Rethinking Affordance

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Experimental work by artists and designers has always played a key role in shaping our understanding of the possible uses and functions of new and emerging technologies – in other words, of their scientific, industrial, commercial, or rhetorical »affordances.« Rethinking Affordance, consisting of a symposium, an exhibition, and an academic publication, explores the critical significance of »affordance« in digital contexts and areas including media art, media theory, film, art history, and cultural theory.

The concept of »affordance« originates from perceptual and cognitive psychology, where it has been used to indicate the uses and functions materially inscribed in physical objects or environments. An object’s affordances were thus assumed to describe its phenomenological qualities, signaling the object’s possible functions, and telling us about potentials and limits of usability. Classic examples include door handles, tea cups, or stairs – objects whose functions could presumably be grasped even by those who have never used them before. But how relevant are such traditional perspectives in contemporary digital contexts, such as human-computer interaction or interface design?

Focusing on the experimental work of digital artists, designers, and theorists, Rethinking Affordance explores what conceptual reconfigurations may be required so that we can better grasp the critical, political, and aesthetic affordances of new and emerging technologies.

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Program

Thursday, June 7, 2018

6.00 p.m.         Welcome Remarks by Sophie-Charlotte Thieroff

6.10 p.m.         Introduction by Ashley Scarlett & Martin Zeilinger

6.30 p.m.         What Things and Signs Can Do for Me: Affordance & Using, Resistance & 
                        Creating, keynote by Frieder Nake

8.00 p.m.         Dinner

9.00 p.m.         Affordances of the Blind Spot, performance by Eric Cazdyn

Friday, June 8, 2018

10.00 a.m.      Realizing Affordance in the Techno-Industrial Residency by Ashley Scarlett

10.30 a.m.      Painting Algorithms: K.O. Götz’s Rasterbilder and Vera Molnar’s Computer
                       Paintings by Aline Guillermet

11.00 a.m.      Affordances in Transitioning from Analog to Digital by George Legrady

11.30 a.m.      Coffee Break

11.45 a.m.      Ways of Sitting by Foci + Loci (Chris Burke & Tamara Yadao)

12.15 p.m.      Digital Media Arts in the Middle East: Affordances for Whom? by Özgün Eylül İşcen

1.00 p.m.        Lunch

2.00 p.m.        Truly »Rare« Protocols: Art and Blockchains Beyond Scarcity by Laura Lotti

2.30 p.m.        Affordances of the Digital Art Object in the Age of Intellectual Property
                       Regimes by Martin Zeilinger

3.00 p.m.        _Whitepaper by FRAUD (Audrey Samson & Francisco Gallardo)

3.30 p.m.        Coffee Break

3.45 p.m.        A Reach Beyond: EcoTechnoLogic(s) in Deep Time Machine Learning by Jol
​                      Thomson

4.15 p.m.        Making Affordances Real: Multiplicity Distributed Agency, and Action Cascades in
                       Sociomaterial Prefiguration by Andreas Bischof

4.45 p.m.        Commonist (Media) Design? Or, More Solidarity with Machinic Affordances! by
                       Shintaro Miyazaki

6.00 p.m.         Once again, the Doorknob: On Affordance, Forgiveness and Ambiguity in Human
​                        Computer and Human Robot Interaction, keynote by Olia Lialina

7.30 p.m.         Dinner

8.30 p.m.         Ways of Sitting, performance by Foci + Loci

9.00 p.m.         Organic Oscillators, performance by Antoni Rayzhekov

Saturday, June 9, 2018

10.00 a.m.        Special publication issue discussion/workshopping 

1.00 p.m.          Lunch & open end 

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With contributions by:

Andreas Bischof, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Media Informatics, Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz/Germany | Eric Cazdyn, Distinguished Professor in Aesthetics and Politics, University of Toronto, Toronto/Canada | FRAUD (Audrey Samson & Francisco Gallardo), art-research duo, based in London/United Kingdom | Foci + Loci (Chris Burke & Tamara Yadao), media and sound artists, based in New York City, NY/USA | Aline Guillermet, Junior Research Fellow, King’s College, Cambridge University, Cambridge/United Kingdom | Özgün Eylül İşcen, doctoral candidate, Computational Media, Arts and Culture, Duke University, Durham, NC/USA | George Legrady, Professor, Media Arts and Technology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA/USA | Laura Lotti, independent researcher, Lisbon/Portugal | Shintaro Miyazaki, Senior Researcher, Institute of Experimental Design and Media Cultures, Academy of Art and design FHNW, Basel/Switzerland | Frieder Nake, computer artist, mathematician, and computer scientist; Professor in Digital Media, University of the Arts, Bremen/Germany | Olia Lialina, net artist, Professor in New Media, Merz Akademie, Stuttgart/Germany | Antoni Rayzhekov, interdisciplinary artist working in the field of music, theater and digital arts, Vienna/Austria | Ashley Scarlett, Assistant Professor, School of Critical and Creative Studies, Alberta College of Art and Design, Calgary, Alberta/Canada | Jol Thomson, media artist and doctoral candidate, University of Westminster, London/United Kingdom | Martin Zeilinger, Senior Lecturer in Media, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge/United Kingdom

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The symposium takes place within the art, science & business program at Akademie Schloss Solitude. The event will be held in English. Admission is free.

Per diem meal allowance incl. lunch, dinner, coffee, and beverages: 20 euros/10 euros for students.

Please register until June 4, 2018 via email to: Emily Knoll, http://knoll@akademie-solitude.de, ​Tel. +49 (0)711 99 619 482

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