New Publication: Spectres of Learning
25. February 2024

New Publication: Spectres of Learning

Spectres of Learning is a conversation in book form. It collects individual and collective learning experiences, their situations, and relationships that haunt us until today. The book is a conversation about informal learning spaces such as gardens, parties, kitchens, parks, and how they influence what we learn, how we learn, and how we want to learn. It is also a conversation about hierarchies and forms of exclusion. How and in which spaces have we learned and which spaces have made learning impossible? What relationships have been established in and through these spaces and how do they influence our daily experiences and actions?

The book is also an experiment in publishing: created with the chat-to-print tool Chattypub (Hackers&Designers), the book was produced and designed collectively. Thus, the book is not only the result, but itself the infrastructure of the collaborative work, learning and thinking that can be read in it.

Thank you Vierte Welt, Hackers&Designers, Topsoil Collective and Banana Copy for making this booklet happen!


Out Now: Garp Sessions: Documentation and Commissioned Works 2019-2022
14. September 2023

Out Now: Garp Sessions: Documentation and Commissioned Works 2019-2022

We are exited to announce a new publication on nocturne:

Garp Sessions: Documentation and Commissioned Works 2019-2022

Edited by Ayşe İdil İdil & Deniz Kırkalı

You can download the book here or order a copy by sending us an email.

Garp Sessions is a summer programme that was started in 2019 by Ayşe İdil İdil and Deniz Kırkalı. Taking place yearly in Babakale, a fishing town in Turkey, it brings participants together around different themes every iteration. Garp Sessions: Documentation and New Commissions 2019-2022 brings together texts and visual material from past participants Ada Özsar, Ali Yalgın, Amelie Wedel, Aslı Özdoyuran, Ayşe Draz, Burak Taşdizen, Cem Örgen, David Horvitz, Ekin Can Göksoy, Ezgi Tok, Ezgi Hamzaçebi & Lara Ögel, Gizem Karakaş, Larissa Araz, Maryam al Khasawneh and Ulufer Çelik, neither absent nor present participant Ayşe Köklü, as part of nocturne platform Gerko Egert, and a conversation between Garp Sessions and Fisun Yalçınkaya. It also features interviews with Cooking Sections, Knifemaker Doğan Tosun, and Babakale Beautification, Culture, and Solidarity Association. The book aims to create further opportunities for dialogue between past participants from different years as well as members of our extended Garp Sessions community. It documents and reflects on the sessions in Babakale, produces new works in response to these encounters, and includes voices from the village. In that sense, it is a documentation as well as it is a commissioning platform.


 
10. April 2023

Documentation published: The Radical Teaching Workshop

The booklet documents The Radical Teaching Workshop: Feministisch schreiben" which took place last September at Vierte Welt in Berlin.

With texts by Karolin Meunier and Gerko Egert.

We are working on a longer publication - stay tuned!


Learning to Experiment, Sharing Techniques published in English
19. February 2023

Learning to Experiment, Sharing Techniques published in English

The introduction of our book Experimente lernen, Techniken tauschen was published in English. It is part of the wonderful collection First... Then, Repeat. Workshop Scripts in Practice by the Amsterdam-based collective Hackers and Designers. Thanks to Anja Groten for including us in this amazing book!

The text also includes the How-tos of Juli Reinartz, Feminist Health Care Research Group, Social Muscle Club and SenseLab/Brian Massumi. 

Check out the text as well as the entire book!


The Radical Teaching Workshop: Feminist Practices of Writing and Mapping
02. September 2022

The Radical Teaching Workshop: Feminist Practices of Writing and Mapping

September 23rd and 24th, 2022

More information here.

With: Wiki Riot Squad (Hannah Schmedes, Eva Königshofen, Lena Wassermeier), topsoil (Sofia Villena Araya, Deniz Kirkali and Amelie Wedel), From Where I Stand (Oona Lochner and Isabel Mehl) and Karolin Meunier.

