iz paehr

Re:Coding Algorithmic Culture

Design research at the department of Theory and Practice of Visual Communications at the School of Art and Design Kassel and Kassel University, 2019-21

From 2019-2021, I worked as a design researcher on the transdisciplinary project Re:Coding Algorithmic Culture. This project was funded by the VW Stiftung within the funding line Original - isn't it? New Options for the Humanities and Cultural Studies. Over 18 months, I co-developed labs/workshops and a website with fellow researchers from the working groups Theory and Practice of Visual Communications, Sociology of Diversity as well as Gender/Diversity in Informatics Systems at the University of Kassel, Germany. My research on internet infrastructures and their metaphors resulted in an online publication of the text 'World Wide Wet'.

On the project website, we –Claude Draude, Elisabeth Tuider, Eunice Njoki, Ipek Burçak, Iz Paehr, Johanna Schaffer, Ren Loren Britton, N. B. Spiders, Pinar Tuzcu and Tom Fixemer– describe the research as follows:

We investigated the question of how algorithmically based collections, classifications and interpretations of data can perpetuate existing social inequalities/discrimination – in order to challenge, if not redefine them. Our research centered on experimenting with technological practices towards building accessible spaces for collective learning and action. We also put an emphasis on technological metaphors, practices and physical structures as constitutive for specific realities. As a means of intervention, we organized five labs between October 2019 till February 2021. The topics of these labs included the question of temporality, governance and autonomy, social distancing regulations in the times of pandemic, prevalent/hegemonic discourses and their physical materialisation in file systems. Furthermore, we questioned and reworked the process of game-making as a part of normative social rules and their algorithmic cultural codes. By bringing our different disciplinary perspectives on method and methodology in conversation, in these collective labs, we critically interrogated the dominant structures of “algorithmic governmentality” and created spaces not only to criticize but also to imagine the possibilities of disturbing those algorithmic regulations.

Labs

Lab, 19.05.2020: Taking a Walk through a Computer, with Pinar Tuzcu and Ren Loren Britton

A visual announces the workshop. It looks like a terminal window on a computer, but its edges are all blurry.

Coding Lab / Taking A Walk Through A Computer was an online coding lab meeting that took place on 19th May 2020. This lab explored computation through playing with things already present: Our bodies and our computer's terminals. We came together to learn the history and usage of the command language Bash and make ruly and unruly games with it on our computers.

Lab, 14-16.09.2020: Playing the Code - Matters of Touch, with Ren Loren Britton, Ipek Burçak, Claude Draude, N. B. Spiders

A visual announcing the game jam shows overlapping interfaces and fragments in low resolution.

Playing the Code / Matters of Touch was a game jam that took place in an online meeting space from the 14th to the 16th of September 2020. A game jam is a get-together with a set timeframe and sometimes a topic to think up and make a game around. We worked collaboratively to make our own physical games by using an assortment of playful materials that were mailed to each participant’s home in a randomized package.

Design

Graphic Design with Johanna Schaffer

Experimenting with interfaces, file formats and glitches, Johanna and I developed announcement images for workshops/labs.

A black and white abstract design features a dark, textured brushstroke pattern on the right. On the left, white text on a black rectangle reads: ON BEING TURNED OFF. AN UN TIMELY LAB. 20 - 27 April 2020 with additional information about the event.