One of the big contradictions of the scene of self-organised cultural initiatives is that we are extremely reliant on corporate social media when it comes to our digital presence. For example, it seems both unthinkable and inescapable to organise an evening without a corresponding Facebook event, or to plan that evening without Google Docs or coordinating via a Whatsapp group.
The evening will touch upon alternative tools and approaches, from federated and community-owned social media platforms, and other types of infrastructures that Varia, a space in the South of Rotterdam (the Netherlands), is experimenting with. Departing from discussions on this situation and its causes, we will try to imagine and formulate the affective infrastructures that shape everyday cultural practices and online socialities.
As part of an ongoing exchange between Aymeric Mansoux, a guest of ODD THEORY in 2018, Varia and ODD, Varia members are visiting ODD for a week this July. The plan is to share our experience and ideas, in view of a future collaboration. ODD sees itself as a node in a network of spaces built on friendship and resistance.
Photos by Florian Cramer.
Biography
Varia
Varia is a Rotterdam-based initiative of (currently) 16 people, that started in 2017 from the need to open up the members’ practices and organise ad-hoc, public or semi-public moments among different configurations. At its core it aims to facilitate critical understandings of the technologies that surround us. Varia experiments with tools for building physical and digital infrastructures of affinity in a collective way.