During the two days we want to explore and test different forms of collective learning. The three workshops will focus on feminist practices of writing as ways of experimental knowledge production. There is a growing desire for many to leave traditional teaching institutions and their outdated formats of knowledge transmission in order to collectively share knowledge in a collective way. What other practices and techniques are available? How can we create new places to practice other ways of teaching and learning? Based on these questions, the three workshops are dedicated to different forms of feminist knowledge production. They not only draw on the long tradition of feminist practices of empowerment and consciousness raising, but also use speculative and artistic formats to realize a different kind of learning.

Concept: Gerko Egert

At Vierte Welt In coperation with nocturne – Plattform for experimental Knowledge Production

Funded by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds.

We kindly ask all participants to wear a face mask during the workshops and follow the Covid19 regulation.

Address:

Vierte Welt

Kottbusser Tor im Zentrum Kreuzberg | Adalbertstr. 96 | Galerie 1.OG | 10999 Berlin
U-Bhf Kottbusser Tor | Linie U1 | U8 | U12 |  Ausgang Adalbertstraße

Programm:

Friday, Sep. 23rd, 2022

13:00 – 17:00 How to Edit in Not-So-Open Sources: Wikipedia Workshop with @wiki_riot_squad

Saturday, Sep. 24th, 2022

 11:00 – 13:00 Workshop with topsoil (Sofia Villena Araya, Deniz Kirkali and Amelie Wedel)

You can join this event also via Zoom: Join Zoom Meeting (Meeting ID: 874 4205 8743)

14:00 – 16:30 Wissen in Klammern. Ein Schreibworkshop mit From Where I Stand (Oona Lochner and Isabel Mehl)

17:00 – 18:00 Discussion (Host: Karolin Meunier)

You can also join via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89083594927
Meeting ID: 890 8359 4927

Details:

Friday, Sep. 23rd, 2022

13:00 – 17:00

How to Edit in Not-So-Open Sources: Wikipedia Workshop with @wiki_riot_squad 

(Hannah Schmedes, Eva Königshofen, Lena Wassermeier)

 With the foundation of Wikipedia over 20 years ago, all the knowledge in the world was supposed to be collected in a space accessible to everyone. However, "open source" is not as open as intended. Who feels entitled to process and upload their knowledge as supposedly ‘neutral’ knowledge? The encyclopedists of the present are no longer called Diderot or d'Alembert but “geiserich75” or “hyperrolf”. Yet, up to today the world’s largest encyclopedic internet platform is white and male-dominated.

 Together we will look for loopholes and productive rule violations in Wikipedia and give you insights into structural problems of Wikipedia and, above all, tools to become active editors yourself.

The workshop will be in German and/or English.

Unfortunately, online participation is not possible.

 Please bring a laptop or other device for writing online.

Saturday, Sep. 24th, 2022

11:00 – 13:00

Mapping Encounters, Worksop with topsoil

(Sofia Villena Araya, Deniz Kirkali and Amelie Wedel)

You can join this event also via Zoom: Join Zoom Meeting

(Meeting ID: 874 4205 8743)

“Mapping Encounters” draws from one of the techniques which have proven central to our way of working as a collective: maps. Through maps, we think together and document our collaborative processes; we try to discern the different layers and conceptual densities while visualizing the diverse ways in which our thinking and sensibilities play out. 

For this hybrid workshop, we will offer that technique in order to share and reflect on the expectations, bodily sensations, questions, and thoughts that affect the collective configuration of learning spaces. We will work in small groups and build up layers of mapping the encounter of the workshop itself in dialogue with past (and possible future) learning experiences. 

topsoil is a transnational curatorial and research collective formed by Sofia Villena Araya, Deniz Kirkali and Amelie Wedel in 2017 in London. Based in San Jose, Istanbul and Berlin, together we seek to bring into conversation our various contextual and disciplinary perspectives by threading a notion of learning through friendship. Through prolonged conversation, we ask how to work and think with each other, prioritizing care and sensibility to what drives our research and practice. We initiate long-term collaborative research projects with thinkers and practitioners to collect methods and tools that help us move towards a shared ground while being attentive to specificities. 

