KASK Gent, Brussels, BE
2021-02-03
Monday Readings are a series of convivial situations to research our
technological and infrastructural inter-dependencies. They bring our
everyday technical encounters in conversation with theoretical and
political thinking, by close-reading technologies as if they were texts,
and viceversa.
This session will create a moment to unfold the different layers of the
collective experience of a “Screen New Deal”, a term proposed by Naomi
Klein to describe the recent period in which videoconferencing and
rectangularised communication became the new norm for all aspects of
everyday life. In particular we will discuss what this meant and means
for the realm of education, how certain software platforms silently
creep in new forms of pedagogy, what critiques and potential
alternatives were brought as forms of resistance to this new problematic
default.
The session is subdivided in two parts: first a practical exercise that
will take place in and on video-conferencing platforms, then a reading
of short texts that explore the same techno-political densities that
have been experienced hands-on in the first part of the day.
The Autonomous Design department of KASK Gent invited Monday Readings as part of a series of encounters aimed at Reclaiming Infrastructures. Participants included teachers, researchers and students from KASK and other educational institutions in the arts.
Close observation of an online platform for education: BigBlueButton. Divided in smaller groups, oriented by ‘zones of attention’, taking notes collectively on etherpads.