<nettime> Remembering Steve Kurtz [7th of May 2026 7.30-9.30 at Waag Futurelab, Amsterdam]

[David Garcia via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Remembering Steve Kurtz:
an evening [7th of May 2026 7.30-9.30 at Waag Futurelab in Amsterdam] 
devoted to exploring and celebrating the life and work of Steve Kurtz.

As co-founder of Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), an influential collective 
of radical experimental artists, Steve Kurtz was a frequent visitor to 
Amsterdam, engaging in festivals such as *Next 5 Minutes* and *World 
Information Org* as a highly influential contributor to the discussions 
which swirled around the social and technological revolutions of the 
1990s.

With books such as The Electronic Disturbance (1994), Electronic Civil 
Disobedience (1996) and Flesh Machine (1998), Kurtz and CAE defined the 
artistic and activist responses to corporate virtualization techniques. 
Were video and networks still possible as tools for cultural resistance?

Kurtz and CAE’s radical approach questioned the very foundations of what 
it meant to be an artist through a willingness to embrace “any kind of 
cultural hybrid; artist, scientist, technician, craftsperson, theorist, 
activist.”

This hybridity however carried unexpected risks. And in 2004 the danger 
of challenging institutional boundaries became clear when Kurtz was 
targeted in an FBI investigation, leading to a wave of grand-jury 
subpoenas under the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act, that took 
years to fully resolve in his favour.

Our event will engage with this difficult phase in his life, in part, 
through screening key extracts of the renowned film Strange Culture by 
Lynn Hershman. We are fortunate in that we will be joined by Lynn 
Hershman and Richard Pell online from the US for discussion and 
reflection.

Throughout the evening, we will hear from many individuals who knew 
Steve drawing on previously unseen film footage of interviews, as well 
as live discussion with distinguished contemporaries. Our explorations 
will range across key aspects of CAE’s’ output.

Finally we will launch the Dutch translation of Unreality and Its 
Discontents: The Struggle Against Christian Nationalism, the last book 
that Steve completed at the very end of his life, in an act that 
couldn’t have been timelier or more urgent.

https://waag.org/en/event/remembering-steve-kurz/
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