Future Challenges session organised by IAS Artist-in-Residence Harpo ’t Hart (Ambassade van de Noordzee), as part of the IAS Festival. The Technocracy Reading Group reads policy documents with a focus on form: graphic design, images, maps, style of writing. Reading these as text as a genre can be very revealing.
The reading club focusses on one text: The Dutch Doggersbank Management Plan 2023 – 2029. North Sea politics is deeply technocratic. Special interest groups, companies, and governments negotiate North Sea policy into existence. This approach is reflected in documents such as management plans, technical documents filled with maps, tables, and jargon. The danger of technocracy lies in its lack of democracy. Issues are treated as problems to be managed, becoming the domain of a small group of experts rather than a broader (North Sea) community. To think beyond the confines of technocracy, we must first study and expose the rules and stylistic methods of technocrats as a specific genre. During this event, the group reads this text with a focus on everything that you might call form, rather than content. For instance: style of writing, graphic design, choice of images, maps and legends, etc. These are things that are often overlooked or considered circumstantial. In fact, it is things like what is visible in images and what is represented on maps that are crucial in understanding how the Dogger Bank is actually represented.
In the form of a small exhibition the group will show the results of the reading club sessions in the past year. Participants can register to sign up for the reading club session.
Speakers
Sami Hammana is an artist and educator whose practice is primarily concerned with the limits of perception. His artistic approaches often result in filmic and textual work. In his educational work, Hammana has been developing multiple courses and programmes that defy categorisation in collective study. Hammana has been leading the Honours Programme at the Willem de Kooning Academie since 2018.
Harpo ’t Hart is a sound-artist and artistic director of the Embassy of the North Sea. In his work Harpo raises questions about the ways in which we listen to our rapidly changing environments. How do we listen in times of climate change? In his practice as an artist and curator Harpo opens up space for non-human, ecological perspectives.
Registration for this session will be available from February 1, 2026 on the IAS website.
