It is tradition that the transdisciplinary symposium IMPACT kicks off with inspiring public lectures, giving the current topic of the latest edition a distinctive structure. This year, IMPACT24 will focus on linking myriads of practices from varied areas of life and fields of science. The symposium poses the question as to how not only artistic, technological, urban and scientific experiences but also from social areas of expertise such as games, sports and handicrafts can be effective across contexts and disciplines.
Maria Lisogorskaya from the award-winning architectural collective Assemble and artist, game designer and curator Sebastian Quack will open the program, which will be held over several days, with presentations of their respective practices. As experts in their fields, they regard architecture and game design as public and community-building goods and will present their work in enthralling keynote speeches.
19 h
Assemble/Maria Lisogorskaya
›Making things and making things happen‹
Assemble is a London-based, award-winning collective working in the fields of art, architecture and design. The collective is committed to a working practice that actively involves the public both as participants and contributors. Assemble received the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture in 2017 and the prestigious Turner Prize in 2015.
In her lecture ›Making things and making things happen‹, the artist and co-founder of Assemble, Maria Lisogorskaya, will introduce some of the collective’s recent and current projects. She will present ideas and tests that conflate with Assemble’s work methods and connect individuals and materials in old and new ways.
20 h
Sebastian Quack
›The Practice of Power – Game Design, Commoning and the Planet‹
Sebastian Quack works as an artist, game designer and curator at the intersection of play, digitality and urban politics. From 2021 to 2023 he was director of Now Play This, a festival for experimental game design in London. He was also a founding member of the Invisible Playground network and co-director of Trust in Play, the European School of Urban Game Design.
Drawing on two decades of practice in urban play and experimental games culture, Sebastian Quack interrogates the role of game design in a world of escalating crises. Games and play in public spaces are health indicators for communities and can be used in commoning processes. But games, as an aesthetic form of power systems, are also implicated in the extractive logic of colonial history and climate change. Understanding both perspectives is essential for charting a way forward.
