On 23 February from 5:30-8pm BuzzHouse welcomes research collective DISNOVATION.ORG for an evening dedicated to disruption, speculation, post-growth prototypes, meme wars and online subcultures. The conversation is hosted by IMPAKT (Centre for Media Culture) and is a sneak preview of the upcoming exhibition Post-Growth (Na de Groei), which will open at IMPAKT in Utrecht on March 4. The event is moderated by Marc Tuters, Assistant Professor at the Department of Media Studies of the University of Amsterdam, and Arjon Dunnewind, Director of IMPAKT. All of you are welcome to join!
DISNOVATION.ORG, short for ‘disobedient innovation’, is a research collective set up in Paris in 2012, whose core members include Maria Roszkowska (PL), Nicolas Maigret (FR) and Baruch Gottlieb (CA). They work at the interface of art, research and hacking. More specifically their recent artistic provocations seek to empower Post Growth imaginaries and practises by challenging the widespread faith that ‘economic growth’ and ‘technological fixes’ will solve the ecosystemic disruptions they produced in the first place. For this special session at BuzzHouse we will focus on two themes that are central to DISNOVATION.ORG’s artistic and research practice: “online power structures” and “Post-Growth,” followed by an informal discussion and games.
Online power structures
DISNOVATION’s work Online Culture Wars serves as a starting point to talk about online power structures. The work consists of two parts: a map and a series of videos. The Map Online Culture Wars is an overlay of hundreds of politicised memes, along with influential political figures and symbols. It is designed as a discussion starter, intended to visualise and contextualise the ongoing online culture wars, and some of the main political references, actors, and influencers. The video Online Culture Wars (called THE PERSUADABLES) focuses on the political instrumentalisation of the tools, techniques, and infrastructures of the web, with particular attention to social media as an ecosystem of influence and online manipulation of opinion. It exposes some practises broadly used for online propaganda, as well as the creative responses they trigger in civil society.
Post Growth
How long can we continue pursuing economic growth? What ideological, social and biophysical factors precipitate the current environmental crises? What agency is available for transformative practises to avert large scale ecosystemic breakdown? The concept of Post-Growth is central to DISNOVATION.ORG’s practice. Their new Post-Growth series, comprising installations, videos, interviews, and a board game invites us to challenge concepts of growth and progress, and explores the radical implications of speculative artistic prototypes, such as an economic model based on energy emitted by the Sun. This research encounters the vital challenges of a shift away from the overexploitation of fossil fuels on which the reproduction of our societies mainly depends today.
Post Growth Toolkit Game
To examine and challenge our ideas about growth in a more playful way, at BuzzHouse we will also propose a game: the Post Growth Toolkit Game: a tactical board game developed by DISNOVATION.ORG which invites players to explore a number of key concepts such as ‘geo-diversity’, ‘downgrading’ and ‘indigenous economics’ and revise their understanding of the world in a time of radical change. The card game will be the catalyst to debate and to trace out paths towards post-fossil futures, supported by alternative models for ecological and economic assessment.
From 4 March to 22 May IMPAKT [Centre for Media Culture] will present Post Growth: the first Dutch solo exhibition of works by the DISNOVATION.ORG collective. Read more: https://impakt.nl/events/2022/exhibition/post-growth-na-de-groei/
About IMPAKT
IMPAKT [Centre for Media Culture] is a media arts organization based in Utrecht. We present critical and creative views on contemporary media culture and arts, in an interdisciplinary context. Our aim is to identify urgent issues in our digital and transglobal culture by focusing on the relationship between society, media, technology and arts. We organise activities throughout the year, both online and at our venue at Lange Nieuwstraat 4, including exhibitions, panels, artist-talks, presentations, screenings, a residency programme, and the yearly IMPAKT Festival in November.
