Academy of Asociality

Today everything is about sharing. I don’t like

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These days there is nothing that shapes our notion and practice of sharing as strongly as the Internet. In our virtual connection with the world, we are constantly encouraged to share what seems important to us and at the same time defines us. We emphatically share personal matters, embarrassments, information and opinions, songs, cars, flats and most recently even breast milk via social platforms. Sharing is the imperative of our age – from creative commons to social media to shareconomy. If you don’t share much, your status drops. If you don’t share at all, you are regarded with suspicion.
It is not only social pressure and Edward Snowden’s revelations that make this brave new world of sharing seem dubious: the working conditions under which our electronic tool is produced is an issue we prefer to ignore. We silently share in the profits obtained from the exploitation of miners in Congo. Then, all at once, the technologies of the future appear quite old fashioned. Sharing is all well and good, until it comes to losing something.
The “Academy of Asociality” investigates and propagates strategies for de-sharing that reverse this process – in a conference with talks, discussions and expeditions. Based loosely on Bartleby’s statement “I would prefer not to”, it encourages withdrawal from sharing and participation for which you have not opted. Exiting a framework that possesses as little transparency as Facebook’s terms and conditions. Where does this path of a categorical non-compliance lead us? Out into the woods, straight to jail or can we only disappear in the system? Can there be individualisation without diminishing solidarity? What needs to happen in order for us to really give something up – even if it hurts?

» Conference-Folder and Timeline


Expeditions
Sat 11/10, 15.00 - 17.00

Know-Center Graz
In the research area of Social Computing, Know-Center Graz focuses on the extraction and utilisation of data from social networks. The aim is to provide relevant information for companies. Stefanie Lindstaedt, managing director and scientific director, gives a tour of Austria’s leading Research Centre for Data-driven Business and Big Data Analytics, hacker and IT specialist Nathan Andrew Fain accompanies the expedition.

diethARdT-collection
The diethARdT collection comprises some 2,000 contemporary artworks, including the largest Beuys collection in Austria, Viennese Actionists (Brus, Nitsch, Muehl), works by West, Wurm, Kippenberger, and others. This afternoon, Reinhard Diethardt shares his enjoyment of art as well as stories from thirty years of collecting. The journalist Thomas Wolkinger accompanies the tour of the private museum in the former soup-kitchen.

Justizanstalt Karlau
With 500 inmates, Karlau Prison is Austria’s third-largest prison. The extension from the 19th century was designed on the basis of Bentham’s panopticon. Today the guard towers are unmanned, replaced by surveillance cameras. Cultural anthropologist, historian and activist Leo Kühberger gives a tour of the prison – a place of total segregation for people with whom society does not want to share common ground.

Palais Wildenstein
The festival centre is based this year at Palais Wildenstein. A commemorative plaque recalls the Sisters of Mercy who worked at the provincial hospital housed there until 1924. There is no hint whatsoever that this was the central site of Nazi terror in Graz from 1938 to 1945. Heimo Halbrainer, historian and director of CLIO – Verein für Geschichts- und Bildungsarbeit, speaks about the history of the place and why it is not shared.




We were saddened to hear of the death of Harun Farocki, who passed away unexpectedly on 30 July 2014. The film-maker had been invited to this year’s festival to take part in the “Academy of Asociality”. We have lost a great artist, whose ties with steirischer herbst through a wide range of projects go back to the 1980s.

Dates and Facts

Sat 11/10 & Sun 12/10,
11.00 – 19.00

Admission free

Heimatsaal im Volkskundemuseum

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Expeditions
Sat 11/10, 15.00 – 17.00
Admission free

German and English language

Information and registration at academy@steirischerherbst.at



herbst-Academy Workshops
Deadline: Thu 31/07

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Credits

With Inke Arns (DE), Francis Cape (US), Sean Cubitt (GB), Reinhard Diethardt (AT), Christoph Engemann (DE), Nathan Andrew Fain (US/DE), Heimo Halbrainer (AT), Leo Kühberger (AT), Alice Lagaay (DE), Stefanie Lindstaedt (AT), Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Kelly Copper & Pavol Liska (US), Nina Möntmann (DE), Tobi Müller (CH/DE), Claus Philipp (AT), Martin Schick & Viviane Pavillon (CH), Nishant Shah (IN), Alexander Tuchaček (AT/CH), Urban Subjects, Sabine Bitter, Jeff Derksen, Helmut Weber (AT/CA), Harald Welzer (DE) & Thomas Wolkinger (AT)

Curated by Christiane Kühl (DE)

Timeline

Sat 11/10

11.00
Welcome


11.05 – 11.25
CMMN SNS PRJCT
(the first 20 minutes)
Artistic intervention by Martin Schick &
Viviane Pavillon (for Laura Kalauz)

11.25 – 11.40
Introduction
by Christiane Kühl (English)

11.45 – 13.00
Do you want to let this thing into your life? Exercises in Resocialisation

Keynote by Harald Welzer (English)

13.00 – 14.00
Lunch Break


14.00
Start of the expeditions
Meeting point: Bus stop Paulustor /
Maria-Theresia-Allee / 8010 Graz

14.30 – 16.30
Expeditions (German / English)
Know-Center Graz with Nathan Andrew Fain
diethARdT-collection with Thomas Wolkinger
Justizanstalt Karlau with Leo Kühberger
Palais Wildenstein with Heimo Halbrainer

17.00 – 17.45
Expedition reports and discussion


18.00 – 19.00
The Significance of Secrecy and the Power of Creative Indifference

Lecture by Alice Lagaay (English)

Sun 12/10

11.00 – 12.15
„Ein neues Produkt“ / ”A New Product“

Film by Harun Farocki, 2012, 36 min. (German language with English subtitles)
Talk with Nina Möntmann and Claus Philipp (German)

12.25 – 13.25
Participation, Sharing, Being Shared. Codes and Scripts of the Ambivalent

Presentation by Alexander Tuchaček (German)
[Insight Workshop]

To Share is to (s)care: Networks of Reputation and Machines of Repetition
Lecture by Nishant Shah (English)

13.30 – 14.30
Lunch Break


14.30 – 14.55
“Life and Times” – Sharing the Personal, on Stage and off

Presentation by Nature Theater of Oklahoma (English)
[Insight Workshop]

15.00 – 15.25
Researching the Militant Image

Presentation by Urban Subjects (English)
[Insight Workshop]

15.40 – 16.40
Utopian Communities. Refusal, Participation and Anarchistic Practice

Presentation by Francis Cape (English)
[Insight Workshop]

Seasteading – Floating Dis-associations
Lecture by Christoph Engemann (English)

16.55 – 17.55
The Power of Sharing

Lecture by Inke Arns (English)

If a Lion could Speak ...
Lecture by Sean Cubitt (English)

18.10 – 19.00
What's left to share?

Panel and final discussion with all participants
Hosted by Tobi Müller
(English and German language)
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