TechBrunch: Future Transmissions

So much of our life is saved “somewhere” — in the cloud, in chats, on our phones. We barely notice it, until something is gone: the link is dead, the device is broken, the file won’t open. Digital things don’t keep themselves. How do we make sure the things that matter don’t just disappear?

We do not know what people in the future will need most, but one kindness we can always offer is to present them with as many options as possible. This is not done by leaving a blank page to be filled in later, but by constructing and preserving artefacts, ideas, and ways of being that offer alternatives to the binds of their time.

In this TechBrunch, artist, researcher, and game designer Benedict Henshaw takes this as a starting point to explore future transmissions in a wider sense. Through a mix of input, shared exercises, games, and discussion, we’ll look at historical and contemporary ways humans have tried to speak across time — from software archiving and emulation to projects like the Internet Archive, religious texts and rituals, song, and poetry — and reflect on what these practices reveal about the stories we choose to keep and pass on.

This workshop is for anyone curious about how our cultural and digital traces might endure — whether you create digital work, keep personal archives, or simply wonder what will remain of our time. Using the topic of archival and cultural preservation as a lens, we’ll explore questions that matter to all of us today:
How do we defend against the breakdown of communication?
How do we avoid the loss of meaning?

TechBrunch is always served with coffee, tea, orange juice, and Gipfeli. ☕🥐
This session is slightly longer than usual, with breaks and snacks to keep your energy up.

This special edition of TechBrunch takes place in the context of the project «Zeitreise in unsere digitale Vergangenheit» (Time Travel Through Our Digital Past), supported by the Foundation for Art, Culture, and History (SKKG). The project explores cultural preservation through the lens of emulation technologies.