With Tracing Information Society—A TIMELINE, the Vienna-based research platform TECHNOPOLITICS transforms the ÖAW hall into a curated knowledge space: a 14-metre-long timeline illustrates key milestones in the development of the information society from 1900 to the present day. The timeline is primarily a tool that allows users a form of discursive orientation and shared contextualisation, and is intended to spark discussions about key technopolitical and social developments and the significance of specific historical moments, texts or developments. The timeline is not a finished “work”, but rather invites the audience to critique existing entries and contribute new data sets, in order to continue writing the TIMELINE together.
About Technopolitics
TECHNOPOLITICS is an independent, transdisciplinary platform of artists, journalists, researchers, designers, and developers who jointly develop innovative formats at the intersection of art, research, science, and pedagogy. Technopolitics was launched as an online discussion group by Armin Medosch and Brian Holmes in 2009. In 2011, it was set up in Vienna as a circle that regularly meets for lectures and discussions. TECHNOPOLITICS also produces interdisciplinary conferences and artistic research projects internationally. An important common objective is the investigation of large-scale historical processes structured by technoeconomic paradigms from a critical, explorative standpoint. We use transdisciplinary approaches to connect these processes to the cultural forms of the respective historical moment and place, including the participants’ own work.