Sign up to the workshop Ignored Technology!

A Gestured and Spoken Knowledge Exchange format open to all students where we ask: What direction could technology have taken if the skills normally attributed to women were given the attention they deserve and their potential to transform technology into a regenerative practice. While experimental, this format only revives an ancient powerful method of knowledge exchange where women sat together to work with yarn and used these rare moments of communion free of male control to inform each other and carve out spaces of independent thought. The 17th century Czech philosopher, Comenius, one of the earliest champions of universal education including that of women, said that the beginning of knowledge is in the gesture. While exchanging ideas related to ignored technology, participants will be introduced to different methods of transforming materials into lines that form yarns and further into networks and meshes and sometimes further into communal works.

This is a week-long cross border collaboration between the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design, Prague - UMPRUM, and the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna - AKBILD and  with a total of 30 students, (15 from AKBILD and 15 from UMPRUM). Travel and accommodation expenses are covered for students moving to the respective cross border partner. In Vienna this new format takes place in two locations, the ega: frauen im zentrum https://ega.or.at/ in the fifth district and the Zukunftshof https://www.zukunftshof.at/ in the tenth. In Prague it takes place at the UMPRUM Technological center Mikulandská.

Dates 19-23 September 2022 – Beginning in Prague on Monday the 19th of September, leaving for Vienna on Wednesday the 21st and finishing in Vienna on the 23rd of September with a public event. Details could change slightly coming up to the dates. We will keep all participants informed via email. Please register your Interest before the 15th of July

Many people are involved, we will have a first list before we start and update at the end. Participants are enthusiastically encouraged to initiate exchanges!