Weeknotes 7: Driving and DASTS

03/06/2022

Drove back from the UK on Tuesday after the night ferry to Holland. I think we have this trip nailed now, so much less drama than last time.
DASTS was on Thursday and Friday, which was brilliant — there was a true feel of open, kind, generous conversation and experimentation in all of the panels. It was such a refreshing conference experience that I haven’t had for a long time.
Highlights were: talking about the success and failure of exhibitions with Adam Bencard, Louise Whiteley, and Christopher Gad. A brilliant session on maintenance and care with Mace Ojala, Sanna Marttila, Laura Sørensen, Stine Hansen, Adam Vend and Irina Papazu, which went from software maintenance to agro-ecology and soil, to controversy mapping as a speculative research device. A great session on design-research and prototyping (or prototyping within prototyping) with Ruth Neubauer, Simy Gahoonia, and Christian Lepenik and Stefanie Egger. And Sheila Jasanoff’s keynote was a brilliant meandering and weaving of law and STS, and what she called ‘new constitutionalism’.