“Performative Ethnography at Fraunhofer Institute”

within Pochen Biennale Chemnitz

Location: Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology (IWU), Chemnitz, DE | Date: 7.10.2022 | Expert guide: Dr. Philipp Klimant | Facilitators: Benjamin Gruner, Kim Brian Dudek | Produced by: Pochen Biennale Chemnitz | Funded by: SKICA Berlin.

“Meeting Dexter the Surgical Robot”

within Ars Electronica ArtScience Residency

Location: Universitatsklinikum Bonn and Bonn Sustainable AI Lab, Institute for Science and Ethics, Bonn, DE | Date> 6.2.2023 |Expert guide: Dr. Jan Arensmeyer | Facilitator: Dr. Aimee van Wynsberghe | Produced by: Ars Electronica, Linz, AT | Funded by: Deutsche Telekom and Creative Industries Fund NL.

“Newborn Genetics Screening”

within the Art Work Package at ELSA-NN

Location: Genetics Department, University Medical Center Groningen, NL | Date: 23.5.2023 |Expert guides: Dr. Lennart Johansson, Dr. Imke Christians, Dr. Marielle van Gijn | Facilitator: Dr. Mirjam Plantinga | Produced by: Ars Electronica, Linz, AT | Supported by: ELSA-NN | Funded by: Deutsche Telekom, Creative Industries Fund NL and ELSA Al lab Northern Netherlands (ELSA@NN) (with project number NWA.1332.20.006) of the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA) Al Synergy programme ‘Artificial Intelligence: Human-centred Al for an inclusive society- towards an ecosystem of trust’ which is partly financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

“Weddermarke farm” | “How the Vegan Sausage Gets Made” | ”Potato Potentials”

within the exhibtion “Digestible” at Artphy

Location 1: Akkerbouwbedrijf Weddermarke, Wedde, NL | Date: 8.6.2023| Expert guide: Hendrik Luth | Location 2: Vion Me-At, Leeuwarden, NL | Date: 17.7.2023 | Expert guide: Willem Cranenbroek |Location 3: Avebe Innovation Center, Groningen, NL | Date: 26.7.2023 | Expert guide: Peter-Erik Ywema | Facilitators: Jan Willem Kok, Janke Westra | Produced and funded by: Kunstruimte Artphy, Onstwedde, NL within the exhibition Digestible.

“Fluttering Hearts” 

during the Ars Electronica Festival

Location: Ordensklinikum Linz Elisabethinen, Linz, AT | Date: Date: 7.9.2023 | Expert guides: Dr. Helmut Pürerfellner, Dr. Prof. Andreas Götte, Dr. Lemes, and sister Ursula | Facilitators: Laura Welzenbach, Günther Kolb | Produced by: Ars Electronica ArtScience Residency | Funded by: Deutsche Telekom

“Out of the Woods” 

carried out within “Worlds’ End Hackathon”

Location: Creative Center Krušče, SI | Date: 22.8.2024 | Expert guides: Irena Ašič, Jože Prah | Facilitators: Uroš Veber, Tjaša Pogačar and Brandon Rosenbluth | Produced by: Projekt Atol Institute within ARIA - Algro-Rhythmic Ideation Assembly | Funded by: Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Public Affairs and the Municipality of Ljubljana – Department for Culture. ARIA is organized as part of the More-than-Planet project and co-funded by the European Union.

“Hot Stuff”

within the Ho Altro Da Fare (I have Other Things To do) exhibition

Location: Spittelau Waste Incinerator Plant, Vienna, AT | Date: 27.11.2024 | Facilitator: Barbara Mahlknecht | Produced by: FLUCC Vienna, AT, within the exhibition Ho Altro Da Fare | Supported by: Creative Industries Fund NL, Bundesministerium Kunst, Kultur, öffentlicher Dienst und Sport, Stadt Wien.

Performative Ethnographies are an artistic methodology and ongoing non-disciplinary research created as a response to the multiple layers of inaccessibility and exclusion of laypeople from spaces where advanced technology is developed and deployed, even though their bodies are (directly or indirectly) affected by the processes that occur there.

PE is a hybrid between a participatory performance, workshop and tactical intervention. Leveraging the connections of (cultural) institutions, a guided visit to a site of concern is arranged for 10-15 participants. During the two-hour encounter, the participants are asked to embody amateur ethnographers, observing the site and the local experts who present their work and challenges. As amateur ethnographers the participants try to make sense of the technological undertaking from the particular perspective of observation they choose at the beginning of the action. After the tour, and in the absence of the experts, the participants’ field notes are recorded as testimonies that become part of an ever-growing archive of insights into opaque technological infrastructures, as understood through the countless perspectives of concerned amateurs .

The protocol of PE is low-barrier in that it requires minimal preparation from the hosts and can be adapted to any field by adjusting the initial instructions. Repurposing elements of ethnography, a scientific method that champions knowledge production through first-person experience, and role play that invites participants to expand on concerns surrounding new technologies, PE repositions laypeople in the technology-development pipeline from the ones who must learn to accept the advancements, to those whose pluriversal values form the basis of making sense of the technologies in the first place.