Julien McHardy

Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Department of Anthropology, Associated researcher

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How do we live together, in a pluralist world that is drifting apart? How do we live well, if our lives are increasingly connected while inequalities and differences intensify? It is because of questions such as these that I am concerned with methods for working and thinking across different fields of expertise and experience. My concern with methods is the reason for and the thread that connects my diverse practice as a sociologist of science and technology, exhibition maker, scenographer, editor and design strategist. I think of these areas of work as meta-methods. By this, I mean that they offer ways of interrogating and intervening in the collective assembly of our lifeworlds.

Academically, the question how things and practices that do not go together can be assembled comes out of my doctoral research project on the electric bicycles industry that partially connects different and often contradictory worlds such as the floors of German design agencies and Taiwanese factories. Following on from this project I am continuing to develop collage as an analytical concept, that offers an alternative to the dominant logic of assemblage because it does not flatten difference. Academically I am affiliated with the LOST Research Group at Martin Luther University in Halle, Germany, that is dedicated to the study of evidence and future making practices. I am also a founding member of the open access publisher Mattering Press.

I trained as a designer at the Bauhaus University Weimar before changing to the Glasgow School of Art where I completed a Bachelor in Product Design and an ASRC funded Masters of Research in Transformation Design. My PhD in Science and Technology Studies at Lancaster University was jointly funded by the ESRC and the design agency IDEO and supervised by Elizabeth Shove and Lucy Suchman at Lancaster and Simon Blyth at IDEO.
Supervisors: Elizabeth Shove and Lucy Suchman

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Pierre Purseigle

University of Warwick

Noel B. Salazar

KU Leuven

Judith L Green

University of California, Santa Barbara

B. Harun Küçük

University of Pennsylvania

Thomas Kühne

Clark University

Beatrice Jauregui

University of Toronto

Stefano Maffei

Politecnico di Milano

David Seamon

Kansas State University

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

Noe Cornago

University of the Basque Country, Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea

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Articles by Julien McHardy

Like Cream: Valuing the Invaluable

Julien McHardy draws on his work with the alternative publishing collective Mattering Press to ex... more Julien McHardy draws on his work with the alternative publishing collective Mattering Press to explore the importance of opening up and maintaining " bewildering spaces within " the increasingly normative and clear-cut regimes of evaluation. Drawing on a range of examples from alternative publishing, the artwork " The Right to be Lazy " and concepts of care, love, qualculation and laziness, McHardy argues that opening up space for otherness within are crucial to good academic work. At the same time, he also warns us that caring for difference is a struggle that includes making radical cuts and disconnections, and in practice often may build on precarious and invisible work. This leads him to asks what academic institutions would look like that could value and cultivate that which they cannot evaluate.

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Book Chapters by Julien McHardy

Make-Shift Ciopfaspovs: An Exploration of Users in Design

Multiple Ways to Design Research: Research Cases the Reshape the Design Discipline, 2009

The evolution of sciences and technologies, and their impact on society, raises new research ques... more The evolution of sciences and technologies, and their impact on society, raises new research questions which constantly tend to expand the ways to design research -in terms of topics of interests, approaches and contaminations -; research questions which can be relevant for design knowledge, practice and education. Starting from these considerations, the aim of the Fifth Swiss Design Network Symposium is to present an overview on design research in order to outline those theories, methods and practices that influence and reshape the design discipline.

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Makeshift Users,

by Julien McHardy and J. Southern

Design Research: Synergies from Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 2010

The Making of Electric Cycling

Sustainable practices: Social Theory and Climate Change, 2013

Machines of Enquiry, in Jungnickel (Eds.) Knowledge Transmissions

(forthcoming 2018)

Books by Julien McHardy

Digital Imaginaries

Edited Collection, (Forthcoming 2019)

Exhibitions & Festivals by Julien McHardy

Endless Europe Express Festival

(Scenography) 30 Juni - 2 July 2016. A politics, literature, theatre and music festival on a nigh... more (Scenography) 30 Juni - 2 July 2016. A politics, literature, theatre and music festival on a night train from Amsterdam to Bratislava and back. An alternative handover of the European Presidency from the Netherlands to Slovakia. 15 train carriages, 3 days, two nights, 600 guests, onboard theatre, concert, club, debate and cinema wagons as well as a restaurant, two bars and performances and readings throughout the train not to forget a lab analysing trans-European spore travel, trainspotters choreographed along the track and live festival radio programme broadcasted throughout the train and stops in Prague and Bratislava with dedicated performance programmes.

