By Jussi Parikka

AMT was again part of the Istanbul Design Biennial, this time together with Bilkent University (Ankara) hosting a workshop and a panel. We responded to the main theme of A School of Schools with our own emphasis: A Lab of Labs. In other words, working with the Bilkent Media Archaeology Lab (led by Andreas Treske) we organised a two day event that performed a lab in as a method to investigate it as a assemblage of methods, techniques, affordances of the lab in an urban environment and in the context of Istanbul, a city with a long heritage of crafts, workshops, and design irreducible to a sanitized design thinking discourse.

Benefiting from the experience of Ege Berensel and Başak Altın we engaged in workshopping that included 8 mm found footage (home films) and motherboards (as a source of circuit bending and tinkering). While Ebru Kurbak joined us to talk about her work in textiles, computing and material methodologies in speculative design, and Tuğçe Karataş shared her views as an independent curator, our special surprise guest was the local TV repair shop expert who gave us a two hour crash course into his work and electronics! The lab includes many kinds of expertise.

The workshop was also part of the research for #TheLabBook – online at What is a Media Lab?.

This piece was originally published on 28 October 2018 at Jussi Parikka’s personal website.