The year of PANTONE® 18-3838, Ultra Violet.
The International Year of nothing.
The Year of the Earth Dog in the Chinese Zodiac.
The Year of the Bird.
The European Year of Cultural Heritage.
The Scottish Year of Young People.
The Centenary of Nelson Mandela.
50 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated; Tommie Smith and John Carlos made the Black Power salute on the Olympic medal podium; the US launched the Tet Offensive in Vietnam; Apollo 8 became the first manned spacecraft in orbit.
75 years ago, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising took place; Antoine de Saint-Exupéry published The Little Prince.
100 years ago, the Armistice to end World War I was declared; Poland returned to the world map and declared independence from the German, Austrian, and Russian empires.
200 years ago, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley published Frankenstein.
600 years ago, the archipelago of Madeira was discovered.

I’m pleased to be on the organizing committee of Strategic Narratives of Technology and Africa, a conference taking place in Funchal, Madeira, September 1 & 2.

The conference brings scholars, technologists, and cultural producers together on the island of Madeira: a European territory off the coast of Africa, a historical site of mutual entanglement between the Atlantic continents, and a point of departure for European expansion. Here we’ll strategize ways to revisit, reframe, and recode the future of technology on and for both continents.

What can African theorists, technologists, and cultural producers do to generate alternatives to the influx of neocolonial narratives of tech entrepreneurship? What are key epistemologies and ways of being which are endemic in Africa that should be offered to the world through new systems and processes? How can an African information economy avoid the dynamics of the resource curse, where connectivity is extractive and exercised upon African citizens rather than by and through them? What can Western technologists do differently, and what are the spaces for collaboration?

This conference aims to reinvestigate these relationships and more in order to engender dialog between African and Western audiences and participants, who should leave Madeira equipped with new strategies and new collaborative partnerships.

Keynotes include Achille Mbembe, Nanjira Sambuli, Ntone Edjabe and Sarah Nuttall.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Future Flux Festival is a new festival in the historic submarine wharf of Rotterdam. This spacious and atmospheric venue has a rich industrial history and is rapidly evolving into a prominent site where industry, creativity and innovation converge. The festival is a platform for new developments in the fields of technology, art and innovation. I’m excited to be involved with the festival as curator of the Playground.

In the Playground we invite you to make, hack, and create, led by our international group of artists and makers. Unlike a regular art exhibition or industry trade show, you will be confronted with many opportunities to get your hands dirty and participate. You can make a loudspeaker, a fake bomb detector, mobile phone noise music, and learn how to protect yourself from data leaks. We’re hosting the European premiere of Garnet Hertz’s new zine, Disobedient Electronics, and you can bring your own records to be played by James Auger’s turntable powered only by gravity. We’re also proud to debut brand new work by Georgina Voss, as well as exhibit the Osmo dome by Loop, and Parallel Suspended, a robot which makes large-scale drawings with sand by Gijs van Bon.

There’s also a day devoted to industry with some great keynotes such as Scott Smith and Maria Yablonina, and the FabCity programme where you can explore sustainability and food in the urban context, a music programme, and much more — see you at the Festival!

Disobedient Electronics, Garnet Hertz's latest zine. Excited to have my own signed and handbound copy! #zine #print #makersgonnamake

A post shared by Michelle Kasprzak (@mkultra0000) on May 21, 2017 at 10:17am PDT

Playground artists: Georgina Voss, Gijs van Bon, Loop, Darsha Hewitt, Debbie Ding, Garnet Hertz, Peter Flemming, Dries Depoorter, Matthew Plummer-Fernandez and Julien Deswaef, Leanne Wijnsma, James Auger

The year of PANTONE® 15-0343, Greenery.
The 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation.
The International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development.
The Year of the Fire Rooster in the Chinese Zodiac.
The Centenary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
The 500th anniversary of The Reformation.
The Centenary of the Apparition of the Virgin Mary at Fatima.
The 200th anniversary of Hegel’s Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences.
The 50th anniversary of the first human heart transplant.
The Year of the Daffodil.
The Centenary of De Stijl.
The Centenary of the Russian Revolutions.
The 700th anniversary of the writing of Gulshan i-Raz by Mahmud Shabistari.

