Film presentation: “Civilization, Technology and Consciousness - Peter Lamborn Wilson / Hakim Bey” and discussion with Felix Stalder
We are happy to announce an interesting film screening and discussion evening this coming Monday, 13th March 2023, in our beautiful shared hackerspace, Bitwäscherei, in the former Zentralwäscherei Zürich, ZWZ. Hakim Bey, famous as the author of “Temporary Autonomous Zone”, has been shaping thoughts and practices of many activitsts and utopians as a "cyberguru" in the 90ies and critique to capitalism and rationality, aswell as influencing some of hackteria's activities also termed "TAL - Temporary Autonomous Laboratory", held in Geneva, Yogyakarta or Maribor.
What has he been saying 30 years later in his life?
A team around Konrad Becker & Felix Stalder has been interviewing him in the last weeks of his life, and has put together a highly interesting documentary, which puts many of Hakim Bey's thoughts in a new light.
Join us to watch this film and discussion with Felix Stalder
Contents
Where and When
No registration needed
Schedule
13. March 2023, Monday
19:00 Door open: Drinks and snacks available
20:00 Screening: “Civilization, Technology and Consciousness - Peter Lamborn Wilson / Hakim Bey”
21:00 Open discussion: with Felix Stalder, Ewen Cardronnet, and YOU
Location
Hackteria ZET - Open Science Lab, 3.Stock, Bitwäscherei, Neue Hard 12, 8005 Zürich
Civilization, Technology and Consciousness
A video by World-Information.Net, Konrad Becker/Felix Stalder Camera: Fred Barney Taylor, NY Support: Jim Fleming, Lewanne Jones, Postproduction: Georg Schütz, Sound: Konrad Becker, (57min. 2022)
In seinem letzten Interview, geführt während der globalen Pandemie, blickt der anarchistische Forscher und Kulturtheoretiker Peter Lamborn Wilson/Hakim Bay zurück und nach vorne zu gleich. Er zieht einen grossen Bogen durch die Geschichte von Zivilisation, Technologie und Bewusstsein. Im Fokus steht die aktuelle Tendenz zur Verengung und Verflachung der Vorstellungskraft aufgrund globaler Ausweitung von Konsumismus sowie zunehmender Abstraktion und Quantifizierung als Grundlage sozialer Welten. Welche Perspektiven radikaler Alternativen lassen sich gegen den Status Quo und Rechtsextremismus denken?
Lamborn-Wilson formuliert aber nicht nur Kritik, sondern erforscht anderer Wege des In-der-Welt-Seins, unmittelbarer, voller Wunder und frei von erdrückender Herrschaft.
Ein „Cyberguru“ in den Neunzigern, hatte er ganz bewusst keine E-Mail-Adresse und schrieb seine Stücke mit der Hand oder einer alten Schreibmaschine. Als Autor von „Temporary Autonomous Zone“ und Dutzenden anderen Büchern, darunter Titel wie „Pirate Utopia“, inspirierte er mehrere Generationen. Er starb einen Tag nach der letzten Aufnahme zu diesem Interview im Mai 2022.
English summary
In his last interview, conducted during the global pandemic, anarchist researcher and cultural theorist Peter Lamborn Wilson/Hakim Bay looks back and forward at the same time. He draws a wide arc through the history of civilization, technology and consciousness. The focus is on the current tendency to narrow and flatten the imagination due to the global expansion of consumerism and increasing abstraction and quantification as the basis of social worlds. Which perspectives of radical alternatives can be thought of against the status quo and right-wing extremism?
Lamborn-Wilson not only formulates criticism, but explores other ways of being in the world, more immediate, full of wonder and free from oppressive domination.
A “cyberguru” in the 90’s, he deliberately didn’t have an email address and wrote his pieces by hand or with an old typewriter. As the author of “Temporary Autonomous Zone” and dozens of other books, including titles like “Pirate Utopia”, he inspired several generations. He died one day after the last recording of this interview in May 2022.
See blog post by Felix Stalder
About Felix Stalder
My name is Felix Stalder and I'm currently dividing my time between working as a professor of digital culture and network theories at the Zurich University of the Arts and as an independent researcher/organizer with groups such as the Institute for New Cultural Technologies (t0) and the technopolitics group in Vienna.
I've been working in this area since the mid-1990s. At the end of the 90s, I was pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto (completed in 2001), then as a post-doc with the Surveillance Project, a transdisciplinary research initiative based in the Department of Sociology, Queen's University in Kingston, ON, Canada (completed in 2002). Since 2003, I'm a (part-time) faculty member in Zurich, where I teach in the Department of Fine Arts and lead research projects.