First Padua Summer School on Philosophy und Cultural Studies of Technology

zusammen mit Fabio Grigenti (Padua), Alfred Nordmann (Darmstadt) und Astrid Schwarz (Cottbus)

Playgrounds: Technology, Art and the Socialization of People and Things

___Padua, September 15–21, 2019

What is a playground, how is play induced by ars and techné, and in which sense do technologies involve people and things in a playful choreography of gestures? If play affords the development of habits of action, what does the designed interplay of people and things afford? What are the grounds and limits of play in the present and past as we participate in different socio-technical systems and orders of knowledge? These are questions for the philosophy of technology, for cultural studies, for art and design theory, and the history of science and technology –questions that go beyond child’s play to the arrangements of relations in space, the development of habits of action, the familiarization of lifestyles and to the aesthetic dimensions of participation in sociotechnical systems and regimes of knowledge. A playground is created by specific technical and/orartful interventions that offer opportunities to play – be they the creation of a sandbox, the placement of a sculpture, the position of a lectern or the experimental set-up on a laboratory bench. A playground provides models for relating people and things, for developing knowledge practices, sequential gestures and choreographies, and finally for the socialization of people and things in behavioral routines and relational assemblages.