Time to meet, get a lanyard, have a coffee, and find a seat.

Welcoming address by Prof. Burhard Detzler, opening words by Prof. Stefan Hauser, introduction by Phil Zumbruch and members of the Communication Design faculty.

Designing new graphic interfaces for the display of the ‘Oceania’ collections in the Museum of Civilizations, Rome

Under the direction of Andrea Villiani the Museo delle Civiltà (Museum of Civilizations) in Rome is approaching its collections anew, as ‘plural, polycentric and intersectional, not only in their history but also in their potential and in their becoming.’1

Commissioned by Rome based design and publishing studio NERO, Counter Forms–a collectively run digital type foundry based in Australia–was briefed to come up with a proposal for the display of the museum’s ‘Oceania’ collections. The collection consists of around 15,000 treasures, mostly collected by ‘travellers, scholars and explorers of the late 19th century.’2

‘Complex Preferences’ will outline the approach and process of this work so far, concentrating on typographic considerations surrounding the assignment and the treasures of the collection.

Jedes Werkzeug tritt in Szenen auf, die lange vor uns begonnen haben, mit Rollen und Gesten, die wir im Gebrauch wiederholen. Ursula K. Le Guin zeigt, dass sich mit dem Werkzeug auch die Erzählung ändert: Sie erzählt die Geschichte der Menschheit vom Beutel aus statt von der Waffe und rückt aus feministischer Perspektive Netzwerke und Beziehungen ins Zentrum.

Mein Ansatz setzt dort an, wo ich selbst verstrickt bin: in alltäglichen Werkzeugen, die mich faszinieren und denen ich misstraue. Ich breche sie auf, lege ihre Erzählungen frei und setze sie durch Hacken, Glitchen und Queeren neu zusammen, zu spekulativen Geschichten zwischen physischen und virtuellen Räumen. Im Vortrag zeige ich eigene Arbeiten, Kollaborationen und Recherchen und frage, wie aus der Ohnmacht gegenüber diesen Werkzeugen wieder Handlungsfähigkeit werden könnte.

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Every tool is part of a scene that began long before us, with roles and gestures we repeat each time we use it. Ursula K. Le Guin shows that when the tool changes, so does the story: she tells the history of humankind from the carrier bag rather than the weapon and, from a feminist perspective, places networks and relationships at its centre.

My approach starts where I am entangled myself: in everyday tools that fascinate me and that I distrust. I break them open, expose the stories they carry and reassemble them through hacking, glitching and queering into speculative narratives between physical and virtual spaces. In the talk, I present my own works, collaborations and research, and ask how powerlessness in the face of these tools might turn back into agency.

We’ll have some wine and cheese and a nice dinner at HBK.