A thought leadership program on alternative tech frameworks
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Posted: 24 July 2026
A thought leadership program on alternative tech frameworks
We are excited to announce the next edition of Make Technology Yours Again, a thought leadership program meant for tech professionals, art&tech practitioners and people from any background interested in questioning the current extractivist and accelerationist dynamics in the tech sector, which are based on the idea that technological progress is relentless and should feed on the inconsiderate extraction of resources, human and non-human ones. In this program, we will explore and implement alternative tech frameworks grounded in diversity, hope, solidarity, and regeneration, rooted in contemporary philosophy, art & tech, and activist tech movements.
Today's rapid technological developments leave us feeling that technological progress is an inevitable, autonomous force that we cannot stop or even control. We find ourselves passive observers of this complex process, which results in opaque technologies we use daily and don’t understand. Our technologies and their algorithms understand us, while we do not understand them. The central aim for this trajectory is to reclaim technology (hence the title) and our personal agency in it.
To do so, we will gather in an online learning community for 2 months, to create a knowledge base for new tech alternatives and potentially activate it in a concrete outcome: we will explore the ecological, economical, societal and political implications of existing technologies through readings, guest lectures by leading experts, discussions, exercises and workshops; furthermore, participants, in groups, will have the opportunity to develop their own ideas in reaction to the alternative frameworks acquired in the trajectory. This can be translated into a prototype, concept for a new service/product/system, story/narrative, essay, artwork, etc., depending on your skills, interests, and the personal investment you want to put into the trajectory. It’s of course possible to follow the program without working toward an outcome.
The program consists of nine 2-2,5-hour online sessions (on Thursdays, 18:00-20:30 CET). For each session, materials will be provided (readings, podcasts, videos, etc). The first part of the session focuses on framing the topic and discussing the readings, while the second part includes an activity/workshop. Between the online gatherings, it’s possible to schedule personal coaching sessions for us to support your group project or discuss your challenges in adopting alternative tech frameworks in your work environment or practice (and see how we can help you on this journey).
Program
Session 1: What is Innovation? | 24 Sept: 18:00 - 20:30 CET
This session will unpack the concept of innovation, expanding the current use of the term, which is often a buzzword with no clearly defined meaning. We will explore a glossary of innovation, explain why it differs from related concepts (e.g., discovery, invention), and examine it from the perspectives of different participants. We will question the limits of innovation, not to diminish its transformative power but to extend its scope: Is innovation nowadays just technological? How could we innovate by examining other knowledge systems (e.g., non-Western-based)? What kind of innovation do we need to really tackle the societal challenges of today and not make them worse?
Session 2: World Building: a Methodology for Your Group Project | 1 Oct: 18:00 - 20:00 CET
As part of the trajectory, participants have the opportunity to work on a group project that would contribute to alternative tech beginnings (the outcome is open; some examples could be: a speculative scenario, a tool, a desired future, an artwork, a hacker space, a protocol for digital behaviours). In this session, we will introduce the brief to work on and focus on the process of the group projects. Furthermore, we will dive into the methodology of World Building, a way to envision possible futures and the elements that are at the core of this envisioned future. World-building is the process of creating the setting, history, cultures, rules, and environments that shape a fictional world. It gives depth and consistency to stories, ideas or prototypes set in this imagined fictional world by defining how people live, interact, and respond to their surroundings. Your project would focus on a specific interaction between (non)-humans and technology, contextualised in the fictional world you will build.
Session 3: Materiality of Technology and its Technopolitics with Marina Otero Verzier | 15 Oct: 18:00 - 20:30 CET
The digital world is built on an imaginary of immateriality: the cloud, wireless technologies, miniaturisation, and futuristic brain-computer interfaces, to name a few, lead us to believe that the material implications of our devices and systems are not particularly relevant. In reality, this is the opposite: while our devices are getting smaller and more powerful, the technological infrastructure is growing and consuming more than ever. How can we make the material side more prominent in the technological imaginary to increase awareness of its environmental impact?
