Technology, while it can be commodified, fetishized, fortified, or weaponized, possesses an innate openness that enables us to utilize its capacities in alternative ways—through the collective mobilization of attention beyond the construction of the master’s house. We don’t need Prometheus to grant us fire; instead, what do we already hold in our hands?
During the workshop, you will be introduced to various APIs and technologies, each with its own capacities, limitations, and specific terms and conditions. By patching these together, you will create a technical object that can be used towards your emancipation. The goal of the workshop is to develop patchy speculative prototypes of digital tools by connecting components that are already available. While the workshop will give you a sense of what is possible, it will also suggest ways to further develop your prototype into a functional webpage afterwards.
Requirements for Participants:
No prior programming experience needed.
A phone or laptop with ChatGPT installed, if possible.
Try answering “The Audre Lorde Questionnaire to Oneself” before the workshop. (https://blogs.depaul.edu/via/2023/01/12/the-audre-lorde-questionnaire-to-oneself/)
BIO : Noam Youngrak Son is a communication designer, design theorist, and cultural worker. Their design work encompasses small-scale publishing projects, speculative worldbuilding, workshops, lectures, writing, net art, and occasional performative interventions. As a cultural worker, they have co-organized the Ghent-based queer publishing collective Bebe Books since 2021. Son has expanded their focus from design to theory in order to critically engage with the ontology of the design industry, media, and broader material culture. This turn is informed by their observations of cultural assemblages that echo the extractive operations of capitalism on racialized and more-than-human populations.