As a continuation of the MuDA’s IOOI² series, we ran a 4-day workshop at MuDA (Museum of Digital Art) from 10 to 13 may 2018.

Results and different projects made during the workshop can be found here:

– “Red interference” By Adarsh Amirtham
– “The Televator” By Eirini Sourgiadaki
– “Tree of randomness” By Roger Marti
– “Toni, The Urban Poet” By Alessandro Valentino
– “Non”, By Anouk Althea

The implementation and easy access to certain technologies in the city has helped our dailylife tremendously by providing the most convenient solutions in the urban space. Examples are all around us: from Google maps getting us to where we need to be quicker, delivering food apps, smart panels displaying targeted advertising to the soon integration of the autonomous car.The downside of placing trust and reliance on these technologies (and its opaque algorithms) is that we become accustomed to a comfortable (digital) routine, leaving little space for experimentation, randomness, serendipity, spontaneity or simply for being surprised by life.

What if we take the opposite direction and use humour and poetry with these technologies to bring back surprise, the unexpected encounter and serendipitous changes in our daily urban routine ? How could we welcome or create randomness in our immediate environment? How could we randomly connect people in our area who have never met before? Could we create tools to help us randomly wander and get lost in our city? Would we use algorithmic tools (software) or unplanned natural sources such as the weather or the movement of a pigeon in the street?By exploring the surrounding neighbourhood of the MuDA, those are the questions the participants will be invited to answer by developing a physical output at the end of the 4-day workshop.

The output could take the form of (connected) objects, a small app or interventions, digital or physical installations, site specific outside performances, or artistic documentation of an idea in itself.