Prof. Timothée Ingen-Housz
“Hello World”
Intensive Seminar, English/Deutsch, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Saturdays/Sundays, 18./19.5 and 25./26.5.2019
18.5.: 12-19 h, 19.5./25.5./26.5. 10-17 h
HybridLab, Villa Bell, Marchstr. 8, 10587 Berlin
Location plan: http://www.hybrid-plattform.org/ueber-uns/hybrid-lab/

Famous first words – the ones aspiring computer programmers learn to code on day one.
The builders of the grand digital scheme may think on planetary scales, but who are they talking to, when they say “Hi?”… and how should anyone greet them back?
“Software will eat the world” – as internet entrepreneur Marc Andreessen once said. Others, like Jobs, Gates, and Zuckerberg, spent their life talking about “changing the world”, pulling a generation of startup kids in their tracks. Electronic networks may have transformed scattered societies in a global village, but we do not yet know in which world we´re supposed to live in.

As transhumanist entrepreneurs make their way into the mainstream, pushing the idea of an ever-modifiable nature, the notion of “world” presented by their digital colleagues has never seemed to be more fluid, plastic, or “transformable”. We may yet wonder: what are they talking about? Is the world changing for real – or are we somewhat immersed in a collective labyrinth forcing us to adapt to a reality performed by those wanting to decide it for us? Is the world something we still can decide upon, and if so, which agencies, networks or individuals would be responsible (or eligible) for its design? – and what if it was an Art school?

“Hello world” is a lecture-seminar attempting to (re-)formulate these questions with a series of critical and explorative excursions in the history of digital tools and networks – from Turing´s early code cracking machines to the PC, from the Arpanet to the first phone phreaks, from myspace to Instagram, deep fakes and AI. We will look at the past, the present and the prophecies of digital technologies, cultures and discourses through the various lenses of their “world-changing” prospects, exploring their technological, political, entrepreneurial, economic and cultural modalities with the intent to map and think them anew.

Our investigation in digitality´s “worlding world” will seek to identify blind spots, unintended consequences, ethics-to-go and geopolitical dilemmas, in a continuous attempt to clarify the picture and look for alternative positions and possibilities. Students will experiment with narrative prototyping methods, develop their alternative options, and “reinvent the internet” as to shape a digital “world” they´d want to say hello to.
Literature will involve materials from Benjamin Bratton, Martin Heidegger, Marshal McLuhan, Vannevar Bush, Friederich Kittler, Villem Flusser, Jaron Lanier, Ted Nelson, etc.

Requirements for the ungraded Studium Generale credit: besides regular participation the creation of an alternative “world” in the form of an “active participation model” manifested in a map, a narrative, a protocol or a governance model.

Schwerpunkte:
Ausrichtung der Veranstaltung: politisch, vorwärtsgewandt
Kompetenz/Aktivität der Teilnehmenden: aneignen, transformieren

Timothée Ingen-Housz, Animationskünstler, wurde im Oktober 2015 an die UdK Berlin berufen. Nach seinem Abschluss Ende der 90er Jahre zog er nach Köln und gründete „phosphen“, ein interdisziplinäres Kreativstudio für „Screen, Stage and Page“, das unter anderem Musikvideos, Internetcartoons, wissenschaftliche Animationen, interaktive Installationen, Videospielfiguren, Kinderbücher, narrative Benutzeroberfläche, Lounge-Konzepte und Bühnenvideos für verschiedene Kunden realisierte. Er begann das Lehren als Student und hielt Vorträge und Workshops für: Ensad, Harvard Filmfakultät, Goldsmiths Universität London, Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln und schließlich für die UdK Berlin, wo er jetzt „audiovisuelle Konzeption und Dramaturgie“ im Studiengang „Kommunikation in sozialen und ökonomischen Kontexten“ (GWK) unterrichtet.