Tactics&Practice [podcast] is an audio extension of Aksioma’s discursive programme of the same name, focused on investigative art, society and new technologies.
For PXXP•XXV: Speculation and Decay, the programme curated by Aksioma for the 25th edition of Pixxelpoint – International Festival of Contemporary Art Practices, we have invited writer, curator and art critic Régine Debatty to conceive and lead a new podcast series.
Tactics&Practice [podcast]: The Future Behind Us
Throughout history, artists have engaged with scientific and technological developments to improve creative tools, conceive radical experiments or critique the ethical motives and socio-political implications of innovations. Just like the technologies they used and investigated, in the minds of the public, many artworks are quickly replaced by new ones.
How do contemporary artists reflect on projects they developed five, ten or even twenty years ago? Have their artistic visions aged along with the (then) innovative technologies their work examined? Were they naïve or visionary in their interpretation of techno-scientific progress? Were their anxieties premonitory or unfounded?
The podcast, hosted by curator, blogger and art critic Régine Debatty, explores the lessons drawn from past artistic experiments with technology that have been considered provocative, critical and ground-breaking. Featuring guests Trevor Paglen, Nora Al-Badri, UBERMORGEN, Jill Magid, Paolo Pedercini from Molleindustria, Evan Roth, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Sanela Jahić, Pinar Yoldas and Maja Smrekar, it examines how innovations have evolved through the eyes of artists and how much their insights remain relevant today. The conversations also delve into anecdotes, challenges and the impacts these projects have had on the artists’ careers.
On the occasion of the 15th edition of Tactics&Practice (un)real data – real effects, which explores how the ambiguous quality of data can be used as a tool to produce real-world outcomes, we invited journalist and researcher Neja Berger to conduct a new podcast series.
Tactics&Practice [podcast]: (un)real data
Digital technology and data-driven systems are reshaping our sense of self, social reality and creative expression. Through conversations with theorists and artists, this podcast series unravels the ambiguities, biases and dehumanising effects embedded within algorithms, predictive models and AI-generated content that now mediate our lives. From the quantified self to the algorithmic reproduction of a deepfake past, our guests offer critical perspectives on how we can understand (and learn to resist) the flattening of human experience and perhaps reclaim more authentic, liminal spaces of creativity and social connection.
Each year Tactics&Practice takes on a specific theme. The 14th edition, held in Ljubljana in the spring of 2023, was devoted to the theme of scale. Journalist and researcher Neja Berger followed the entire programme and interviewed some of its protagonists for the channel’s first miniseries.
Tactics&Practice [podcast]: Scale
Most of the phenomena that affect the social world and underlie the ways in which social powers – economic, political, ideological and military – establish and act take place in realms that are much larger or smaller than the human scale. In this podcast series artists, anthropologists and academic researchers engage in a dialogue about their latest projects in order to make us think outside the human scale. Listeners will be acquainted with intelligent materials, demonic energy infrastructures, local informal networks of data distribution and autonomous weapon systems, and will thereby discover that new paradigms and scales are needed to better understand – and possibly subvert – the world we live in.
The 10th edition of Tactics&Practice in 2021 saw writer and tech journalist Marta Peirano conceive and lead a festival of conversations entitled (re)programming: Strategies for Self-Renewal. This podcast series replays the conversations that took place within that event.
Tactics&Practice [podcast]: (re)programming
As a growing population is sharing an ever-shrinking planet, we have found ourselves at an existential crossroads: do we bring the mistakes of the Enlightenment and industrialisation to their logical conclusion or should we develop a capacity to reprogram ourselves as a species, in order to survive? What will it take for humanity to change its course and build a responsible future for the generations to come, and what can really be accomplished when we finally do this? Some of the solutions might be technical, but most of the obstacles are not.
In this podcast series, Spanish tech journalist Marta Peirano meets a series of world-renowned thinkers to discuss key technical and social issues, from infrastructure to energy, from community to AI. Each conversation is enriched by questions from special guests and the online audience.