Furthermore, the increasing capacity of hard drives and storage in general (both physical and in the cloud), combined with the ever-growing computational capacity of our devices and internet speed, has removed all external limitations in handling, processing, sending, and storing large amounts of data. So, where does the limit emerge then? Could we create a mindset of digital scarcity to limit our data consumption and production? Finally, we will explore the geopolitical implications of the material resources involved in technological developments (such as the availability of energy sources and rare earth elements) and how they are shaping a new political geography of influence and colonisation.
For this session, we will be joined by architect and researcher Dr Marina Otero Verzier. She is a Dean’s Visiting Assistant Professor at GSAPP, Columbia University, New York, where she leads the 'Data Mourning' clinic, an educational initiative focused on the intersection between digital infrastructures and climate catastrophe. She also teaches at Harvard GSD where she is a Lecturer in Architecture. In 2022, Otero received Harvard’s Wheelwright Prize for a project on the future of data storage. She collaborated with the Supercomputing Center of the DIPC to develop alternative models for storing data, such as the project Computational Compost, first presented at Tabakalera. Otero was also invited by the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation to participate as an expert in the development of Chile's first National Data Centers Plan, together with "Resistencia SocioAmbiental – Quilicura" and other local communities on the front lines of extractivism. Otero is the author of En las Profundidades de la Nube (2024), a book on data storage and sovereignty in the AI era. The book proposes new paradigms and aesthetics for data storage, integrating architecture, preservation, and digital culture.
Session 4: The Art of Misuse | 22 Oct: 18:00 - 20:30 CET
This session will focus on artistic strategies for using technology in ways not foreseen by its producers, to counter the idea of predetermined linear progress and the power dynamics of tech industries. What’s the agency that we have as users when tech companies program our choices? How can we be indisciplined and challenge technologies, disrespecting them to use them for our goals?
The second half of this session is reserved to work on the group projects.
Session 5: Computing with limits with Aymeric Mansoux | 29 Oct: 18:00 - 20:30 CET
In connection with the idea of limits explored in previous sessions, this gathering will focus on recent and historical developments in the open-source movement, activist technologies, and hacker communities, spanning from the 70s to today. We will explore movements/approaches such as permacomputing, low-tech, collapse informatics, feminist technology, convivial computing, and degrowth. How can we move from considering limitations as something negative to seeing them as an opportunity for creativity, efficiency in resources and well-being (ours and of the planet)?
Artist, musician and media researcher Aymeric Mansoux will join us for this session. Aymeric is Professor of practice-oriented research at the Willem de Kooning Academy Research Centre, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. He leads and supervises projects that deal with sustainability, techno-politics and computational culture—more specifically: ecology, network infrastructures, digital sovereignty, e-waste, circular economy, permacomputing, low-tech, shadow IT, repair culture, the digital commons and degrowth. He is interested in how these topics are embraced or challenged in the field of art, design, and cultural production; how they manifest and materialise in this field; and how this can, in turn, help conceptualise, beyond the cultural sector, much-needed plausible pathways for living and working otherwise. He was a founding member of server-based collective GOTO10 (a.o. FLOSS+Art anthology, Puredyne GNU/Linux distro, make art festival). Some works and collaborations include: Naked on Pluto, a Facebook critique in the form of a Facebook game; The SKOR Codex, an archive about the impossibility of archiving; What Remains, an 8-bit Nintendo game about whistleblowing and the manipulation of public opinion in relation to the climate crisis; LURK, a server infrastructure to host discussions around net/computational art, algorithmic music, culture, and politics; and the permacomputing wiki and network, where a growing number of contributors document and discuss alternatives to extractive mainstream computation.
The second half of this session is reserved for working on the group projects.
Session 6: Updates and feedback on group projects | 5 Nov: 18:00 - 20:00 CET
This session is dedicated to group projects. Participants present their process, progress and current stage to the rest of the group and receive feedback. During this session, we will also talk about the instructions for the final presentations in session 9.
