Notions of scale, usability, collectivity and agency play an important role in generating possibilities for technological self-determination in an attempt to imagine computational infrastructures differently. How can we imagine technological attitudes that don't rely on data extractivist models? How do we make space to reconsider the figure of the user? And what if digital tools can be adapted to the specificities of each situation? In this presentation, Dušan Barok will briefly discuss their genealogies, varieties and dilemmas.
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Time for the second episode of The User Condition series! On the 10th of May, artist and reluctant engineer Brendan Howell will converse with designer without qualities Silvio Lorusso about – ominous soundtrack — N E T S T A L G I A.
MySpace eulogies, pure HTML pride, RetroPie consoles, Geocities …
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On May 8 (Saturday) & May 9 (Sunday), Plaintext Partyline explores the modest space of the rigid X-Y axis of plaintext. Varia members and friends spend a weekend exploring this old, but not old-fashioned technology. Various outcomes will be presented online and in the windows of Varia.
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Every last Sunday of the month the Varia library and Rotterdam Electronics Depot are open. In 2021 our Read & Repair sessions will be paired, we will take two months to explore one theme. During March and April 2021, we will be exploring the theme Sense-full Pedagogy. The Read session for April is hosted by K MacBride and the Repair session is led by Yun Lee.
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What are the conditions for a computer user to gain agency, defined here as the ability to evade automatisms? What is the user’s horizon of autonomy within a built world made of software programmed by somebody else, when its logic is made inaccessible in the name of convenience?
In …
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Every last Sunday of the month the Varia library and Rotterdam Electronics Depot are open. In 2021 our Read & Repair sessions will be paired, we will take two months to explore one theme. During March and April 2021, we will be exploring the theme Sense-full Pedagogy. The text selection for March was made by Varia Library group member amy pickles.
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The work session focuses on the migration of mailing lists between an old and a new server ran by feminists involved in the Systerserver project. The work session is co-hosted together with Mara and is made up of two parts. The first part is a technical hands-on backup/migration process and the second is a discussion around the connections between feminist servers and the travel path of this migration.
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Every last Sunday of the month the Varia library and Rotterdam Electronics Depot are open. In 2021 our Read & Repair sessions will be paired, we will take two months to explore one theme. During January and February 2021, we will be exploring the theme Wireless Imagination. The Read session for February is hosted by Agustina Woodgate and the Repair session is led by Varia group member Dennis de Bel.
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Every last Sunday of the month the Varia library and Rotterdam Electronics Depot are open. In 2021 our Read & Repair sessions will be paired, we will take two months to explore one theme. During January and February 2021, we will be exploring the theme Wireless Imagination. The text selection for January was made by Varia Library group member Danny van der Kleij.
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How can minimal technologies maximise a learning experience? What could 'minimum' 'viable' 'learning' be? During this Read & Repair, we will explore minimal viable forms of learning with Etherpad. Etherpad is a collaborative text editor that is often used within the practices of Varia members and their peer networks.
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Every last Sunday of the month the Varia library and Rotterdam Electronics Depot are open. Each session of Read & Repair is looking at a different text, sometimes guided by a guest. The guests for this edition are Christina Karagianni and Anita Hrnić.
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This radio broadcast is the result of conversations and working relationships that navigate the concept of what an archipelagic construction could mean, in terms of organization, belonging, and self.
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This will be a strange evening, during which the wet, dark and yet undiscovered basement of Varia comes to life and transforms every audible sound into a shepard tone.
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Every last Sunday of the month the Varia library and Rotterdam Electronics Depot are open. In this next edition we are reading the text Neoliberalism with Dutch Characteristics: The Big Fix Up of the Netherlands and the Practice of Embedded Cultural Activism by BAVO (Gideon Boie & Matthias Pauwels) from the book Citizens and Subjects: The Netherlands, for Example : a Critical Reader, edited by Rosi Braidotti, Charles Esche & Maria Hlavajova.
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An event exploring the hierarchies, difficulties and politics of voice in the digital domain, arranged for the launch of web-based artwork Wet Signal Voice Gardens by Kari Robertson.
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Summer has passed and autumn has arrived. To keep in touch with the times Varia has invited several musicians to the garden of the Otje to contemplate on the passing of the seasons. To what extent does the tilt of the Earth's rotational axis, away or toward the sun, influence their music? Let’s find out on the 4th of October!
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Join us for an afternoon of food! Alice Strete presents the new food magazine Magiun and Varia announces the start of a new open membership food and fermentation club. Expect Kombucha, sourdough bread, ASCII art and other tasty treats.
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Join us for an educational Century 21 Calling screening. Learn how to keep your face to face meeting from turning into full-on anarchy!
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Please feel welcome to join us for an evening of discussion, co-learning and reflection on the housing situation in Rotterdam, our rights as tenants and how we can support each other to work towards solutions for more safe, secure and affordable housing.
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This Saturday, Joseph Knierzinger will present ongoing investigations into the combination and modification of ancient media and rediscovered methodologies!
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Every last Sunday of the month the Varia library and Rotterdam Electronics Depot are open. This Sunday we will dive into a text written by Raymond Williams in 1978, called The Means of Communication as the Means of Production.
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We're streaming talks from DatConf at Varia for a little while. Feel welcome!
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Every last Sunday of the month, the Varia Library and Rotterdam Electronics Depot are open. Varia is hosting a special edition of Read & Repair that will be split into two(!) collective reading and conversation sessions. One will be online and one will be in our physical space, as a series of events to discuss matters of abolitionist technology & community-driven systems of accountability, while generating anonymous, consensual debris for stone throw, a temporary online work to share our resources and reflections.
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Every last Sunday of the month, the Varia Library and Rotterdam Electronics Depot are open. Varia is hosting a special edition of Read & Repair that will be split into two(!) collective reading and conversation sessions. One will be online and one will be in our physical space, as a series of events to discuss matters of abolitionist technology & community-driven systems of accountability, while generating anonymous, consensual debris for stone throw, a temporary online work to share our resources and reflections.
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Every last Sunday of the month, the Varia Library and Rotterdam Electronics Depot are open. This Sunday, we will turn to Digital Solidarity Networks, a recent ongoing collective initiative around digital tools that don't follow an exploitative business model.
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