Workshops & Seminars

Ft. Miltos Kontogiannis, October 2021(ongoing)

Miltos Kontogiannis of Studio Materiality has been invited to work on a weekly basis with the students of LAB12 in the process of redesigning the Lab’s space, a project by Future Art Education research programme of Athens School of Fine Arts powered by Onassis Foundation.

Ft. Marianne Maric, 17-31 March 2021

Marianne Maric worked in a three-session workshop with LAB12 memebers, introducing her work and giving exercises on photography. Some of her exercises have been included since then to the main study programme of LAB12.

Lecture, in collaboration with Avtonomi Akadimia, 2 November 2020
On Egalitarian Politics Today: Thinking Outside a ‘Desire for the West’

Today there is a sort of ‘desire for the West’ that sets pro-West identitarian and anti-Western Islamist narratives against each other in a deadly spiral; crucially, however, a similar ‘desire for the West’ often informs leftist struggles against the imperialist and exploitative drives of the capitalist system.

Ft. Joseph DeLappe, 6-9 July 2020

Joseph DeLappe offered an online workshop to complete his contribution to the Public Hazards program conducted by ViZ. This workshop culminates with a collective reaction to aspects of the Covid crisis with use of paper-crafted masks. The program investigated recent transformations of the idea of the public in the post-social media era of generalized alert, sanitary policies, and fear of contagion.

Ft. Vasilis Bourikas, May 2020

Vasilis Bourikas is a free-lance film curator since 2005 and program contributor at numerous European film festivals. He gave LAB12 a very thorough 7 session seminar in Experimental Film. He also filmed LAB12 during our ZOOM meetings and developed the film online, creating this way a very special portrait of LAB12.

Ft. Aimilia Efthimiou, 27 May 2020

Aimalia Efthimiou walked us through the craft of creating and casting our personal Emogi Spells!!

Ft. Rahel Gloria, 18-22 November 2019

„Touch is never pure or innocent“
Karen Barad

In the Workshop „Skinship – Intimate Encounters“ a first glance, a casual touch, a IG Profile, a kinky chat, an unexpected confession, a digital service was the starting point for our research. In the timeframe of a week, through readings, physical exercises, fieldwork and writings, we researched gestures and settings of intimacy, as well as their commercialization. Bye the end of the week every student developed their own fictional intimate service, in which intensities between the performer and the audience can be negotiated.

Ft.Dasha Loyko, 11-13 November 2019

Coincidence Control Lab is a practical investigation of working with writing and narrative devices, and expanding the written word into other media. We analysed narrative strategies employed by artists across moving image, installation, image-making, and more. The workshop ran through introducing and discussing some useful theoretical tools for storytelling and narrative-building, and applying them hands-on by doing writing, mapping, and form-finding exercises. We played with structures borrowed from the scientific method and logic, and exploit the love letter as a writing tool. The workshop was a collaborative hub for producing experimental writing and translating it into other material or immaterial forms. We threw words against objects and objects against words and see what sticks.

Ft. Jonas Staal, 2 November 2019 

Artist and propaganda researcher Jonas Staal delivered a workshop for the students of the Athens School of Fine Arts at ViZ.
Organizational art describes the work of artists that use their artistic skills to create new forms of institution. In the work of these artists, alternative campaigns, schools and parties are both artworks and actual organizations, that try to rethink the infrastructures through which we shape our world. During this workshop, artist Jonas Staal -himself initiator of artist organizations such as the New World Summit – gave a short introduction into organizational art practices, and challenged participants to create new artist organizations of their own.

Ft.Power Ekroth, October 2019

Independent curator and critic Power Ekroth gave LAB12 a two week workshop on Artist Statements, guiding us in the obscure craft of Statement Writing.

Ft. Bruce Lee, 24 & 25 October 2019

On 24 and 25 October, ViZ hosted Bruce Lee for a seminar on Digital Martial Arts, a hands on workshop on Information Gathering techniques. Cybersecurity community, usually refer to those techniques under the term OSINT (Open Source Intelligence), which describes how to retrieve publicly accessible information, in an “intelligent” and “strategic” way.

Ft.Kostis Stafylakis, 17-18 October 2019

A two-days seminar by Kostis Stafylakis on the “legacies of tactical media, part one”. The seminar discussed paradigms of tactical hijacking of mainstream media structures, ranging from countercultural interventions in late socialist regimes to the 90s media technologies, cultural jamming and collective pseudonyms.

by Rahel Spöhrer, 5 June 2019

Rahel Spöhrer of The Agency  unpacked her/their artistic research-working method and how self-reflective and self-critical processes of the artists taking part in the production of meaning within contemporary art.

by the START Project at Lela Karayianni, 22-24 May 2019

How can artists gain maximum benefit from the value of their digital resources? The Lab12 members visited Lela’s Karayianni house where the team of the START project got across how digital technology can be used as part of their research, the art working process and practice as well as the communication of their work. 

with the Union Nordic LARP at Delphi, 22-24 May 2019

Nina Runa Essendrop, Susan Ploetz and Mark Durkan run LARPs, game mechanisms, simulation techniques and best practice protocols used in creating speculative scenarios that instrumentalize tools and skills from their individual artistic practices, different LARP cultures, and the union methodology. Lecture and discussions situated these techniques in the intersection of play, performativity and politics in artistic and cultural practices.

by Rahel Spöhrer, 4 April 2019

In this workshop we explored with Rahel Spöhrer the world of ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) – finding out about the triggers that speak to you, researching settings of intimacy, the enjoyment of alienation, the digitalization of personal attention and care, and the queer potential of post-porn sensation. Trigger, trigger, trigger me… Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

by Thanos Zakopoulos, 18 March 2019

Artist and designer-trickster Thanos Zakopoulos of the Milanese CTRLZAK studio shared with the Lab12 members how bringing together different fields – such as art, science and philosophy –  can produce new creative art projects.  

by Ioanna Gerakidi, 18 February 2019

In this workshop writer and curator Ioanna Gerakidi introduced us to the erotic as an artistic methodology. Drawing on eros and love, the Lab12 members explored the dynamics of language and voice through a series of exercises in which they attempted to track down their personal fragmented narratives.

 by Kiriakos Hadjiioannou, 30 January 2019

Performer and choreographer Kiriakos Hadjiioannou gave a workshop on a pivotal part of performing arts. The Lab12 members were encouraged to explore the spatial elements of leadership and followership and empower their collaboration by participating in improvisation exercises, developing dance phrases in small groups and switching the lead/follow roles.

Co-operation, 19 December 2018

How can the puzzle of sustainability be worked out? In this co-operation workshop, the Lab12 members created entrepreneurship scenarios with which can integrate sustainability in their work – from alternative porn to applications and lemonades.