Gerrit Rietveld Academy

About: Gerrit Rietveld Academy is a education organization based out in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Literature & Sociotechnical system. The organization has 2 authors who have published 2 publications receiving 21 citations.

Tassophonics: Nanotechnology as the Magical Unknown

Abstract: This paper outlines a set of experiments designed to explore how we can embed memories in objects augmented with non-discernable nanotechnological interfaces It explores whether the object can successfully embody a wish or fear and how the participant experiences living with a physical reminder of these secrets As such the experiments draw on more traditional paper-prototyping and body-storming techniques The goal is to assess if the introduction of nanotechnology as a magical unknown can be used to seed and affect our relationships to objects and archived memories

The Artificial Womb: Speculative Design Meets the Sociotechnical History of Reproductive Labor

Abstract: Researchers from Máxima Medical Centre in Eindhoven and Eindhoven University of Technology expect to have developed a prototype of an artificial womb by 2025. In collaboration with this team, speculative designers have designed a prototype of the artificial womb and organized an accompanying design-fiction exhibition. The exhibition imagined scenarios meant to spark debates about the ways in which the artificial womb might alter our attitude toward reproduction. This chapter shows how the prototype of the artificial womb has affinities with several past imaginations of women’s bodies as sites of ongoing contestation and exploitation. This simultaneously taps into a range of medical historical considerations and age-old ideas about reproduction and motherhood. Situating the prototype-design of the artificial womb in such historical settings with a philosopher’s eye for potential associations enables me to illustrate the wide ramifications of interdisciplinary collaborations between the arts, humanities, and sciences.KeywordsSpeculative designPhilosophySociotechnical historyArtificial wombAssisted reproductionIncubatorImaginariesFeminism

Ghostwriting and Artists’ Texts

Abstract: Contemporary artists’ texts are often composed of an amalgam of disparate voices: they are fragmented, layered, multivocal projects frequently referring to those “ever returning to us, the dead.”1 Much like W.G. Sebald’s writings, artists’ writerly projects use specific textual strategies enabling them to speak in the name of or on behalf of another human being, resulting in the internalization or incorporation of what is invisible, mute or lost. A Sebaldian form of ghostwriting is at stake in contemporary artists’ texts, I want to argue. The paradoxical emergence of unspeaking, silent voices in both artists’ writings and Sebald’s works, is not only predicated on the recognition of a “complex personhood”2—it happens in various ways as well. In this paper I study both what the visual artists’ textual procedures look like in order for wordless presences to return and how they express the notion of complex personhood, comparing Sebald’s ghostwriting as a “Poetics of History,”3 concentrating on Vertigo and The Emigrants, with Raqs Media Collective’s We Are Here, But Is It Now?. Reading Sebald’s and Raqs’s writings through each other, this paper intends to get a firmer grip on the specificity of the guiding spirits (ghosts) lending shape to Sebald’s works, simultaneously shedding light on the relevance of his textual gestures for current artists’ texts and art writing alike.