Work it, feel it! is dedicated to the work of the future and the future of work. The exhibition focuses on the demands placed on the human body and its possibilities to act, as seen against the backdrop of an increasingly automated workplace. What are the mechanisms of discipline and control that have been applied to the mind, and above all to the body, to make it an efficient production tool and a pillar of consumerism?

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Socially engaged artists need not be aligned (and may often be opposed) to the public sector and to institutionalized systems. In many countries, structures of democratic governance and public responsibility are shifting, eroding, and being remade in profound ways—driven by radical economic, political, and global forces. According to what terms and through what means can art engage with these changes?

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Will tomorrow’s wars be dominated by autonomous drones, land robots and warriors wired into a cybernetic network which can read their thoughts? Will war be fought with greater or lesser humanity? Will it be played out in cyberspace and further afield in Low Earth Orbit? Or will it be fought more intensely still in the sprawling cities of the developing world, the grim black holes of social exclusion on our increasingly unequal planet? Will the Great Powers reinvent conflict between themselves or is war destined to become much ‘smaller’ both in terms of its actors and the beliefs for which they will be willing to kill?

This exploration of visual protest since 9/11 isn’t constricted by boundaries nor hierarchies. Online interventions rub shoulders with good old posters, murals with performances, court sketches with design objects. The people who rebel, resist and visually express their opposition are famous artists such as Banksy and Ai Weiwei. More often than not, however, they are anonymous or operate behind pseudonyms

An invitation to artists, researchers, activists and critical engineers to submit ideas, thoughts, and designs for the future of 3D printing. The submissions should reflect on the current state of additive manufacturing, find the potential encoded into the most challenging 3D printed objects and push 3D printing to its most speculative and radical limits. Once collected, these submissions will form The 3D Additivist Cokbook

A few months ago, the festival accès)s( in Pau (France) invited the audience to have a critical look at the idea of a techno-driven progress, at a propaganda machine that promise that new ‘advances’ in information and communication technologies will solve our problems and fulfill the dreams we don’t even know we had. All we need to do is update, upgrade and replace our devices

The conference (ridiculously interesting and accompanied by an exhibition i wish i could see all over again but more about all that next week) looked at how practitioners redefine the documentary genre in the digital age. In his presentation, artist James George presented artistic projects that demonstrate how fast computational photography is evolving and how innovations are changing our relation to the image

The Terminator Studies proposes a reinterpretation of the science-fiction series “Terminator,” whose narrative reveals itself as a veritable almanac, prophetic in nature. In analysing the links between history and fiction, “Terminator Studies” poses a critical eye on the domination of machines and the intrusion of surveillance systems in private life

What remains of the Eight Hour Day movement preconized by social reformer Robert Owen in the first half of the 19th century? Is there a new definition of ‘work life balance’?

Artists, along with anyone working in the cultural sector, have experienced this evolution of working standards perhaps more acutely than most people. It seemed thus natural that FACT, in collaboration with the Royal College of Art, would ask them to explore these questions. The result is timely and thought-provoking

The artist uses live art, interventions and new media to investigate social and political systems; and to find his position in and to these larger systems.

Some of his projects involved outsourcing the production of a written constitution for the UK to China and having 1,000 dolls voice it, using the price of an African financial index to control lightning in a Berlin art center, testing certain hypotheses about social behaviour in a dinner party. And building an outdoors spiral staircase for cats.

Historian Garrick Hileman, sociologist Nigel Dodd and financial activist Brett Scott reflected on the question “Is Bitcoin the new gold?” Shaking up online and offline worlds, the online currency Bitcoin has increased its ‘value’ at immense speed in the last year. Being immune from government interference and private manipulations, it has been celebrated as a new alternative currency by some and condemned as source of unpredictable risk by others

Digital media are disappointing for books. All books look the same on an iPad, for example. On a monitor, a book isn’t thick or thin, big or small. Features such as a Japanese binding, embossing, letterpress printing, or gilt edging are only possible in print. Consequently, it isn’t surprising that young, contemporary designers, publishers, typographers, illustrators, and editors are enthusiastically ringing in a new era for printed books.

Fully Booked: Ink on Paper is a collection of books and other printed products that celebrate the distinctiveness of design, materials, techniques, workmanship, and production methods–and push their limits

Alternative Guide to the Universe focuses on individuals who develop their ideas and practices outside of official institutions and established disciplines. Their work ingeniously departs from accepted ways of thinking in order to re-imagine the rules of culture and science. Some of their speculative visions rival the wildest inventions of science fiction – with the difference that these practitioners believe in the validity and veracity of all that they describe and propose

In the context of omnipresent telecommunications surveillance, “The Pirate Cinema” makes visible the invisible activity and geography of peer-to-peer file sharing. The project is presented as a control room that reflects P2P exchanges happening in real time on networks using BitTorrent protocol. The installation produces an improvised and syncopated arrangement of files currently in exchange

If you’re a curator or an artist involved in art and technology you’ve probably heard about Medialab Prado. Chances are, you’ve even been there for one of their workshops. Medialab Prado is conceived as a citizen laboratory for the production, research and dissemination of cultural projects that explore collaborative forms of experimentation and learning that have emerged from digital networks

n this photo series, Robert Harding Pittman acutely documents the exportation of the Los Angeles-style model of urban development to other countries such as Spain, France, Germany, Greece, United Arab Emirates and South Korea.
From the construction boom up until the current building crisis.

Anonymization presents under an implacable light a landscape of anonymity made of shopping malls, vast parking lots, arrays of unfinished houses that look exactly the same, green golf courses in the middle of desert areas, etc

From enhanced-CCTV surveillance to bench handles, various tracking and prevention systems are employed in controlling the users of public space. These systems are often neatly designed and seamlessly integrated in the existing architecture, acting in a persuasive way on its users. While preventing unwanted interactions between the authorities and citizens, these systems leave no space for discussion or disobedience

My conversation with speculative architect Liam Young is going to focus on Under Tomorrows Sky, a project that was born last Summer, at the MU Foundation in Eindhoven, where Liam was joined by a group of scientists, technologists, futurists, science fiction writers and even special effects artists to collectively imagine and build a room sized miniature model of a fictional, future city

Our radio interview will focus on the Critical Engineering Manifesto that Julian wrote a year ago together with Gordan Savičić and Danja Vasiliev. Expect explanations about why Engineering is the most transformative language of our time, questions about how to adopt the critical engineering ethos if you have next to zero technical skills, and details about Julian Oliver’s upcoming projects