Do Artifacts Have Politics?

Do Artifacts Have Politics?

Langdon Winner, Do Artifacts Have Politics?, Daedalus, Vol. 109, No. 1, Modern Technology: Problem or Opportunity? (Winter, 1980), pp. 121-136

Governance Archaeology: Research as Ancestry

Abstract. This essay presents the idea of governance archaeology, an approach to learning from the past to inform the politics of the future. By reporting on a prototype historical database, we outline a strategy for co-producing a global commons of collective governance practices that can inspire institutional learning and experimentation, particularly in the face of rapid technological change and vexing global crises. Embedded in our approach is an orientation of ancestry whereby practitioners cultivate relationships of accountability and responsibility to the legacies they learn from, recognizing the harm from past patterns of exploitation. By taking seriously a wide range of historical governance practices, particularly those outside the Western canon, governance archaeology seeks to expand the options available for the design of more moral political economies.

Museums in the Fediverse: Experiments with Tainacan, ActivityPub, and WebSocial – Ecologia Digital

Below, we present the slides and the text of José Murilo’s presentation, representing Ibram-Museus at the 1st WebSocialBR in Brasília, on December 3, 2025.

On the Concept of the Political in AI-Generated Art – Open Assembly

Plotting is an online publication gathered and organized by LASP Rietveld.

Read The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

1935 essay by Walter Benjamin; proposes that mechanical reproduction devalues the aura of an artwork, that—in the age of mechanical reproduction and traditional ritualistic value’s absence—art production would be inherently based on political praxis

The Skeleton Library

On Interpolatable Archives, Part 1: Compulsions to Connect, Warburg, Borges and Goldsmith, Cultural Technologies and Digital Oralities

Doctrine of Discovery Project

Explore the Doctrine of Discovery Project archive of legal history, papal bulls, repudiations, and resources on Indigenous sovereignty, justice, and decolonization.

Report on the State of Reports About The Humanities

Of A Certain Kind of Report, At Least

eMuseum Museum für Gestaltung Zürich Archiv Zürcher Hochschule der Künste ZHdK

Im eMuseum geben das Museum für Gestaltung Zürich und das Archiv der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste Einblick in ihre Sammlungsbestände, die seit 2014 im Toni-Areal an der Pfingstweidstrasse 96 in Zürich aufbewahrt werden. Das eMuseum ist die grösste Schweizer Online-Datenbank für Gestaltung und Kunst. Interessierte WissenschaftlerInnen, Kuratoren, Designerinnen und Sammler können über 100 000 Werke entweder gezielt über Autor, Titel, Datierung, Kategorie oder Objektbezeichnung suchen und filtern oder nach Schlagworten in den Sammlungen stöbern.

A Generous Grift: Museums, Finance Capital, and the Clash of Cultural Workers and Collector-Trustees — The Lab

A Generous Grift: Museums, Finance Capital, and the Clash of Cultural Workers and Collector-Trustees

Evolutionary Political Economy: Content and Methods

In this paper we present the major theoretical and methodological pillars of evolutionary political economy. We proceed in four steps. Aesthetics: In chapter 1 the immediate appeal of evolutionary ...

Actualités/Essais/Documents

Technopolitique, Asma Mhalla : Intelligence artificielle, réseaux sociaux, implants cérébraux, satellites, métavers… Le choc technologique sera l’un ...

Utopian media studies: Introduction

This introduction to the special issue ‘Utopian Media Studies’ sketches a framework for how media studies can become a site of utopian praxis, research and experimentation. It first addresses three apprehensions media scholars might have about the notion of utopian media studies and its appeal to a loaded concept like ‘utopia’. The introduction then outlines five sensibilities to explicate the nature and significance of this special issue’s contribution to the field: a utopian media studies must adopt an ecological approach to media; recognize and be invigorated by limits; work toward the technological liberation of time; connect imagination with practice; and emphasize and enable conditions for transmitting hope. Lastly, the introduction considers Ruth Levitas’s distinction between utopia’s archaeological, ontological, and architectural mode to map some of the concrete ways in which existing media studies research is doing utopian work that aligns with these sensibilities. In connecting work that operates in these modes with the various contributions to this special issue, the introduction reveals the utopian currents that already run through media studies as a discipline and opens up new conceptual and methodological approaches to studying and modeling digital utopias.

Utopian media studies: Introduction

This introduction to the special issue ‘Utopian Media Studies’ sketches a framework for how media studies can become a site of utopian praxis, research and experimentation. It first addresses three apprehensions media scholars might have about the notion of utopian media studies and its appeal to a loaded concept like ‘utopia’. The introduction then outlines five sensibilities to explicate the nature and significance of this special issue’s contribution to the field: a utopian media studies must adopt an ecological approach to media; recognize and be invigorated by limits; work toward the technological liberation of time; connect imagination with practice; and emphasize and enable conditions for transmitting hope. Lastly, the introduction considers Ruth Levitas’s distinction between utopia’s archaeological, ontological, and architectural mode to map some of the concrete ways in which existing media studies research is doing utopian work that aligns with these sensibilities. In connecting work that operates in these modes with the various contributions to this special issue, the introduction reveals the utopian currents that already run through media studies as a discipline and opens up new conceptual and methodological approaches to studying and modeling digital utopias.