![](http://daphnedragona.net/media/pages/projects/transmediale-2019/fbbf85f169-1660295692/erica-scourti-and-shaka-mcglotten-photo-adam-berry-transmediale-cc-by-nc-sa-4.0.jpg)
Erica Scourti & Shaka McGlotten. Photo by Adam Berry. transmediale CC BY NC-SA .4.0.
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Hyphen Labs. Photo by Adam Berry. transmediale CC BY NC-SA .4.0
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Jackie Wang. Photo by Adam Berry. transmediale. CC BY NC-SA 4.0
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Taina Bucher, Joana Moll, !Mediengruppe Bitnik. Photo by Laura Fiorio
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Photo: Adam Berry, transmediale, CC BY NC-SA 4.0
transmediale 2019 focuses on how feelings are made into objects of technological design and asks what role emotions and empathy play within digital culture. One of the key questions of the upcoming festival is “What moves you?”, referring not only to an emotional response but also to the infrastructures and aesthetics that govern how affect becomes mobilized as a political force today.
With digital technologies being integrated into the liveness of experience, a new situation for social change and cultural practice has arisen, which currently seems to lead to either political extremes or extreme complacency. How to resist the manipulative and polarizing aspects of affect in the digital public sphere as it is expressed through a deadlock of the politics of feeling on the one side and disengagement on the other? What motivates social engagement and how can new forms of care and solidarity be developed and embodied?
For transmediale 2019, I curated the talks and workshops, and I initiated the Affective Infrastructures Study Circle.