Session 7: Aesthetics of Technology with Valentina Tanni | 12 Nov: 18:00 - 20:30 CET
Complex technologies are often described as black boxes, reflecting the difficulty the average user has in understanding how they work. Through this metaphor, we often overlook the role design plays in making these boxes even less accessible, leaving us feeling left out and without agency to engage, modify, hack, or simply repair these devices. Here, we are not only referring to the physical design of technological objects but also to their user interfaces, which, with their superficial simplicity, often hide or misrepresent their inner workings, further distancing us from directly engaging with the underlying complexity and reducing our inclination to understand how something works. How can we reposition design as a liberating strategy rather than a means to trap us in an infinite scroll? Which aesthetics in technology enable new affordances that change our relationship with it? Or, in other words, which aesthetics invite users to want to understand what’s happening beneath the surface and to acquire agency over it?
The session will start with a lecture by art historian, curator, and lecturer Valentina Tanni. Her research investigated the intersections between art and technology, with a special focus on internet culture. She teaches Meme Culture and Aesthetics, Digital Media Culture and Introduction to Visual Culture at John Cabot University in Rome. She is the author of, among others, Exit Reality, Vaporwave, Backrooms, Weirdcore, and Other Landscapes Beyond the Threshold(NERO Editions and AKSIOMA, 2023) and Antimacchine. Mancare di rispetto alla tecnologia (ENG: Anti-machines. Disrespecting technology) (Einaudi, 2025).
Session 8: Technical Beings with Ianis Dobrev | 19 nov: 18:00 - 20:30 CET
What happens when we give machines the status of technical beings? A different relationship in which they are treated as equals and not just subject to our will. This session builds on contemporary philosophical discourse on the relationship between humans and non-human stakeholders in our systems, acknowledging that technical non-living beings influence our lives more than living ones. What kind of agency could machines acquire in this scenario? And how could we treat them as allies instead of as tools of oppression in reshaping the unjust power dynamics we believe they currently contribute to? This is possible if we assume that each technology is not neutral; it incorporates, in its development, a specific ideology and a set of values and beliefs, and therefore is not, by default, an oppressive agent.
Lecture by Ianis Dobrev, media philosopher with a background in visual arts and conceptual design. His theoretical practice is informed by the externalisation of thought into text as much as images, objects and gestures. He co-founded the Chimerical Intelligence Lab: a nomadic space that researches thought experiments across people and artefacts. The CI-Lab functions by mediating discussion with symbolic, diagrammatic and aesthetic praxis.
The second half of this session is reserved for working on the group presentations.
Session 9: Alternative Tech Beginnings - Group presentations | 26 Nov: 18:00 - 20:00 CET
We view this final session not as the conclusion of this journey, but as the start of implementing this alternative tech value system in the participants’ contexts. Participants will present the group projects they’ve worked on. Together, we will discuss how we can transform this learning community into a community of practice: how to organise it beyond the scope of this trajectory, and how Baltan can further support you as changemakers in your environment.
Practical Info
Language: English
Leading Learners and Facilitators: Lorenzo Gerbi and Marlou van der Cruijsen (co-directors, Baltan Laboratories) + guest speakers Marina Otero Verzier, Aymeric Mansoux, Valentina Tanni, Ianis Dobrev.
Dates of the sessions (Thursdays): 24 Sept, 1 Oct, 15 Oct, 22 Oct, 29 Oct, 5 Nov, 12 Nov, 19 Nov, 26 Nov.
Time: 18:00 - 20/20:30 CET online (with 15 min break)
Group Coaching Sessions: organised in dialogue with groups (1 hour session per group)
Access to BlaBlaLab makerspace in Eindhoven: for participants based in/near the Netherlands, we offer access to our BlaBlaLab makerspace during the course of the trajectory; this may be used to work on the physical aspects of your group projects, to work on your own projects, or to connect to the communities of practice active in the space. BlaBlaLab is Baltan Laboratories' community-driven art and technology makerspace in Eindhoven, where emerging makers, artists, designers, and technologists come together to experiment, collaborate, and develop their practice. Through hands-on workshops, monthly community meetups, and showcases, participants can explore topics such as live coding, DIY electronics, sound-based storytelling, and nature-technology while learning from both local and international practitioners. Check BlaBlaLab instagram profile for more info on the makerspace and available equipment.