The workshop will be in English.

Online participation possible. Join Zoom Meeting (Meeting ID: 874 4205 8743)

14:00 – 16:30

Bracketing Knowledge, Workshop with From Where I Stand

(Oona Lochner and Isabel Mehl)

Which knowledge matters – and why? This feminist question converges philosophical, questions with those of writing and everyday living. With its offensive contextualization of knowledge, feminist writing comes into conflict with a still powerful claim to objectivity in the sciences and the long tradition of backgrounding certain forms of knowledge by bracketing it. Pointing to one’s own entanglement with the object of knowledge (see Haraway et al.) draws attention to the situation of writing in all its social, bodily, and affective dimensions: Am I sitting in an office or at an improvised desk in my bedroom? Is a crying baby knocking on the door? What is my gaze interested in? What noise form do I hear in the background? What experiences and whose knowledge accompany me at my table?

Which knowledge matters is a negotiation that is not only theoretical, but is a battle fought in every text. Literally bracketing something can become a gesture of indeterminacy. It delays any judgment and gives one’s writing time to allow the different moments of knowledge to come into contact with each other, to sit back and wait for a (provisional) outcome.

With writing exercises and experiments, we want to investigate our writing, its conditions and omissions. Together we look at hierarchies of knowledge and rehearse our ability to work with ambivalences, disagreements, and the provisional.

The workshop will be in German and/or English.

Unfortunately, online participation is not possible.

17:00 – 18:00 

Discussion

(Host: Karolin Meunier)

Join via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89083594927
Meeting ID: 890 8359 4927


 
16. June 2022

Feministische Schreibwerkstatt

mit Hannah Schmedes, Eva Königshofen und Lena Wassermeier

Workshop, 19. 5. / 2. 6. 2022

In Kooperation mit der Bauhaus Universität Weimar

Mit Gründung der Wikipedia vor über 20 Jahren sollte alles Wissen der Welt in einem für alle zugänglichen Raum gesammelt werden. Allerdings ist diese “open source” not so open wie gedacht. Denn wer fühlt sich eigentlich dazu berufen, das eigene Wissen in vermeintlich neutrales Sachwissen zu verarbeiten und hochzuladen? Die Enzyklopädisten der Gegenwart heißen zwar nicht mehr Diderot oder d'Alembert sondern „geiserich75“ oder „hyperrolf“ - aber es ist immer noch weiß und männlich bestimmt,  was und wer auf der weltweit größten enzyklopädischen Internetplattform repräsentiert wird.

Gemeinsam begeben wir uns auf die Suche nach Schlupflöchern und produktiven Regelverstößen in der Wikipedia und geben euch dafür Insights in strukturelle Probleme der Wikipedia und vor allem Tools, um selbst als Editeur*in aktiv zu werden.


Neues Buch: Zukunft, gefaltet. Choreographien des Als-Ob
12. October 2021

Neues Buch: Zukunft, gefaltet. Choreographien des Als-Ob

hrsg. v. Martina Bengert, Jörg Dünne, Max Walther

„Gründet Werkstätten!“ ist eine mögliche Antwort auf die aktuellen Anforderungen, die gerade die Geisteswissenschaften dazu auffordern, sich in politische Diskurse einzuschreiben und diese darüber mitzuschreiben oder mitzugestalten. Unterbrechungen und Neuanschlüsse, das Kurzschließen und Öffnen linearer Fort-Schriften scheint uns hierbei ein möglicher Modus.