Hot stuff! HOLO 2 is finally here. My piece on slightly or really wrong predictions for the future looks great with nifty illustrations by Cedric Flazinski. Check it! http://holo-magazine.com/2

A photo posted by Michelle Kasprzak (@mkultra0000) on Dec 7, 2016 at 1:37am PST

I ran the 6.7km recreation loop, and my time was pretty bad (read: almost last place!) because there were a fair few walking breaks, but what matters most is that I finished! Full credit to my sister/coach, who talked me through the second half of the race!

Here we are with our medals on after the race:

A photo posted by Michelle Kasprzak (@mkultra0000) on Jan 17, 2016 at 5:29am PST

The one small thing is learning how to run.

I decided one day to get up and do it. With new demands on my time, the primitive act of putting one foot in front of the other in the early mornings seemed the most efficient way to keep active and strong.

I quickly learned that despite the heavy weights I can lift, running is a whole other ballgame. Cardiovascular fitness and endurance are different than the explosive muscular strength I use to push the bar up. Plus lifting weights played to my strengths (pun intended) — it was pleasurable. I’m short, so physics works in my favour.

But running is really, really hard for a short-limbed, muscular woman who enjoyed the gratification of lifting heavy things, but is not convinced about running around in circles in a park.

Something happened, very early on, where I realised this commitment (I decided to follow the Couch to 5K programme to the end, no matter what) and the possible fitness habit it was setting me up for is just like everything else in my life which has value. It’s hard. It tests me in all ways. When I dedicate myself properly, it feels great. It makes me a better person, in one way or another.

We can enjoy a great number of things, and sample different vocations and relationships and lifestyles and cultures but ultimately it is only hard work, dedication and loyalty (to people, values, and goals) that make any positive contribution to one’s life. I have dozens of great party anecdotes about peculiar things and exotic places I’ve experienced, but the most important topics I usually don’t even discuss. There are things that are too profound but also too boring to share with a half-interested acquaintance: the stuff of your everyday life as you have constructed it around you.

Running a few kilometers in the dark three times a week is surprisingly enjoyable and hard at the same time. Strangely, while running, I sometimes feel sharply emotional. I often feel physically spent, plodding and clumsy, but my inner voice chooses that moment to rejoice with “I’m doing this!”, while my brain and heart reel at this fact. I’m not talking about it, or putting it on the to do list. I’m doing this. I’m doing this. I don’t look like a graceful gazelle. I’m doing this, goddamnit.

It is imperative. Pick things that matter — that make yourself better or are in service to others — and even if you are the least likely candidate to succeed, do it instead of just talking about it.

To motivate myself further, I take a selfie every time I run. Sometimes they are beautiful images. Sometimes the effort I’m putting in is apparent. The selfies are tokens, souvenirs of sorts, from each time I start the day with fidelity to this mission, one of many missions I’ve taken on in my life.

Wishing you utmost fidelity to your mission for 2016.

A photo posted by Michelle Kasprzak (@mkultra0000) on Dec 27, 2015 at 5:17am PST

A photo posted by Michelle Kasprzak (@mkultra0000) on Dec 20, 2015 at 11:20pm PST

A photo posted by Michelle Kasprzak (@mkultra0000) on Dec 18, 2015 at 11:48pm PST

A photo posted by Michelle Kasprzak (@mkultra0000) on Dec 5, 2015 at 10:51pm PST

A photo posted by Michelle Kasprzak (@mkultra0000) on Dec 2, 2015 at 12:58am PST

A photo posted by Michelle Kasprzak (@mkultra0000) on Nov 17, 2015 at 10:43pm PST

A photo posted by Michelle Kasprzak (@mkultra0000) on Nov 15, 2015 at 10:50pm PST

A photo posted by Michelle Kasprzak (@mkultra0000) on Nov 10, 2015 at 10:48pm PST