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What is the perfect library, one that is so inviting you want to spend as much time as possible there? Perhaps it should be more like a living room? In 2010, Till Exit was commissioned to redesign the GfZK library. He decided to use lounge chairs and lamps from the 1950s and 1960s, in combination with newly designed tables and shelves, although at first glance it is not always clear which items are old and which are new. The interior design builds a bridge between the present and the past, and vice-versa. The title “Weltall Erde Mensch” refers to a book containing various utopian visions of the future; up until 1975, this was a traditional gift presented to young people at their “Jugendweihe”, an East German celebration at which 14-year-olds are given adult status. Now, Exit transfers this utopian potential to the library; it is to be a place where you feel inspired to fantasise about the near and the distant future.

Economies of the Commons (eCommons) believe that technology brings fundamental change to the way cultural heritage institutes work and the expectations their audiences have of them. Institutes are no longer the exclusive ‘holders and curators of culture’ while their audiences have become accustomed to their active roles as co-producers of culture––they want to create, curate and co-produce cultural artefacts. Through Economies of the Commons 3: Sustainable Futures for Digital Archives we encourage re-thinking and re-imagining and create a platform to discuss the challenges and future of archives.

TRACT/TRACE is not a project so much as a projection: gesturing towards the future, a virtual and physical site of inquiry. We are interested in creating the space for a collaborative experiment somewhere between book and journal, blog and conversation. We see TRACT/TRACE as a type of blueprint of investigations into poetics and poetic practice. TRACT/TRACE hopes to foster a space for conversation, writing, correspondence, a science laboratory and graphic design studio for writers: a site of experiment but also presentation: a gallery space for linguistic alchemy. Writing towards the edge of what is both vital and unknown. TRACT/TRACE is a place for queer, marginalized, and otherwise undercommon voices; for writers of and in the body; for discussions on community and survival; for activists; for lovers; for phenomenologists and all types of feelers; for organisms who believe in a livable life; for sussing out tactics for a livable future.