What shapes the daily routine of a telemarketing sales agent? How to go beyond the co-working model when it comes to organize a place for collaboration? What's the territorial and political role of furniture within the semi-domestic area of the artist's studio? Are life hacks a form of liberation or yet another burden? Together with author and designer François Girard-Meunier, the WORKNOT! collective (Arvand Pourabbasi and Golnar Ababsi), Varia, the Centre for Everyday Technology (represented by Roel Roscam Abbing, Manetta Berends and Niek Hilkmann) and XPUB (the Experimental Publishing program of the Piet Zwart Institute), we will tackle these and more questions during an evening dedicated to spaces that are at once entrepreneurial and precarious.
Life Hacks is part of Het Nieuwe Instituut’s fellowship program around the theme of ‘burn out’. As 2017 fellow Ramon Amaro states, “on the one hand, to ‘burn out’ is to stall, break, or become otherwise unusable. In other words, processes, procedure and participation simply stop working. On the other hand, ‘burn out’ is an opportunity to break open, promote action and catalyse change towards new structures and relations.” Life Hacks manifests in a series of gatherings that respond to this ambivalence by exploring the approaches and techniques adopted to design or redesign life against the backdrop of growing precarity and an intensified entrepreneurial regime. Together with theorists, practitioners and XPUB, the Experimental Publishing program of the Piet Zwart Institute, Life Hacks looks into the tensions and releases that emerge from the constant reinvention and progressive self-optimization necessary to inhabit public and private space, manage time and productivity, and tweak one's own thoughts and feelings.
Life Hacks is part of Het Nieuwe Instituut’s fellowship program around the theme of ‘burn out’. As 2017 fellow Ramon Amaro states, *“on the one hand, to ‘burn out’ is to stall, break, or become otherwise unusable. In other words, processes, procedure and participation simply stop working. On the other hand, ‘burn out’ is an opportunity to break open, promote action and catalyse change towards new structures and relations.”* Life Hacks manifests in a series of gatherings that respond to this ambivalence by exploring the approaches and techniques adopted to design or redesign life against the backdrop of growing precarity and an intensified entrepreneurial regime.
Together with theorists, practitioners and XPUB, the Experimental Publishing program of the Piet Zwart Institute, Life Hacks looks into the tensions and releases that emerge from the constant reinvention and progressive self-optimization necessary to inhabit public and private space, manage time and productivity, and tweak one's own thoughts and feelings.
Life Hacks is curated by Silvio Lorusso, and jointly organized by HNI’s Research Department and XPUB.
---
**Date**: Wednesday, 31st of Ocotber 2018<br>
**Time**: 19:00h - 21:00h<br>
**Location**: Varia, Gouwstraat 3 Rotterdam<br>
**Entrance**: Donation
---
Roel Roscam Abbing (NL) is an artist and researcher whose work engages with the issues and cultures surrounding networked computation. He engages with themes such as network infrastructures, the politics of technology and do-it-yourself approaches. He holds an MA Networked Media from the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam and a Fine Arts BA from the Willem De Kooning Academy. Currently he also works as a teacher in Digital Media at the department of Graphic Design in Artez, Arnhem. He is also a member of the homebrewserver.club and Varia. <https://roelof.info>
Manetta Berends (NL) is a graphic designer with an interest in networked publishing & free software. Her practice is rooted in practical investigations into the sociality of software related to publishing infrastructures. Besides working on commissions, projects and workshops, Manetta is also member of Varia. <https://www.manettaberends.nl>
