HIDDEN HISTORIES, PUBLIC LIBRARIES: MEDIA MANIFESTOES

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SOENKE ZEHLE, ​PETER CORNWELL, HENRIK ELBURN, CHRISTINA KRAL, ALESSANDRO LUDOVICO AND SIMON WORTHINGTON (Based in Saarbrücken)
HIDDEN HISTORIES, PUBLIC LIBRARIES: MEDIA MANIFESTOES, 2015

Media Manifestoes: In a partnership with Fotomuseum Winterthur, xm:lab will be able to provide access to selected content from the research, exhibition and publication project ‘Manifesto!’. The project collected a century of photographic artistic manifestoes, many of which revolve around reimagining urban spaces, always in reaction to the status quo reaching a point of crisis. To recall these manifestoes is to link our own moment of crisis to a broader chain of critical events that takes us beyond the present moment, characterized by a series of conflicts around the ownership and control of infrastructure and intellectual labor. In making this exhibition content public, we support the institution of the public library as a key site of generating new urban imaginaries, but doing so by a way of transforming it into a networked institution that is co-designed by its users and co-exists in and across public spaces.

Photograph:
© Soenke Zehle

Artist biography

The artists are all part of a cross-institutional, transdisciplinary research team. 

Peter Cornwell explores the integration of open access repositories into open educational resource platforms in relation to the design of sustainable archive systems.

Henrik Elburn is a media artists and designer working on archive interfaces projects that bridge the arts-andtechnology divide.

Christina Kral explores the future of publishing in relation to open educational technologies.

Alessandro Ludovico explores the creation of independent ‘islands’ of archived culture through the linking of private repositories and databases that are collectively searchable.

Simon Worthington is the co-founder, co-director and publisher of Mute Publishing Ltd.

Soenke Zehle is a media theorist and curator with a background in comparative literature, philosophy, and translation.