The below open call invited for applications to the worksession Techno-Cul-de-Sac The worksession took place from 20th to the 25th November 2022 in Constant Studio in Brussels.

We invite artists, city dwellers, activists, electronic scavengers, conflicted urbanists and reluctant designers to spend a week together sharing practices related to the city’s zones of attention, contact, conflict.

The worksession will investigate the city as a woven fabric of territories of inclusion and exclusion, of availabilities and scarcities, of obligations and potentials. It starts from observing the relations between three different forms of zoning and the technology they involve in the Brussels context.

First, the institutional zones: pedestrian zones, special economic zones, 30km/h zones, low-emission zones, zones of prevention and surveillance... Each of these coming with their economic, legal, and political structures.
Then, the areas materialized by communication infrastructure, sketched in the city by network coverage, whether by cables or by the aether: phone lines, optical fibers, 4G, 5G, FM... Old and new networks that enable connections to elsewhere. Thirdly, the patchwork of user-zones sketched by a bunch of recently arrived agents in the city: the platforms that are entangling many inhabitants with their new networks for working, eating, moving in the city thanks to geo-localized "services".

What are possible strategies to express disagreement, temporarily or structurally in the urban space? Does a passer-by consent to rules and regulations during a stroll in the city? As private property and public space melt into each other, what modes of dissent help us re-think public space and public action? Did we really opt-in for all-round corporate surveillance, and how do you collectively opt-out?

Techno-Cul-de-Sac will stubbornly explore the possibilities to do and think the city differently, both existing and imaginary ones.

Programme
TCdS will take place in the shared space that Constant and allies recently started rebuilding and inhabiting. TCdS offers opportunity for collective exchange mixed with city trips, presentations, film screenings. Participants will have time throughout the week to develop artistic investigative concepts and proposals, individually or with others.
Departing from curiosity, participants are invited to think of possibilities that occur through different modes of ’broadcasting’.
Accomplices will include Urban Species, Radio Panik, IEB, ZinTV.

What we offer
Participation is free of charge. Constant will cover costs of transportation, breakfast+lunch, and lodging for all participants.

Application
If you are interested in joining, please send us an email with a few lines describing your interest in these questions and possibly links to work you find relevant.

martinoATconstantvzw.org