Zukunft, gefaltet. Choreographien des als-ob ist das für den Moment im Zeichenhaften stillgestellte Ergebnis einer kollaborativ-experimentellen Schreib- und Denkwerkstatt, an der elf Wissenschaftler*innen und Künstler*innen beteiligt waren. Angelehnt an das surrealistische Spiel Cadavre exquis waren die Mitschreibenden gleichsam Mitfaltende, Unterbrechende wie Unterbrochene: Ausformulierte Ansätze wurden, getaktet und gezeittafelt, fortgeschrieben, letzte Sätze eingefaltet weitergegeben und mitgerissen, woraus sich neue Anschlüsse, lose Enden und schlussendlich neun Textskulpturen ergaben, die die Signatur einer verzweigten Textagentur tragen. Agierende waren dabei nicht allein die Autor*innen oder die flüchtige Autor*innengruppe, sondern ebenso die Spielregeln, die Post und deren Irrwege, die lose im Dazwischen hängenden Anschlüsse, usurpatorische Würfelspiele und nicht zuletzt das Herausgeber*innen-Kollektiv, das als schaltende und verwaltende Instanz aktiv-passiv mitschrieb und (ver-)formte.

Beteiligt an den kollaborativen (Zukunfts-)Szenarien waren:

Martina Bengert | Dunja Bialas | Rike Bolte | Michael Cuntz | Jörg Dünne | Knut Ebeling | Gerko Egert | Mario Gomes | Birgit Mara Kaiser | Ricarda Löser | Birgit Schneider | Jochen Thermann | Kathrin Thiele | Max Walther

Alle Texte findet sich im Bereich »Texte« und das PDF des Buches hier.

Die Printversion des Buches kann für €20 plus Versandkosten mit einer Mail an info[at]nocturne-plattform.de bestellt werden.


 
29. June 2021

Video online: Learning to Experiment: Pedagogies Across Art, Activism, and Academia

In this presentation Julia Bee and Gerko Egert introduce the platform nocturne and its concept. Nocturne is a hub for connecting techniques of teaching and
learning in the arts, activism and academia, working at the intersection
of different forms of research and education. At nocturne we experiment
with alternative pedagogies and the format of the workshops in and
beyond traditional teaching. Nocturne combines a pragmatistic
philosophical thinking of speculation with practice: a thinking through
practices. In this presentation we will focus on some of the techniques
presented in our first publication Learning Experiments, Exchanging
Techniques. A Speculative Handbook (2020).

The presentation was part of the international conference “The Workshop – Investigations Into an Artistic Political Format” (March 26-28, 2021)

More information here.


New Text: "Research Score #2 - A set of replaceable instructions" by Sofia Villena Araya and Amelie Wedel now online
01. April 2021

New Text: "Research Score #2 - A set of replaceable instructions" by Sofia Villena Araya and Amelie Wedel now online

We are very happy to anounce a new contribution to our collection of experimental techniques. The two curators, artists, and researchers Sofia Villena Araya and Amelie Wedel are sharing one of their wonderful research scores. It's pushing and pulling, it's beautiful and it's in English! You can find it at the menu Texte or directly here. Check it out!


Presentation "Learning to Experiment: Pedagogies Across Art, Activism, and Academia" (28 Mar 2021)
13. March 2021

Presentation "Learning to Experiment: Pedagogies Across Art, Activism, and Academia" (28 Mar 2021)

28 Mar 2021, 10:30 am - 11:30 am

Talk

We present  Nocturne and our first book at this amazing conference:
The Workshop. Investigations Into an Artistic-Political Format, taking place 26-28 Mar 2021, online.

In our presentation we will introduce the platform nocturne and its concept. Nocturne is a hub for connecting techniques of teaching and learning in the arts, activism and academia, working at the intersection of different forms of research and education. At nocturne we experiment with alternative pedagogies and the format of the workshops in and beyond traditional teaching. Nocturne combines a pragmatistic philosophical thinking of speculation with practice: a thinking through practices. In this presentation we will focus on some of the techniques presented in our first publication Learning Experiments, Exchanging Techniques. A Speculative Handbook (2020).

More infos here.