conversationpiece | transmediale

8/3/15 12:25 AM

transmediale/
conversationpiece
03.-07.02.2016
HKW
The next edition of transmediale follows the format of a
Conversation Piece which unfolds through a series of
dialogues and participatory formats that articulate the most
burning topics of post-digital culture today and that reflect
the main ongoing themes of transmediale.
Conversation starters are everywhere as constant
communication has become a mundane feature of postdigital culture. But to define common starting grounds for
conversation in today's agonistic and rapidly changing
cultural landscape is a daunting if not impossible task.
Against the backdrop of different processes of social
transformation, 17th and 18th century European painters
perfected the group portrait painting known as the
Conversation Piece in which the everyday life of the
aristocracy was depicted in ideal scenes of common
activity. The Conversation Piece that is transmediale 2016
references and problematises the ideal of finding common
ground through four interconnected thematic streams:
Anxious to Act, Anxious to Make, Anxious to Share and
Anxious to Secure.
Through these streams we take a critical look at what we
could today think about as the fragmented and
contradictory ideal scenes of cultural production and life
under digital capitalism. Can the anxiousness to take part
or not to take part in these idealised activities be used in a
way that does not only lead to reactionary positions based
on fear and exclusion?
What are the possible new values and methodologies of
cultural co-production that allows itself not only to be
http://www.transmediale.de/conversationpiece

Page 1 of 5

conversationpiece | transmediale

8/3/15 12:25 AM

open and free but that also in radical ways engage

questions of security, sharing, collective ways of acting
and new ways of making in the post-digital culture?

Call for Workshops & Cross-Disciplinary Projects

With its 2016 Conversation Piece, transmediale asks how
we face up to the anxiousness of living with technology at
the beginning of the 21st century and if there are any ways
to commonly re-invent processes of socio-cultural
transformation?

work with us
partners
follow us

http://www.transmediale.de/conversationpiece

press

Anxious to Act
This stream deals with the complexity of taking action in a
world consisting of constantly networked flows and the
increasing messiness of the global. It zooms in on the
irritated ideal scene of media activism and the multiple

about

In addressing this and the above questions, we are

looking for cross-disciplinary projects that can engage the
festival audience on multiple levels. Workshops, both
theoretical and/or hands-on are especially welcome, as
are thematic discussions, artistic research presentations,
performances, performative lectures and other hybrid
formats. Proposals that include several such activities
across the programme are welcome. More specifically, we
are looking for proposals from ongoing local and translocal
networks, projects, groups and collectives that address
one or several of the following thematic streams:

Page 2 of 5

conversationpiece | transmediale

imprint
deutsch / english

Anxious to Make
This stream looks closer at the new conglomeration of
cybernetic automation, DIY culture and industrial
production. Here, on a macro-level, anxieties of global
competition come to the fore and on a micro-level there
are anxieties to at all deal with the socio-political
consequences, as the new maker cultures revel in the
craftsmanship of the prototypical, instrumental and
entrepreneurial. What are the cultural implications of the
ideal scene of Industry 4.0 or the so called third industrial
revolution where new cultures of industrial fabrication
meets DIY culture?

follow us

logics and meanings of intervention enmeshed in

grammars of the artistic or technological. It asks: What
makes people anxious to act today? What possibly
hinders them to do so in more substantial forms according
to the micro- and macro-political scales of a global society
characterised by asymmetric power? In a world poised for
change, what fundamental irritations exist about ever more
mediated actions and can these irritations stimulate new
effective assemblages of action?

8/3/15 12:25 AM

Anxious to Share
The ideal scene of this stream is that of a sharing culture
of micro-practices and cottage industries that emerged as
part of innovative citizen-driven alternatives to the crisis of
a receding public sphere and relentless privatisation. The
stream however takes a critical, post-startup economy
look at interrelated topics such as disruption and
displacement, conditions of cultural production, spatial
politics, and network economy. We are anxious to share
but do we really want to take the responsibility for what
and how something is being shared? And from a nonanthropocentric perspective, are new planetary scales of
sharing emerging?
Anxious to Secure
This stream looks at the increasing securitisation of
http://www.transmediale.de/conversationpiece

Page 3 of 5

conversationpiece | transmediale

8/3/15 12:25 AM

everything from individual communication, artistic and

media production to corporations and nation-states.
Against the ideal scene of total security, more localised
and intimate ideas of networking and secure
communication are developing with the rise of resilient,
autonomous and hybrid networks. This stream looks at
securitisation both from the point of view of the old/new
military-industrial-media complex and from the point of
view of the insecurity of everyday life. How can we learn to
live with precarisation as the anxious position from which
we now try to secure whether as hackers, whistleblowers,
artists, workers or simply users?
Application and Selection Process
Deadline: 10 August 2015
Submit your proposals here
Please note that that any proposed activity should be
based on solid existing work in the stream that you
address and that transmediale cannot support and
facilitate projects that have to be produced from scratch or
projects that are dependent on a permanent and elaborate
physical presentation in the form of art installations or
other materials.
Even though the themes of the transmediale are set by the
curatorial team, the focus of the individual programmes is
developed further in relation to the works submitted for this
call. In this way we strive to create a dialogue between the
thematic ideas and current cultural practice. The final
programme eventually consists of a mix of invited
participants, projects of our all year platform
(transmediale/resource) and contributions selected
through the call. Notification about the inclusion in the
programme of the festival may take up until October 2015.

http://www.transmediale.de/conversationpiece

Page 4 of 5

conversationpiece | transmediale

8/3/15 12:25 AM

transmediale is funded by
Kulturstiftung des Bundes
a project by
Kulturprojekte Berlin
in cooperation with
Haus der Kulturen der Welt

http://www.transmediale.de/conversationpiece

Page 5 of 5