How does openism relate to the new artistic research cultures, which are emerging in the Art School, Academy and university?

Do these research cultures relate to practices outside of the institution?

Does openism shift how we conceive and define innovation?

What new positions are artists taking within the institution? And what transformations and challenges does this lead too, in relation to practice, research and teaching?

Join Professor Teresa Dillon for the first of “The Long Chats” with Andrew Newman, Matthias Tarasiewicz and Sophie-Carolin Wagner from the Research Institution for Arts and Technology (RIAT), Vienna. 

Andrew, Matthias and Sophie will focus on their work on openism, including their Open Publishing and Hardware Lab, Journal for Research Cultures and recent publication ‘Openism: Conversations on Open Hardware’ (edited with Stefanie Wuschitz).

Openism explores how commercial protagonists enforce the expansion of technological skills, yet the scope of these skills are often artificially limited and lead to the monopolising of innovation. The ‘opening’ of hardware and publishing offers opportunities to evade strategies of social and economic control though extending technological literacy and criticality.

Free and open to Pervasive Media Student Residents, UWE students and staff and interested others the session. Places are limited to 40 persons.

About

The Research Institute for Arts & Technology (RIAT) is a research cluster of four labs in Vienna that investigate open hardware, experimental publishing, the blockchain, epistemic cultures and artistic technology.

The Epistemic Cultures and Artistic Technology Lab explores contemporary practices in (new) media arts by looking at the change of aesthetics and questions the role of art in the age of the network society. This is achieved via various workshops and labs and a curatorial program, which is run through Artistic Bokeh at the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna and the Coded Cultures festival for fringe research and experimental arts. The lab is also responsible for the publication of the international peer reviewed open-access Journal for Research Cultures that focuses on strategies of experimental, transdisciplinary and artistic research practices across epistemic cultures.

The Open Publishing Lab is an experimental space for developing extended publications utilising ‘old’ tech and ‘next’ tech. The Lab uses and researches on media archaeology and alternative publishing methods. Current focus is set on library technologies, RISO duplicators, ZINE culture and tape systems. The Open Publishing Lab develops and designs hybrid and experimental media formats. While The Open Hardware Lab researches and develops open hardware, a conceptual descendent of open source software, as a form of countermovement to the restrictions imposed by proprietary hardware. The Apertus AXIOM Open Source Cinema Camera is a current project in development at the Open Hardware Lab. The Open Hardware Lab also host the annual Open Hardware Europe Summit. While the Post-blockchain Lab traces roots of crypto-movements such as present in cryptocurrencies, blockchains and distributed ledger technologies (DLTs).

Image credit: Andrew Newman from RIAT Research Institute for Arts and Technology opening the Coded Cultures festival in Vienna. Photo: Dominik Geiger