This event launch will start with a performative reading and activation of the online platform 'Performing Patents Otherwise'. It will follow with a series of conversations on its making process, from the data collection and curation to how the interface facilitates access to these datasets while encouraging critical interpretation and discussions. We will also showcase the short video documentation of "I, Martha Gowans," a performance for two sewing machines, a voice and a computer based on a clothing patent filed by Martha Gowans in Dundee in 1903.
read moreCategory: event
On March 8th join us in dreaming and dancing in the ruins of Big Tech! On this day, we will be having conversations on how to minimize our use of cloud-based applications, discussions on the implications of the cloud regime, reading, streaming, broadcasting, sharing food, and dreaming up alternative methods of otherwise exuberant joyful survival, while connecting to other transnational striking networks.
read moreOn February 12 at 5 p.m., Varia will host the book launch for designer and editor Mindy Seu’s Cyberfeminism Index. The event will feature a performative reading by Seu, a casual conversation with audience members, and light refreshments.
read moreThe search for extra tonalities continues! Join us for the first event of the year including performances by Eric Kinny, Tisa Neža Herlec & Friso van Wijck. A trip around the world, for which you only have to travel to the Gouwstraat!
read moreDuring a 3-day hands-on workshop we'll investigate license-free radio as a low-tech and low-power medium for keeping in touch with each other. We want to look at radio as a medium that you can participate in instead of consuming it. We'll explore the aspects of locality and community present in radio.
read moreOn Thursday, December 1, three musical performances will introduce all extratonal tendencies. Experience them together with Zad Kokar, Vanita & Johanna Monk and TBA (joak).
read moreCome hang out and check out our publications at Zine camp 2022!
read moreI smell Patchouli. Every hippie wears it. Radio Activity stream!!! A scent based radio broadcast. Smell you later!
read moreFriday, October 7 promises to be a beautiful day. Two Dutch-singing pop talents (Burger Service and Thor Kissing) are going perform in Varia and that is certainly something!
read moreJoin us for the Publishing Partyline on the 14th and 15th of October, to dive into the dependency relations that are being formed when working with web-to-print techniques, between designers-and-tools and between tools-and-standards.
read moreJoin us to celebrate the launch of the paper edition of Volumetric Regimes: Material Cultures of Quantified Precence, a book compiled by Possible Bodies (Femke Snelting en Jara Rocha)!
read moreOn the Friday the 16th and Saturday the 17th of September 2022, we are hosting the Plaintext Protocol Partyline, in which we will explore and experience plaintext protocols as a communication medium.
read moreOn Friday, the 22th of July, Varia will once again host an evening of music. This time with KRAMP (who will present his new release on Bergpolder Records) and Bloedneus & De Snuitkever. It's been a while!
read moreOn April 4, 2022, after 32 years of existence, the Rotterdam Walk of Fame came to an end. The last sixty tiles of this well-known star sidewalk near the Metroplein and Ahoy were dismantled. Since then, Rotterdam has been missing one of its most noticeable landmarks. Fortunately, we managed to retrieve one of these special tiles. On July 8, at the start of the summer holidays, the tile of none other than Shrek will be reinstalled on the corner of Gouwstraat and Wolphaertstraat. Everyone is welcome at the green unveiling at 7 p.m. sharp. There will be snacks, drinks and music.
read moreCalibre remains to be popular among amateur librarians and digital libraries. Over time, the software was supplemented by many new features and plugins. Now, we want to revisit the digital library as an extensible space, and step back into the imagination of the library as a generative and social environment.
read moreWe're delighted to invite you to our LIMITS-hub, an open and informal gathering moment taking place during the Eighth Workshop on Computing within Limits this June 21st/22nd. As this year's LIMITS will be taking place online, we are setting up a hub, to have a physical space to meet. Come along to watch the conference together!
read moreAs you may already know, a number of Rotterdam-based artists & hackers are busy working on projects related to documenta 15. These projects are happening in collaboration with ruangrupa, the artist collective from Jakarta Indonesia who are running the artistic direction of documenta this year. As documenta 15 approaches, we'd like to have a moment to eat together, share what we're up to and discuss over some drinks. It can also be a moment to focus on our local ekosistem.
read moreJoin us for an open and free workshop on Sunday, May 29th 11am–4pm, at Varia and learn more about the Digital Archive of Artists' Publishing and how you can start using this resource, too!
read moreThis evening, Angeliki Diakrousi will present the Hunting Mosquitos, a research in progress on 'The Mosquito', a technology used in hangouts in Rotterdam, that emits high-frequencies to deter the youth from loitering in public space.
read moreYou are warmly invited to the launch of the Infraschool, an experimental peer-to-peer learning project that aims to explore local community infrastructure, co-operative organisation and digital tools.
read moreStreaming With Infrafem is a moment of exchange of communal strategies, infrastructural knowledge, and design choices starting by redefining the notion of streaming. We will explore ways of "streaming" to each other by listening, waiting and responding, both through text (for example via collaborative editors), through audio (for example via the streaming audio/video servers), and other means.
read moreA Traversal Network of Feminist Servers (ATNOFS) is a collaborative project of Varia, LURK, Constant, HYPHA, Feminist Hack Meetings and ESC formed around intersectional feminist, ecological servers. In the first session at Varia during the weekend of March 26 and 27, we will focus on tools and methods to make space for understanding what feminist publishing infrastructures could be.
read moreXPUB and Varia are delighted to invite you to this double launch of the publications Learning How to Walk While Catwalking and Vernaculars come to matter on Friday the 17th of December.
read moreExperienced users might be surprised: nowadays it is totally possible to use a computer device and have no clue whatsoever about files and folders. While the file/folder paradigm is still foundational within computers, it is increasingly buried under layers of smart interfaces: search boxes, automatically curated collection, phone manager …
read moreThe third episode of The User Condition series will take place just before the holidays! On the 29th of July, French designer Anaëlle Beignon will discuss with Silvio Lorusso about design approaches that take into account the use of obsolete devices.
But what does obsolete really mean? In her master …
read more