Speculative Design ArchiveSpeculative Design Archive

Perhaps the lack of digital documentation of the work of Cubic3 Design is the reason the duo is overlooked in Dutch design history, or maybe it's that they are just not understood. What would it mean to them if they did get this kind of online recognition?

In Speculative Design Archive Live!, a range of experts will enter into discussion with one another on issues raised by the Speculative Design Archive. During the debate on Thursday 21 February 2019, we will devote attention to new approaches to dealing with archives and heritage through forms of collaboration making them more accessible and easier to use.

Arie Altena takes us into the archive of V2_. The complete programme archive of V2_ is online. It includes documentation of more than 35 years of events, performances and artworks, as well as the makers, artists, researchers and organisations that have contributed to it. It offers essays, interviews and publications that played a role in the history of the 'Lab for the unstable media', set up in 1981. The V2_archive therefore forms a kind of treasure trove for those looking for information about the development of new media.

Joke Robaard and Camiel van Winkel are interviewed following their publication Archive Species: Bodies, Habits, Practices

Design objects are increasingly being presented and traded in the contemporary digital landscape using images circulated on social media such as Instagram. A design increasingly derives its value from what it says in a picture. This changing relationship between the physical object and the online image also influences the cultural-historical status of a design, and has consequences for collections and archives. What does it mean for the archival practices of the future if more and more value is being given to digital images?

You could call Bas van Beek (1974) an 'antidesigner'. His work criticises market mechanisms, branding, empty conceptualism and the uncritical personality culture around designers. For the project Archiploitations, Van Beek uses found archive material as a basis for producing new work, sometimes realising historical designs that could not be executed with the techniques of the time, or translating an existing design into his own style.

During this Speculative Design Archive debate the emergence of new modes of authorship and authority with their own independent narratives will be explored. 

With Bethany Nowviskie, Dragan Espenschied, Klaus Rechert, Michael Murtaugh, Nicolas Maleve, Renee Turner and Cristina Cochior. Moderation by Annet Dekker.

Het Nieuwe Instituut acquired the archive of MVRDV, including a large number of maquettes, in 2016, but cannot keep it in its entirety. In this Archive Talk, curator Suzanne Mulder discusses the considerations and conversations that precede the choice of models that will be included in the State Archive for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning. How does such a complicated selection come about?

During this Archive Talk Thomas Castro of design practice LUST talks about their search for the missing link between analogue and digital and how this is reflected in their archives.

In this Archive Talk about the versatile media archive of WORM Pirate Bay, one of the archive managers talks about their moving method of promotion: actively sending digital messages about magazines, videotapes, posters, beer bottles and other rarities, to use for copying and digitalization, with the motto: we loan, you copy!