circuits and electronics. Seeds: The technological dissolution of the difference between internal and external conditions of life is manifest in the ways Seeds are handled. Large-scale agronomic projects such as Trofim Lysenko’s anti-genetic experiments, the Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature, and the beginnings of the “Green Revolution” bear witness to a new attitude toward engineering, in both heredity and environments. At the same time, molecular biology provides fundamental ways to recombine the building blocks of life. A series of conversations explores the practices and ideologies behind the collapse of modification and mutation. A subsequent performance of micro-processions conjures historical and current moments of the agro-industrial technosphere. Hydrocarbons plunges into the decadence of the oil era. Scenes from the feature film The Wages of Fear (1953), a variety of research materials, and the sounds of oil form a multichannel installation which explores the speculative cultural genre termed “Pétro Noir.” The film sequences open up perspectives on the molecular basis of the geopolitical-industrial complex of petrochemistry, as well as on mobility, consumption, waste, and adventure. Which technical apparatuses, forms of media, and cultural techniques promote the unbinding of the hydrocarbon man? Tokens: With the establishment of universal standards for industrial goods, credit systems, and human rights around 1948, the world is transformed into a technocratic space of transactions. Orchestrated by the material and virtual circulation of Tokens (universal currencies, data, and bodies) economic infrastructures and legal mechanisms emerge and begin to regulate a global society. Chance: Around 1948, chance becomes operative: game theory, simulations, future scenarios, and permanent optimizations of the present use algorithmic selection strategies from an endless number of intentionally dispersed probabilities. The Research and Development (RAND) Corporation’s book “A Million Random Digits” is a catalyst for this process, providing a list of automatically generated random numbers, along with a manual for their use.
Info: Concept and realization: Katrin Klingan, Christoph Rosol, Nick Houde, and Janek Müller, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, Berlin, Days & Hours: Switches: Thu (30/11/17) 19:00, Seeds: Fri (1/12/17) 15:00, Hydrocarbons: Fri (1/12/17) 19:30, Tokens: Sat (2/12/17) 15:00 & Chance: Sat (2/12/17) 19:30, www.hkw.de
