Author: agent Paranyushkin

Durational Conference #1

This report is an invitation to the first Durational Conference that took place on the 21st of June 2015 at Flutgraben. The origin of the term "conference" comes from the French conférence or medieval Latin conferentia, from Latin conferre ‘bring together’. TED, PechaKucha and various other “edutainment" formats have transformed what used to be called a “conference” into a self-celebratory benevolent exercise devoid of self-criticism. Speakers are expected to pack all the complexity of their topic into an easily digestible, short and entertaining delivery to promote their ideas or their new start-up. The “elevator pitch” rhetorics fortified by succinct Twitter 140-character format is creeping in and beyond. Therefore, there's a need for a space that facilitates an intelligent, purposefully slow, detailed and comprehensive debate. The kind of debate that is driven by a genuine drive to ask questions and to be asked questions, to learn, and to challenge oneself and the others. A kind of...