Cybernetics of the Poor Event

International seminar. Second part organized by the Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies. (First part: Tabakalera, Donostía – San Sebastián, April 12 and 13)

We are governed, planned, anticipated. Since more than half a century the various forms and stages of cybernetics determine our life and redefine acting. Born in the age of the revolt – the existentialist fifties – cybernetics ended the idea and the possibility of the singular heroic act (revolt) once and for all. In the beginning, a military episteme to anticipate the movements of enemies and targets, later a/the technique of governmentality from traffic planning to general surveillance, it has now become the dominant and ever expansive business model of algorithmic capitalism - and also a full-fledged quasi-metaphysical worldview.

Artists do not have the resources to stop or interrupt cybernetics, they only have their own tools and insights – the weapons of a cybernetics of the poor, a folk-cybernetics. They test and stage behaviour, exercises, movements that can move without the data machinery, the military apparatuses of the dominant power structures. They have to help themselves by using their knowledge of poetry and aesthetics. Especially repetition, insistence, aggression have been proven successful in this otherwise very romantic vision of artistic alterity.

Friday 17th May 2019
16–19 h
Playing and Exercising
With: Oier Etxeberria, Jon Mikel Euba, Inka Meißner, Anke Dyes.

Are we exercising a scripted or non-scripted score or play to become better at it or to be able to something completely different? Is cooking an exercise for political action and is an improvisation on the violin better when the virtuosa has rehearsed a piece of classical violin literature before.

Saturday 18th May 2019
14–17 h
The Score and the Tutorial
With Sabeth Buchmann, Agency (Kobe Matthys), Ana de Almeida, Nina Kerschbaumer

17–19 h
Resume: How to Curate a Show
With Diedrich Diederichsen, Oier Etxeberria and everyone else

We are governed, planned, anticipated. Since more than half a century the various forms and stages of cybernetics determine our life and redefine acting. Born in the age of the revolt – the existentialist fifties – cybernetics ended the idea and the possibility of the singular heroic act (revolt) once and for all. In the beginning, a military episteme to anticipate the movements of enemies and targets, later a/the technique of governmentality from traffic planning to general surveillance, it has now become the dominant and ever expansive business model of algorithmic capitalism - and also a full-fledged quasi-metaphysical worldview.

Artists do not have the resources to stop or interrupt cybernetics, they only have their own tools and insights – the weapons of a cybernetics of the poor, a folk-cybernetics. They test and stage behaviour, exercises, movements that can move without the data machinery, the military apparatuses of the dominant power structures. They have to help themselves by using their knowledge of poetry and aesthetics. Especially repetition, insistence, aggression have been proven successful in this otherwise very romantic vision of artistic alterity.