4M

Matter – Materials – Materiality – Materialism

3 events at Utrecht University

June 3-5, 2014

Organized by Dr Iris van der Tuin and Dr Ann-Sophie Lehmann (Gender Studies, and New Media and Digital Culture, Dept. of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University)

Funded by Aspasia, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)

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June 3, 11am-1pm, Sweelinckzaal, Drift 21

Masterclass with Prof. Katie King

Writing technologies, creative writing, and politics of citation.

Reading material:

• Preface and Introduction (King’s Networked Reenactments, 2011)
• http://pullingtogeth.blogspot.com

Application: Send your one-page CV and letter of motivation before May 12, 2014 to Iris van der Tuin (I.vanderTuin@uu.nl)

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June 4, 11am-1pm, Drift 21, Sweelinckzaal

Masterclass with Dr David Berry

The ‘Post-Digital’ both as a problematic and a useful concept for thinking about the digital and materiality.

Reading material:

• Chapter 6 Real-time streams (Berry’s The Philosophy of Software, 2011)
• Chapter 1 and Chapter 4 (Berry’s Critical Theory and the Digital, 2014)

Application: Send your one-page CV and letter of motivation before May 12, 2014 to Ann-Sophie Lehmann (A.S.Lehmann@uu.nl)

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June 5, 1:30-5pm, Janskerkhof 15A room 004

Conference Matter – Materials – Materiality – Materialism

Introduction: Dr Ann-Sophie Lehmann and Dr Iris van der Tuin

Key note Prof. Katie King

pulling together: /es/system-ing: stories transdisciplinary knowledges tell

Key note Dr David Berry

The Post-Digital Ornament

Respondents: Prof. Maaike Bleeker, Dr Rick Dolphijn, Dr Kathrin Thiele, Dr Marianne van den Boomen, Dr Imar de Vries, Melvin Wevers

Abstracts and Bios

Prof. Katie King

pulling together: /es/system-ing: stories transdisciplinary knowledges tell

A whispering from my left as I sit in the audience for a conference panel: “the word system feels so cold to me” in rumination. Sibilant /es/ triggers a sudden involuntary counter-sensation of warmth for /es/system, memories of Batesons, of peopling cybernetics among stories and experiences with plants and animals, at water’s edge. Dispersed/diffracted in time and being, people can feel as boundary objects, focusing and defocusing.  I approach someone I have talked to many times before, with appreciations for her memories across a range of feminist interventions in science and technology, and she assures me with asperity that she has absolutely no idea who I am.

(But then, just how recognizable am I really? I admit that with type 2 diabetes my body in time and beings dilates: I spread out and in with pounds added and lost in “intensive managements,” as lipid-metabolism engages those complex systems among gut microflora coming and going, hormonal and digestive communications, food environments today and perhaps in my grandparents’ generation, epigenetic methylation at different lag-times, and more.)

How do transdisciplinary stories tell us about these and other makings, tellings, beings? How do we move with, among, and as such “design fictions”?

Here is another: (very) roughly 5000 years ago in (at least) two segmenting ecologies on our planet humans messed around with some cognitive companions, each coordinating multiple agencies characteristically. • In Mesopotamia tiny clay token sheep were enclosed in clay envelopes with markings indicating what was inside. • In the Andes strings were wrapped around sticks and attached to a main cord. In the first case the favored sensory technology for making was molding and inscribing clay. Worlds set into motion from this sort of making eventually sustain what some consider “true writing”: that is to say, writing that companions preferentially with language. In the second case makings involved spinning plant and animal fiber and feeling, tying, and untying knots. Worlds set into motion there eventually sustain a different sort of writing, one said to be “without words,” instead preferentially coordinating actions and practices directly as their very ecologies.

/es/systeming meditations move around amid coordinating artifacts for complex systems: among these are also new materialisms as boundary object projects together with and as its also processual affirmative re-writings.

Katie King is Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Fellow of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH). http://pullingtogeth.blogspot.com

Dr David M. Berry

The Post-Digital Ornament

The historicity of the digital demands that we think critically about the materiality of computation and calls for a critique of computational knowledge and as such a critique of the society producing that knowledge. As our societies increasingly become “digital”, there is an attendant tendency for computational systems to reify everyday life – that is, to create systems of capture and captivation. It is crucial, therefore, that we attend to the mechanization of reification and the dangers presented when these processes crystallize into systems, institutions and consciousness itself. In this paper I want to explore how we can use the concept of the post-digital to think about the materiality of the digital but also to explore the historical constellation of concepts and ideas that are manifested in what we might call computational reticular capitalism.

David Berry is Reader in Media & Communication (Media and Film) at the University of Sussex. He is also Co-Director of Centre for Material Digital Culture. He blogs at http://stunlaw.blogspot.nl.

Iris van der Tuin is Assistant Professor of Gender Studies and Philosophy of Science in the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. https://uu.academia.edu/IrisvanderTuin.

Ann-Sophie Lehmann is Associate Professor of New Media and Visual Material Culture in the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. http://www.ann-sophielehmann.nl.

Maaike Bleeker is a Professor and the Chair of Theatre Studies, and Head of Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. http://www.theatrestudies.nl/s_bleeker.html.

Rick Dolphijn is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Humanities, and senior fellow of the Centre for the Humanities, both at Utrecht University. http://www.rickdolphijn.nl.

Kathrin Thiele is Assistant Professor of Gender Studies in the Graduate Gender Program, Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. http://terracritica.net/dr-kathrin-thiele/.

Marianne van den Boomen works as Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University, where she teaches New Media and Digital Culture. http://metamapping.net/blog/

Imar de Vries is Assistant Professor of New Media & Digital Culture in the Department for Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. http://www.newmediastudies.nl/profile/imar-de-vries.

Melvin Wevers is PhD student at Utrecht University within the ‘Translantis’ project which investigates the role of the United States as a reference culture within Dutch public discourse. http://www.melvinwevers.nl.