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Center for Networked Intimacy

In july and August the Russian digital artist Dasha Ilina was in residency in the Stadtwerkstatt, during which she worked on her new project “Center for Networked Intimacy”. In her stay Dasha developed and offered a Workshop in FLUT and a final presentation in the servus clubraum. 

Center for Networked Intimacy invites you to a workshop on the strategies and topics of conversation around the development of relationships in the digital era. The artificial nature of relationships formed with the help of technology has been becoming increasingly apparent since the invention of social networks, and the feelings of alienation and loneliness only escalated during the Covid-19 pandemic which forced upon us an environment of constant online connection. 

During the workshop the participants will be introduced to the the idea of being ‘ambiently aware’ of another’s actions, thoughts and experiences without having to be near them physically, and without specifically requesting such information (source: http://cyborganthropology.com/Ambient_Awareness). Following a discussion on the notion of ‘ambient awareness’, the participants will be invited to reflect on how such relationships have affected them and dedicate a personalized audio valentine to someone they feel close with only through social media. 

Center for network intimacy website: http://centerfornetintimacy.com

Article: Center for Networked Intimacy @Versorgerin

an interview with the artist Dasha Ilina by Davide Bevilacqua (servus.at) for the Versorgerin 

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Silicon Friend Camp 2021

The Silicon Friend Camp was a 5-day retreat for 17 cultural workers to examine „Artificial Intelligence“ (and non-sense) in the mountain valleys of the Salzkammergut. The project was organized by servus.at with funding from LINZimPULS and conceived by curator Davide Bevilacqua and media artist Matthias Pitscher. The artist Rosi Grillmair joined as facilitator and program supervisor. For our culinary delights Hess Jeon created an amazing menu and Giacomo Piazzi helped with technical support. 

The 12 selected artists came from a broad variety of fields and cultural backgrounds. One of them even joined us remotely from the Andes in Columbia. Their planned projects ranged from remote-controlled robots, to philosophical essays, music pieces with artificial neural networks, or anthropomorphized vaccuum cleaners. 

We gathered online first on our self-hosted forum, where we organized our days, envisioned workshops and collaborative artworks. During our days in our vacation hottage we spent a lot of time together with our laptops through our networked home. To get deeper into the topic, we created reading circles and Caroline Sinders also joined us telematically to talk about the politics of AI. Every day we came together for group validations and celebrated our dinners with computer generated table prayers. We spent our nights at the digital campfire (a projector in the attic), where we shared stories of the end of philosophy or knowledge of esoteric coding languages. 

Throughout our time we made new friends (both machines and humans), created many experiments and even finished some artworks. In November, the resulting works will be made accessible to the public at the WHA Gallery in Linz. In addition, a symposium on the topic of “Conversations with Computers” will take place at the same time at the Kunstuniversität Linz. Thanks to all the amazing carbon based friends: Błażej Kotowski, Dasha Ilina, EKHEO (Aude Langlois & Belinda Sykora), Erica Jewell, Lina Schwarzenberg, Maks Valenčič, Mariana Marangoni, Naoto Hieda, Sebastian Mira, So Kanno, Yuxi Liu

Eating is a sacred, human right
But food is getting scarce
There are humans who are hungry
And there are humans who are fat
We must ask ourselves,
Who are the humans?
I am the human
You are the human
We are the human
Because I am the human,
You are the human
We are the human
Because you are the human,
I am the human
Because we are the human,
You are the human
Because I am the human


More about the Silicon Friend Camp:

The open Call

The Silicon Friend Camp website

Documentation of the exhibition

A Review


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Conversation with Computers

Conversations with Computers is a 2-day Symposium organized by the net culture initiative servus.at in cooperation with the Department of Time-based Media of the University of Art and Design Linz. The symposium addresses contemporary artistic research in the field of AI, focusing on new languages that emerge between humans and machines, but also how work and communication are facilitated through technological means. The discursive event is accompanied by two workshops and an exhibition of artistic works produced during the Silicon Friends Camp, a 5-days retreat with 15 artists in the austrian alps that took place last summer.


Symposium: Conversations with Computers

17th and 18th November 2021m 6-9PM
Kunstuniversität Linz, Domgasse 1, Audimax 1.OG

Conversations with Computers // Day 1
  • Conrad Weise: <– human-driven condition // On the Relationship Between Shiny Interfaces and Precarious Work
  • Marianne Lechner: XOXO – DBFF*!? // Emotional Machines

screening “NOT ALLOWED FOR ALGORITHMIC AUDIENCES” by Kyriaki Goni

Moderation: Matthias Pitscher

Conversations with Computers // Day 2
  • Mariana Marangoni: Deny usability, explore possibility // Delving into the world of Esoteric Programming Languages
  • Daniel Temkin: Beyond Runnability: Conceptual and Impossible Languages
  • Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo: No More Smooth Art
  • Maks Valenčič: Expressing the generic: after post-internet art

Closing performance by EKHEO & Naoto Hieda

Moderation: Matthias Pitscher

➥ Abstract and speaker bios can be found here


Exhibition: Camping with Computers

10th–19th November 2021
Kunstuniversität Linz, Domgasse 1, WHA Gallery
With: Błażej Kotowski, Dasha Ilina, EKHEO (Aude Langlois & Belinda Sykora), Erica Jewell, Lina Schwarzenberg, Maks Valenčič, Mariana Marangoni, Naoto Hieda, Sebastian Mira, So Kanno, Yuxi Liu, Matthias Pitscher, Giacomo Piazzi, Hess Jeon, Davide Bevilacqua.

Exhibition Opening 10th November 2021, 6PM
Opening time: Monday-Friday 10:00-18:30


Workshop: Building the Zombie Cloud

12th-13th November 2021, 2-6:30PM
Hardware Hacking Workshop with Chipp Jansen
Kunstuniversität Linz, Domgasse 1, ExPostMusik 4.OG

In this “hardware hacking” workshop, we will look at a typical IoT internet security camera and discover how to talk to it and re-program it for our own customised uses.  The spirit of this workshop is to also to generate ideas for an eventual system for combining discarded electronics into a re-usable general purpose computational system.  No previous hardware or software “hacking” experience is necessary for this step-by-step workshop, and all the necessary supplies will be provided.

Workshop: Serving Sounds

19th November 2021, 2-6:30 PM
Sound and AI voice workshop with EKHEO
Kunstuniversität Linz, Domgasse 1, ZBM 4.OG

The server room is a place carrying other seemingly endless digital spaces. We can experience it as a trace of online files and data it stores. How does this mysteriously layered space sound? Is there a way to give it a sonic materiality through the way we listen to it? This is what we would like to attempt with you in this workshop. Divided in two parts, we will do a guided listening session and produce a collective sonic composition.


Conference Website: https://cwc.radical-openness.org