Calculating Control: (Net)Art and Cybernetics

Calculating Control: (Net) Art and Cybernetics
Haus der Statistik & panke.gallery
3 May 2021, Berlin / online

From 1970 to 1989, Haus der Statistik operated as the Central Administrative Headquarters for Statistics in the German Democratic Republic: an institution for the cybernetic regulation of society and everyday life.

Working from the site-specific history of Haus der Statistik, Calculating Control explores the impact of cybernetics on artistic and social practices, networks, and technology. Connecting Haus der Statistik with other locations and histories of cybernetic ideals, Calculating Control draws a trajectory from this building to contemporary algorithmic practices and their socio-political effects, many of which mark a crucial point of reference for netart.

As an artistic practice of network society, netart traces systems of cybernetic administration and renders their forms visible and subject to revision. Over the duration of six months, Calculating Control will unravel cybernetic thinking in the space of two separate exhibitions, a symposium, an unconference, as well as an online journal. These various formats are connected and contextualized by further research material available in the archive section of this site.

Symposium: Between Techno-Euphoria and Regimes of Surveillance

03/05/2021 18:00 – 20:00: Annet Dekker , Marialaura Ghidini , Gaia Tedone

The Broken Timeline (EN)

‘The Broken Timeline’ presents historical exhibition projects that were curated online. Inevitably partial and subjective, ‘The Broken Timeline’ burrows back in time to present a lineage of web-based curatorial projects that are too often unseen, neglected or ignored by the mainstream art worlds and their discourses.