Workload: +/- 1.5 hours reading materials per session (excluding voluntary group project)
Fee: Regular fee: 585 euros (excluding 21% VAT). Early Bird (ex. 21% VAT, before 17 August): 510 euros. We suggest framing this learning trajectory as part of your educational budget if you work at a company where it is available and included in your benefits. Let us know if you need our support to do so.
Certificate of Completion: available on request
Registration: Registration is on a roll-in basis.
Step 1: Register via this Paypal link: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/CQMT46NSN4F7L. You will be asked to fill in your name and address, charged €50 ex VAT for your registration. Don’t close the PayPal page after the payment: you will be automatically directed to a form and asked to fill in a short bio, reason to join and a reference (a book, article, film, or podcast episode) that you find relevant or inspiring for this trajectory.
Step 2: The remaining amount will be invoiced to you separately (we will send you an invoice via email).
Step 3: Your registration will be complete after we receive the full payment.
Registration deadlines: September 4th for the regular fee; August 17th for the early bird fee.
Payment: We will send you an invoice after your registration. You can only participate once you have paid the fee.
Participants: We have a maximum of 35 participants; the trajectory will start with a minimum of 15.
For questions on the process and the trajectory, please contact Lorenzo Gerbi (lorenzo@baltanlaboratories.org)
About Baltan Laboratories
Baltan Laboratories is a cultural indisciplinary lab based in Eindhoven. It was founded in 2008 to revive the creative, collaborative, and exploratory spirit of the Philips Natlab (physics laboratory) in Eindhoven by a group of local artists who missed a place for such exploration and experimentation in the arts. Since its founding, Baltan has operated as a laboratory for experimentation at the intersection of art, science, design, and technology. In our early years, art, technology and media art were central. From our experience in a technology and media-oriented discussion and critique in art and design, we have, over the years, focused on societal challenges and how art and design can play a (positive) role in these.
Our society’s so-called wicked problems are networked and span across disciplines. They can no longer be divided into bite-sized parts, nor can we develop solutions for problems separately. Designers, artists, musicians, and architects – people in the creative professions – are well positioned to work across sectors and on projects that lack a clear endpoint or solution. At Baltan, we would like to push even further and create a space where people from all kinds of social, ethnic, disciplinary, and cultural backgrounds can work with each other on an equal, unbound level – we call this indisciplinarity. As such, we strive to include diverse knowledges (beyond a solely Western perspective) and value systems in Baltan’s projects and collaborations: Baltan strives to be radically inclusive, not only among humans but also among non-humans and the living planet. It seeks to approach uncertainty with radical hope, viewing instability as a possibility for reimagining the systems we are part of and rehearsing change.
To address multifaceted questions, Baltan proposes that learning should not be hierarchical but rather a safe space for experimentation and exploration of new territories. Moreover, disciplinary work often creates a distinction between those considered qualified to contribute and those who are not. Baltan Laboratories has developed a working methodology called indisciplinarity: an approach that transcends disciplinary boundaries to achieve intellectual emancipation, bypassing specialisations and hierarchies of knowledge. Indisciplinarity does not mean undisciplined; it opposes what, within disciplines, limits the process of discovery and hinders the free flow of serendipity. This does not mean we should eliminate disciplines; rather, we should design ways to make their boundaries permeable, enabling collaboration to emerge.
In an uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, the interactions among all living beings are important. The role of technology in shaping these interactions is increasing rapidly. The lab investigates human/non-human and human/technology relationships in the context of our current societal challenges. We do this in a lab setting: we believe in the lab as a space for experimentation, testing, and failure. A playground where uncertainties are welcome, in which curiosity is nurtured, and experimentation is liberated from pre-defined outcomes or disciplinary concerns.
For its programme for the upcoming years, Baltan will give centre stage to rehearsing alternative roles for technology in society. We do this by designing learning paths, projects, and collaborations that bridge different knowledge systems through creative strategies beyond a purely rational approach, including bodily, sensory, intuitive, and performative techniques. We want to incorporate feeling and intuition as ways to grasp complexity.
Baltan fulfils its social role as a cultural institution by providing space to debate, learn, and organise, given the challenges we have to face. In our vision, culture should be a prominent force of change, as we believe change is primarily cultural and behavioural rather than political, infrastructural, or solution-driven.
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