Date: Thursday, 22 November 2018
Time: 19.30 – 21.30
Location: Het Nieuwe Instituut, Museumpark 25  |  3015 CB Rotterdam

Free entrance, registration via Tickets, register here: https://www.eventbrite.nl/e/tickets-life-hacks-time-52607017004

What did time look like before the uniformity brought by networked devices? Is the circadian rhythm obsolete? How is software shaping and in turn being shaped by different understandings of temporality? What if wasting time on videogames is actually a productive and edifying habit?

With a remote contribution by Italian designer Michele Galluzzo, and together with Dutch designer Rik Laging, “neurophysical designer” Luis Rodil-Fernandez, a delegation of the Techno-Galactic Guide to Software Observation (Hans Lammerant, Mia Melvaer and Martino Morandi) and  XPUB (the Experimental Publishing program of the Piet Zwart Institute), we will tackle these and more questions during an evening dedicated both to the malleability and rigidity of time.

Contributors

Rik Laging (NL) is a graphic designer whose work engages with the clichés and cultures surrounding digital, more specifically, videogame culture. In his recent graduation work at the KABK (Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague) he made a video series of experiences that re-contextualizes/visits the stigma of videogames. This is done through the telling of different yet equally relatable social case studies that are home to the gaming culture of today. Currently Rik is working as freelance graphic designer and is also in frequent collaboration with fine artist Thijs Jaeger.

Michele Galluzzo (IT) attended the Master of Design science and communication at the ISIA Urbino. In 2018 he got the PhD in Design Sciences at Iuav University of Venice, with a research titling Are graphic designers still lead players? Advertising in Italy 1965 – 1985. Over the years he has held courses and lectures at the ACCA Academy of Jesi, the University of Architecture and Design of Ascoli Piceno, the CFP Bauer of Milan, the IED in Turin, the IUAV of Venice, the NABA in Milan, the Politecnico of Milan and the UNIBZ of Bolzano. Member of the editorial board of the international graphic design magazine “Progetto grafico” (AIAP Edizioni), he currently works in Milan as a graphic designer and researcher.

Luis Rodil-Fernández has studied Computer Science and years later went back to school to obtain a BA in Fine Art, continuing with a masters degree in ArtScience. In his work he proposes a critical approach to human-computer interactions and the way humans use technology to communicate with each other.

Hans Lammerant, Mia Melvaer and Martino Morandi contributed to the Techno-Galactic Guide to Software Observation (2018), which was collectively produced as an outcome of the Techno-Galactic Software Observatory (Brussels, 2017). This guide proposes several ways to achieve critical distance from the seemingly endless software systems that surround us. It offers practical and fantastical tools for the tactical (mis)use of software, empowering/enabling users to resist embedded paradigms and assumptions. It is a collection of methods for approaching software, experiencing its myths and realities, its risks and benefits.

Life Hacks

Life Hacks is part of Het Nieuwe Instituut’s fellowship program around the theme of ‘burn-out’. As 2017 fellow Ramon Amaro states, “on the one hand, to ‘burn out’ is to stall, break, or become otherwise unusable. In other words, processes, procedure and participation simply stop working. On the other hand, ‘burn out’ is an opportunity to break open, promote action and catalyse change towards new structures and relations.”

Life Hacks manifests in a series of gatherings that respond to this ambivalence by exploring the approaches and techniques adopted to design or redesign life against the backdrop of growing precarity and an intensified entrepreneurial regime. Together with theorists, practitioners and XPUB, the Experimental Publishing program of the Piet Zwart Institute, Life Hacks looks into the tensions and releases that emerge from the constant reinvention and progressive self-optimization necessary to inhabit public and private space, manage time and productivity, and tweak one’s own thoughts and feelings.

Life Hacks is curated by Silvio Lorusso, and jointly organized by HNI’s Research Department and XPUB.

Info here: https://burnout.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/activities/life-hacks-time

FB event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2075120689175796/

image credit: Life Hacks: Time Rik Laging