transmediale Co-Curricular is a new project aiming to foster media literacy for the post-digital era and to strengthen the exchange between transmediale and its network of educational and research partners. Workshops, seminars, and participatory formats are specially planned to invite students, young academics, and new practitioners to work together with leading media artists, activists, and transdisciplinary researchers. In response to the anxieties of a society where technology and knowledge are being black-boxed, the program offers a common ground where bonds among participants of different disciplines and generations can be built and new models of communicating and sharing knowledge can be developed.

Thematically, the Co-Curricular program sheds light on the power and the politics of networked infrastructures, exposing and discussing their opaque systems and occult mechanisms. Could citizens and users today claim rights on systems of communication and connectivity? What forms of literacy would this require and exactly what are the proposed strategies and alternatives? The program evolves around infrastructures of different scale and scope introduced by the participating artists and researchers. Media archaeology, critical design, commoning, DIY networking, and activism are used to (re-)address the properties and values of urban mesh and community networks, off-the-cloud toolkits, and offline sharing archives. Autonomous systems and infrastructures, thus, become the focal point of exploration for transmediale Co-Curricular, in an attempt to empower democratized networks of trust, respecting the different needs of users, communities, and populations.

transmediale Co-Curricular is a collaboration between transmediale, the Hybrid City Conference, and the Faculty of Communication & Media Studies of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. In cooperation with Allianz Kulturstiftung.