HackΑthens 2020 — Recommended Readings

Urbanism – Cities – Architecture

• Smart lifts, lonely workers, no towers or tourists: architecture after coronavirus
  A short piece speculating on the next day of architecture and urban design mostly focused on the “necessary” technological advancements.
• The case for ... making low-tech 'dumb' cities instead of 'smart' ones
  A short piece about how to weave ancient knowledge of symbiotic living with nature into how we shape the cities of the future.
• Life after coronavirus: how will the pandemic affect our homes?
  A piece by the Ukrainian designer and architect Sergey Makhno listing off seven changes that coronavirus can bring to home design.
• 10 ways architecture could support a degrowth economy
  Amy Frearson selects the most inspiring ideas presented at the Triennale of Oslo in 2019.
• Minimal Maintenance
  Shannon Mattern reflects on the issue of “limits” and discusses it from an urban planner’s perspective.
• The Smart City and other ICT-led techno-imaginaries: Any room for dialogue with Degrowth?
  A short, research-oriented piece analyzing whether smart cities can be compatible with a Degrowth perspective.
• Sustainable Just Cities
  A knowledge commons that serves as a resource for everyone that wants to contribute to more sustainable and just cities.

History

• Inclined to Putrefaction
  Erin Maglaque reviews John Henderson’s book “Florence under Siege Surviving Plague in an Early Modern City” and offers a very vivid account of how cities reacted during past pandemics.
• How pandemics change history
  Isaac Chotiner reviews Frank M. Snowden’s book “Epidemics and Society from the Black Death to the Present” and reveals how pandemics shaped modern societies.

Arts

• Future Rituals
  Being inspired by the archaic “rites of passage” and the change of seasons, artists in different residencies around the globe go online to present their work.
• Objet d'Art
  Nowness presents a contemporary example of traditional still life art – which becomes increasingly pertinent again in quarantine times.
• Oslo Triennale
  The official website of Oslo Triennale 2019 which revolved around the issues of limits, degrowth and sustainability.
• Tussen Kunst & Quarantine
  A list of remakes of classical artworks produced within quarantine times.
• Post-Growth Toolkit
  Made by artists Nicolas Maigret and Maria Roszkowska, the ‘Post-Growth Toolkit’ is made of an embroidered patch, sampling a graph of world energy consumption (1800-2017) continued by a post-growth scenario, plus a text introducing their wider project and its multiple components.
• Spatial Fictions of Quarantine
  Much before the beginning of the pandemic, Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley gave a lecture on this very relevant topic.
• De-growing museum collections for new heritage futures
  Academic article focusing on the overaccumulation of collections in contemporary museums and the problems this creates for artists and curators. It proposes the incorporations of limits in the practice of collecting art.
• Atmospheric Commons
  A collective artwork with cards aiming at answering questions regarding the maintenance of livable and equitable worlds.
• Virtual Design Festival
  What happens when an entire design festival goes online? Talks, presentations and online exhibitions in a time of quarantine.

Gender – Body – Social relations

• Capitalism has its limits
  Judith Butler discusses the COVID-19 pandemic, and its escalating political and social effects in America.
• #MeToo and the millennial sex panic
  David Faes discusses how millennials, despite the employment of a discourse that promotes free sex and gender fluidity, in fact are not having sex, and tries to link it with contemporary experiences of social distancing.
• How tiny houses became a symbol of resistance for indigenous women
  Activists are fighting oil pipeline expansions using the millennial-approved micro-living trend.
• This is your brain on coronavirus dreams
  Vivid dreaming is on the rise as stressed-out brains encounter a mix of sleep, uncertainty, and survival
• Large cities are where the society of singularities concentrates
  An Interview with Andreas Reckwitz, author of the book “The Society of Singularities”.
• The island where people forget to die
  A vivid description of Ikaria and the slow lifestyle of its inhabitants. Can we learn something from them in order to redefine our post-Covid life trajectories?
• What does feminist leadership look like in a pandemic?
  What if leaders of all stripes, from diverse sectors, started to follow the kinds of feminist leadership approaches that have been championed by activists from all over the world for decades? How might this type of leadership help us to navigate our way through these splintered, uncertain times?

Environment and Alternatives

• A global tapestry of alternatives
  The Global Tapestry of Alternatives seeks to build bridges between networks of alternatives around the globe and promote the creation of new processes of confluence.
• When viruses shatter limits
  Viruses are invisibly small, cause monumental pandemics, and force us to rethink our taxonomies
• Ecological crises and equitable futures
  A thought-provoking essay, presenting and evaluating four alternative scenarios for future societies.
• Low Tech Magazine
  A collection of articles aiming at deconstructing several truisms about progress and development.
• Fairytales of Growth
  A film on climate change, degrowth and system change

Solidarity – Commons

• How to survive a disaster
  On building a paradise in hell: improvised, collaborative, cooperative, local.
• Asian American Feminist Antibodies
  A book about care in the time of Covid-19.

Urbanism – Cities – Architecture

• Πανίσχυρες δυστοπίες και δειλές ουτοπίες
  Βασισμένο σε μία κριτική των αρχιτεκτονικών διαγωνισμών, ο Θάνος Ανδρίτσος προκαλεί τη «ριζοσπαστική φαντασία» για το μέλλον της πόλης και της αρχιτεκτονικής.
• Τί είναι μια πολυκατοικία;
  Ο Νίκος Βράντσης αναρωτιέται πως θα μπορούσαν οι πολυκατοικίες μας να μετατραπούν από εστίες αποξένωσης σε μικρά «κοινωνικά κέντρα» με ισχυρή αυτοοργάνωση και αλληλεγγύη.

History

• Πρόβλεψη του 2008 για πανδημία από τον δρα Γκρέγκερ
  Αποκαλυπτικό βίντεο του Μάικλ Γκρέγκερ που περιλαμβάνει αποσπάσματα της ομιλίας με τίτλο "Πανδημίες: ιστορία και πρόληψη", που έδωσε το 2008, όταν ήταν διευθυντής Δημόσιας Υγείας και Κτηνοτροφίας στο Humane Society των ΗΠΑ.

Gender – Body – Social relations

• Το σώμα σε καραντίνα
  Ο Κωνσταντίνος Πουλής αναρωτιέται σε τι ακριβώς είναι απαραίτητο το σώμα στη σημερινή ψηφιακή εποχή.

Solidarity – Commons

• Τα Κοινά στην αντιμετώπιση της πανδημίας: 3D printing & πολιτικές ανοιχτής πρόσβασης.
  Ανάλυση της Δώρας Κοτσακά πάνω στην ανοιχτή έρευνα και επιστήμη, την αξιοποίηση software και hardware υπό ανοιχτή ανοιχτή άδεια, ο διαμοιρασμός δεδομένων κ.ά.
• Μένουμε Μαζί
  Mια αυτοοργανωμένη και αυτοχρηματοδοτούμενη προσπάθεια πολλών και διαφορετικών ανθρώπων σχετιζόμενων με τις νέες τεχνολογίες, την έρευνα και τη συνεταιριστική οικονομία, που ένιωσαν την ανάγκη να δράσουν συλλογικά.