I joined the creative team of the Europe Endless Express Festival as the scenographer. This was my first Dutch production and what a ride it was.

Thanks to the fantastic team: Caspar van Gemund (Artistic director), Lizzy Timmers (Dramaturge), Rik Elstgeest (Music Programme) Julien McHardy (Scenography), Floortje Halters & Ellen van Bunnik (Main Producers), Julia Mikx (Production Train), Betul Erat (Production Prague/Bratislava), Lieveke Heijn (Production Assistant), Siemen van der Werf (Technical Producer), Rebecca van Vuure (Communication), Joost de Haas (Graphic Design). And the amazing partners: Eddie The Eagle Museum, Touki Delphine, PipsLab, Warme Winkel, Wunderbaum, Pink Pony Express, SLAA, de Balie, Eye

Seismographic Sounds: Visions of a New World

by Julien McHardy, Nils Volkmann, Thomas Burkhalter, and Hannes Liechti

(Scenography with Werner and Volkmann). Curated by Liechti, Beyer and Burkhalter at Norient Th... more (Scenography with Werner and Volkmann). Curated by Liechti, Beyer and Burkhalter at Norient

The Norient exhibition Seismographic Sounds – Visions of a New World showed and discussed contemporary video clips, tracks and sound art from around the globe. It has been touring from August 2015 to February 2017 around Switzerland, Germany and Italy. Seismographic Sounds is a multi-authored exhibition about new diversity brought forth by digital cultures. It is closely linked to the new Norient book Seismographic Sounds.

Forum Schlossplatz, Aarau (August 2014); Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), Karlsruhe, (Nov 2015); CTM Festival, KKB Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin (Mar 2016); Castelgrande, Bellinzona (Apr 2016); November 25 to December 23, 2016
BASE, Milano (Dec 2016; Kornhausforum, Bern, (Jan 2017)

5 Videoclips from X

(Scenography) Video Installation in Public Space, Curated by Norient, at Keck-Kiosk, Hauses für e... more

Digital Imaginaries Exhibitions

Digital technologies change our ways of being in the world including our collective ability to im... more Digital technologies change our ways of being in the world including our collective ability to imagine and inhabit possible and alternative futures, pasts and presents. All technologies relate imaginaries, of self, race, colonialism, body, future-past, otherness or state for example, yet there is something about the pervasiveness and speed of digitally mediated relations that intensifies the relations between imaginaries and technologies. Contemporary imaginaries of self, belonging, otherness, memory, predictability, politics, place, temporality and truth are simply unimaginable apart from digital technologies and it is to mark this that we speak of digital imaginaries. Any selfie illustrates that digital technologies are baked into imaginaries — what it does not show is that digital technologies are far from universal despite their planetary reach.
Taking Dakar, Johannesburg and Karlsruhe as sites, we investigate how ‘Digital Imaginaries’ contribute to shifting notions of what Africa is and can be. For this purpose, we invite social scientists, writers and artists working in the field of digital arts to explore how digital technologies shape and shift imaginaries of what Africa is and can be. Starting from the premise that the globalising tendencies of the digitalisation can only be understood through local digital cultures, the partners are working together to develop location specific themes and exhibitions for each site. The ongoing exchange between project participants will lead to a joined publication, in which we will establish tentative and partial connections between the three sites and themes.
Afropixel: Non-Aligned Utopias is the first chapter of the project, in May 2018 in Dakar. The next iteration will be “Premonition” at Wits Art Museum from July – September 2018. The third exhibition in the collaboration will be held at the Centre for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany in Mid October 2018 – February 2019. The publication date for the peer-reviewed, joined publication that will be available for free online is June 2019.

Blogs by Julien McHardy

Why books matter: There is value in what cannot be evaluated

Academic publishing is intricately bound to evaluation. The demand to publish as much as possible... more Academic publishing is intricately bound to evaluation. The demand to publish as much as possible has led to the chopping up of research into minimum publishable units across journals that are easily counted, ranked and evaluated. Books, however, are not so easily accounted for. Julien McHardy argues the value of books is in this freedom from evaluation which offers the chance to pursue greater care and experimentation. But book publishers may still have to calculate so that calculations do not dominate their considerations.