Fran Edgerly, Aska Welford, and Kate Doyle
In this time in which the “archival impulse” has permeated all representing apparatuses of contemporary media in-formation through our constantly documenting behaviours, it is crucially important to consider what and how we find meaning in the objects we name, in both personal and institutional domains. Where and what is the information in the archive? The notion of the “cybernetic archive” infuses movement in static presentations of the archive by way of the concept of the eigenform, articulated by Heinz von Foerster; objects are “tokens,” seemingly stable forms emergent from social-behavioural (including linguistic) exchanges over time and in change. As the object becomes with and through the movement of behaviours, including the production of language, the archive is becoming perpetually anew and renewed.
In this 90-minute panel, we explore the becoming-idea of the cybernetic archive in the context of the House of Annetta, the former home, work, and archive of the late artist, activist, publisher, and cybernetician Annetta Pedretti. Pedretti finished a doctoral degree, for which she articulated her ideas in a formal dissertation (The Cybernetics of Language, 1981), yet the principal work of much of her later life was in repairing/unfinishing the House and supporting her neighbourhood around it through engagement in architectural and environmental protection, community activism, and spatial justice. The current House of Annetta organisation emphasises and resonates Pedretti’s work through its service as a center for language classes, workshops, the growing and sharing of food, performance, exhibitions, and the production of print media. In conversation with and contemplation of House of Annetta, we invite you to join us in dialogue about the cybernetic archive and its possibilities for movement and change in the evolving processes of the archival model.
Sketchnote by Patricia Kambitch | Playthink
Concepts are drawn from the House of Annetta
25 Princelet Street, London, UK
The home of beekeeper, artist, activist, and publisher Annetta Pedretti from 1980 to 2018, and now a space for learning about the ways in which ownership of land shapes our lives and the world around us. The House of Annetta project is committed to continuing her work at the house through building repair, self-organised education, and cybernetic projects.
Fran Edgerly’s RSD11 talk New Old Architectures: Interdisciplinary spatial practice in collaboration with Sofia Deria.
Profiles
Fran Edgerly
House of Annetta
Fran Edgerley is an initiator of the new interdisciplinary action research network ab__; a decentralised organisation of people practising more equitable worlds. Through this, they are trying to build knowledge around the invisible structures and dispositions that produce and are reproduced by our social and physical architectures. This includes projects investigating the means and possibilities of land redistribution, the reorientation of power through the delivery of capital projects, improvisation in housing and the hostile UK asylum system.
Prior to working as ab__ Fran was a founding partner of the architecture and design collective Assemble, with whom they worked for 12 years to look critically at the processes producing our built environment. Through work with Assemble, an interest in how the physical world is made evolved into a commitment to build projects with communities, expanding that experience of making and remaking the world. This motivation has been a driving force behind many projects, including Otoprojects, Baltic Street Adventure Playground, Granby Workshop, Transnational Interstate Art Agency, Pioneering Places and House of Annetta.
Fran’s practice includes work with democratic education, collective somatic explorations of space and filmmaking. Over the past decade, they have worked on a range of projects—both material and relational—alongside communities in Scotland, England, Portugal, Iceland, Germany, the USA, Holland, Peru, Denmark, and Estonia. Fran intermittently teaches at international academic institutions on the intersection of architecture and adjacent subjects. Fran is a trustee at Baltic Street Adventure Playground.
Aska Welford
House of Annetta
Aska is a House of Annetta Community Interest Company director along with Saif Osmani, Frances Northrop, and Fran Edgerley. Aska grew up in Tower Hamlets and went to nursery on Brick Lane. After training in architecture and working in social housing they were part of a workers enquiry, which lead to the formation of the first trade union in architecture since the 1980s.
Kate Doyle
Rutgers University
Kate Doyle’s work explores art practices and forms through the framework of cybernetics. An attention to the processes and poetics of creative reception serves as the foundation of her teaching-learning, which encourages new modes of conversation and interaction. With Paul Pangaro, she co-organizes #NewMacy, an initiative that spans geographies and generations and transcends disciplines to catalyze conversations in navigating the complex challenges of our time. With Damian Chapman and TJ McLeish, she runs The Reading Group, a think tank for embodied research, learning, and creative archiving. Trained in the visual arts and violin performance, Kate received her PhD in musicology from Case Western University in 2018. She has been an invited speaker or collaborator at the Chelsea College of Art of the University of the Arts London, the Dia Art Foundation, and the Library of Congress. Kate is currently Assistant Professor of Music in the Department of Arts, Culture & Media at Rutgers University-Newark and based in New York City.
Kate Doyle, Assistant Professor, Department of Arts, Culture & Media, Rutgers University-Newark. kate.c.doyle@rutgers.edu. Rutgers profile.
