Glossary

[this page is under construction]

(have a look at How do we define Agency?) (and also Agency leaflet)

Agency

Agency is the generic name of a Brussels-based agency that was established in 1992.
Agency constitutes a growing list of things that resist the split between the classifications of “culture” and “nature” and consequently between ‘expressions’ and ‘ideas’, ‘creations’ and ‘facts’, ‘subjects’ and ‘objects’, ‘humans’ and ‘non-humans’, ‘originality’ and ‘tradition’, ‘individuals’ and ‘collectives’, etc...
Agency invokes things from it’s list in varying assemblies.

Agency VZW/ASBL

Agency vzw/asbl was founded in 2019 by artist and activist Kobe Matthys (1970–2023) together with a group of people to support the activity of Agency as a practice. The organisation’s purpose is 'to explore the interference of the apparatus of intellectual property law for an ecology of artistic practices and to revive a sustainable diversity of practices.'

Assembly

Agency invokes things from it’s list in varying assemblies, in an attempt to answer the various questions raised by the boundary-things.
Each assembly explores topologically a different question of the per-formative consequences of the apparatus of intellectual property for an ecology of art practices.
Agency organises those assemblies in the context of exhibitions, publications or performances for which some of the things are selected. People with a variety of profiles, chosen by Agency, are invited to these meetings. These guests are selected on the basis of their skills or their sectors of activity, and are called upon to participate in a speculative discussion on a thing. Lawyers, artists, workers, activists, researchers and others come together to reactivate the debate in a performative manner.

• • can we add the part of the text ' It matters what practices we make practices with, last paragraphs from 'assembly' onwars till the end...
  • there is an interesting book 'what makes an assembly' that could be linked
  • is there any input possible from the working group on assemblies?

Copyright

[FR] Droit s’appliquant aux œuvres de l’esprit, sur base de leur originalité. Se compose du droit moral (droit de divulgation, de paternité et droit à l’intégrité de l’œuvre) et du droit patrimonial (droit de reproduction, de prêt et location, de distribution, de suite). Les critères d’originalité relèvent d’une définition juridique.

Editathon

An edit-a-thon is an event organized within a community to edit and improve an online knowledge database.

Intellectual property

[FR] Branche du droit traitant des œuvres issues de l’esprit, regroupant la propriété industrielle et la propriété littéraire et artistique. La propriété littéraire et artistique se compose du droit d’auteur et du droit voisin ainsi que, plus récemment, du droit sur les bases de données.

MediaWiki

MediaWiki is the free and open source wiki software we use for Agency wiki.

Praticothèque

Praticothèque is the ensemble of the space, the List and library. An environment built to allow research, debate and alliance between practices.

"Just like there is a herbothèque with herbs or a bibliothèque with books, we have a praticothèque with practices. The boxes contain traces of practices and the ways in which practitioners defend ecologies or these practices’ modes of existence, which mostly happens when there is a problem or controversy. The praticothèque is Agency’s depot for research, composed in cooperation with other researchers."

+ maybe we should add something about the intended process for 2026 'building the praticotheque in a pratice based way' here? In 2026 Agency ASBL is running a project, supported by the VG, to open up the Praticotheque to other practices and the public. Recurrent visits, edit-a-thons, reading rooms and unboxing will be organised and Agency ASBL facilitates the research and work of 6 artists working with the material of and at Praticotheque with the intention to grow practice-based!

Presentation text

A presentation text is a short summary of the controversy by Agency, produced to present a Thing to the public.

Publication text

A publication text is a short summary of a controversy produced by Agency to present a Thing to the public.
These 'publication texts' are longer than 'presentation texts' and are intended to be read together in an Assembly, as a start for a speculative reading of the case.

Thing or boundary thing

Agency constitutes an ongoing list of things, that witness hesitation in terms of the bifurcation in the classification ‘nature’ and ‘culture’. A boundary thing is an element included by Agency to 'List of boundary things'.These things are mostly derived from controversies, judicial cases, lawsuits, etc... where disputed matters concerning this bifurcation were discussed. The controversies are from a period between the 17th century until today and from various territories around the world.

link to things - examples...?

Wiki

A wiki is a web publication using hypertext links and edited collectively by a community.
The most well-known wiki is Wikipedia, but there are a lot more.
A wiki website is powered by a wiki software.