YAFF

Young Artists Feed Forward is a nomadic artists collective active mostly in the Netherlands. YAFF is working on strategies for injecting artistic autonomy into new possible markets; offering supply without much regard for demand. Works, projects or themes are proposed by individual members and worked out by the group. The collective approach allows for a more defiant attitude and guards against the temptations of easy concessions.

WHAT’S YYOOUURR PROBLEM?

Track 3: Learning Spaces
Date: Day 1 – 14:30
Location: Neufert-Mansion, Gelmeroda
Language: English

A man with a pen once quipped that to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. By focusing on the tools one has available, one will only find the problems one can fix. That’s why YAFF wants to investigate the design problem not as something that needs to be hammered into a solution, but as a designer product in its own right. During the workshop the steps of so-called Design Thinking will be appropriated and problematized in order to rethink the biopolitics of empathy through embodied learning, asking the question: what seems to be the problem? If the weather allows, the workshop will be held outside. Bringing your own sunscreen is advised.

 

THE PROBLEM REVUE

Conference
Date: Day 2 – 10:45
Location: Notenbank, Weimar
Language: English

Now, what was the problem really? Hiding in the safety of isolation can be helpful when searching for personal principles, but the air gets stale pretty quickly. If you want to get anywhere you have to get out and engage. Engaging means: getting into trouble, seeking out conflict. It also means refusing to solve problems. What we need is people who know how to design problems! “The process as product” is not enough, it’s time for the problem as product. Otherwise, YAFF’s take on the problem is no more than the next iteration in the perpetual commodification of ideas. Or, to put it differently, what’s to be done to not let this happen?