Who designs the technologies we are using ?
How does the technology design affect our lived time ?
What agency do we have as users when making conscious or unconscious decisions about technology-related activities?
For this talk, our resident artist of the European Digital Deal project, Silvia invited the interdisciplinary designer Dominika Čupková and the mathematician and product designer Emese Thamó to reflect on topics related to the design of technologies, design of acceleration and how the power to design is distributed.
The talk took place on February 15th, 2025 at Adpatér in Budapest, in collaboration with ProProgressione and Ars Electronica. The public talk was organised as part of the Reclaiming Technology project by Silvia.
Reclaiming Technology is an ongoing artistic, practice-based research project initiated by Silvia and examines how technology, often perceived as a neutral tool, replicates social and gender biases and stereotypes, manipulates the pace of everyday lived time, consequently diminishing opportunities for critical reflection and inclusive participation.
Programme:
▪️ 15:00: GIRL AI: Playful Subversion with AI & Design Workshop by Dominika Čupková
▪️ 17:30: Design, Time and Agency Public talk with Dominika Čupková and Emese Thamó, moderated by Silvia Binda
▪️ 18:30: What is time to a computer ? Live Coding Lecture by Silvia Binda
Silvia’s feedback on the Session:
“For the second edition of Reclaiming Technology Sessions, we partnered with Adaptér, a venue in Budapest dedicated to new media art and digital fabrication. This edition was organized around the topics of time and design in relation to technology, as one of my main focuses in the EU Digital Deal Residency is on digital time and its hidden aspects.
The program for this mini-symposium included a workshop led by Dominika Čupková, a digital designer and AI expert whose work explores the intersection of AI and feminism. I invited Dominika because, in the past, I had attended one of her workshops and found it very related to the topics I am researching during my EUDD residency, which is why I thought it would be a great fit for this Reclaiming Technology session.
The second part of the program featured a conversation between Dominika Čupková and Emese Thamó, who is a designer and mathematician, currently participating in the EUDD Residency as a mentor. Together, we engaged in a discussion from both personal and critical perspectives on where design and technology intersect, and how users can gain more agency in their interactions with technology. Finally, as the last event of the program, I presented a first test run of my performative lecture titled What is Time to a Computer ? In this piece, created during the EUDD Residency, I aimed to explore a different form of storytelling—a different kind of narration—around the question of what time could mean when viewed from a computer’s perspective. This was the first time I presented the work publicly, and I very much appreciated the discussions and reflections that followed with both the participants and the audience. I’m very grateful to everyone who joined us and spent the afternoon together. I hope there will be soon a third edition of Reclaiming Technology Sessions.”
And if you’re interested, here is Silvia’s video about the session: https://youtu.be/GVYVKzwHWXI
If you’d like to dive deeper into Silvia’s work, you can do it here:
silviabinda.com
offdac.com
The EU Digital Deal project behind the session is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.