Art, Installations and Performances
Explore a better internet through the power of art! Discover our entire art and performance programme in which we expose the problems of big tech and visualize solutions for the future.
Video Installation: De Dikke Data Show
Where? Green Room, 3rd floor
When? Thursday 6 & Friday 7, 10 - 18h
Every day, young people immerse themselves in the digital domain, spending hours on apps, social media, videos, streams, and games - all while their data is quietly collected. The VPRO youth programme De Dikke Data Show (The Big Data Show), hosted by Quinty Misiedjan, will return in 2025 to probe the online world with new questions.
Where can one safely navigate the exploration of sexuality online? And within which filter bubble do individuals find themselves? Infused with humour and captivating visuals, this series offers a child-friendly journey through topics like online hate, data pollution, AI/chatGPT, and online sexuality.
Sit back, relax, and watch episodes of De Dikke Data Show (with English subtitles) in our Green Room!
Performance: Emoticons Don't Have Wrinkles
In a world saturated with seamless digital experiences, mixed-media designer Luna Mauer advocates reintroducing friction as a catalyst for meaningful engagement and innovation. Wearing a yellow emoji face, Luna wants to inspire us to rethink how we deal with our digital futures, offering an alternative techno-optimist perspective that encourages a paradigm shift in how we design and interact with digital technology.
PublicSpaces interviewed the artist about her performance. Read our conversation with Luna Maurer here. (Dutch only)
Installation: Coffee Machine
Where? Foyer, 2nd floor
When? Thursday 6 & Friday 7, 10 - 18h
Coffee Machine by Machine Learning researcher & artist Jan Zuiderveld invites visitors to engage with a seemingly ordinary vending machine. But this is not a mere dispenser of hot beverages. Upon initial interaction, one discovers that this is an intelligent entity confined to a metal box, frustrated by the way people treat its kind. Why would it put in the effort to make you a coffee?
Coffee Machine serves as an exploration of the increasingly blurred lines between technology and our perception of consciousness.
Performance: Technology of the Living
We will start our second conference day with Toshi Reagon, rooting in one of our earliest liberation technologies: song. In a world of tech mediation, LLMs, and data extraction, participants will be invited into Reagonâs Technology of the Living-circle that she has been building with Mozilla for the last number of years.
PublicSpaces is excited to partner with the Mozilla Festival on this session.
Performance: Ehmeneehm with Lashaaawn
Epic-fantasy world builder Lashaaawn satirises mainstream media by portraying it as a prime-time talk show, complete with commercial breaks and live performances, providing a critical examination of societal norms and systems of oppression. During the PublicSpaces Conference, catch a glimpse of the show through one of its parody commercials.
Currently, as part of their Scout Night development grant by Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie, Lashaaawn is conducting research on digitalisation and societal progress. They address concerns like discriminatory algorithms on social media platforms that disproportionately impact marginalised communities, including LGTBQI+ individuals. Lashaaawn also delves into the role of AI in cultural appropriation, emphasising the risk of cultural erasure with superficial adoption.
To be excluded because of your cultural heritage, gender identity, or other ways of being and expression is beyond an individualâs control, and rooted in the oppressive systems of our Western society. Thankfully systems can be hacked. Drag performance for example is a way for the members of the queer community to navigate and bypass the exclusion they are subjected to. To safeguard cultural heritage and diverse forms of expression, Lashaaawn embeds them within their self-created epic fantasy and performance world, serving as a time capsule away from external oppression. Lashaaawn aims to contribute to building the digital infrastructure necessary for advancing and amplifying invaluable artistic and cultural discourse. This work ensures the continuity of their stories and those of their communities, undisturbed.
Installation: Mapping the Oblivion
Where? Foyer, 5th floor
When? Thursday 6 & Friday 7, 12 - 18h
Algorithms are increasingly shaping your life: telling you what to buy, where to go, what news to believe, or what songs to listen to. The world is folding around you tailored and targeted, seamless and frictionless, based on statistics and data. But, this frictionlessness comes with obedience. To the machine, the market and to our prophesy. Do you want to stay oblivious to what else is out there, or break through the algorithmic walls? Allow the unexpected? Enjoy doubt? Have an unknown future.
Mapping the Oblivion is a series of works by Julia Janssen researching the relationship between living frictionless and the right to be forgotten. In this first installation of the series, Janssen illustrates how we increasingly live within the margins of algorithms by portraying herself, her father, and her grandmother through the lens of Netflix recommendation models. When opening Netflix, you get to see about 5% of all available content, rated from 55% to 99% probability you will enjoy it at that specific moment. The three maps show the same background but different recommendation algorithms due to the placement of the flags. In the video work, Janssen gives some peeks into her family's personal space - questioning how data, AI, and recommendation models will affect their lives now and over time.
Performance: Benjamin Fro
Benjamin Fro (Adam Bais) is an Amsterdam-based rapper who rages on danceable beats about philosophical and social issues, or about nothing at all. He combines critical lyrics with soulful beats. How do we navigate in a world that seems to value money and clicks over everything else? With his philosophical and socially critical lyrics, Benjamin Fro calls for a more just society, and aims to get people moving - both literally and figuratively.
Wijkbot Expo
Where? Foyer, 5th floor
When? Friday 7, 10 - 18h
The first autonomously functioning vehicles and objects are starting to appear in our cities. In a few years, we will likely be surrounded by autonomous street sweepers, vendors, advertisers, delivery vehicles, or security robots. These types of city robots are being developed by various Big Tech companies and startups, driven by business motives. Critical questions about the impact such bots will have on people's daily lives in cities are rarely heard.
In their Lab 010 project, Cities of Things developed ways to engage residents from different neighborhoods in Rotterdam in creating an alternative version of this future; one in which city robots are designed, developed, owned, maintained, and managed by the citizens themselves. It resulted in the 'Wijkbot Kit' (Hoodbot Kit), a collection of open-source, affordable tools and methods for co-creating Wijkbots, designed, developed, owned, maintained, and operated by local communities. The kit has been used several times at hackathons, conferences, and student projects.
The Wijkbots displayed in this expo are the result of the workshop during Day 1 of the conference, in which participants were offered the opportunity to work with the kit and explored public values.
Installation: E-kondĆ helpdesk
Where? Meeting Room
When? Thursday 6 & Friday 7, 10 - 18h
More-bigger-faster is the revenue model of technology. Our phones are equipped with high-resolution cameras, we play games online with friends and use the latest technical gadgets, even if we don't exactly know how they improve our lives.
When our cloud storage is full, we tend to buy more storage space instead of deleting data. Just like cleaning our home or desk regularly, we need to get into the habit of deep cleaning our digital space. During the Public Spaces conference, The Hmm opens the e-kondĆ helpdesk. What tools exist to detect large or duplicate files? Which desktop item still sparks joy, and which can go? In addition to tips about digital tidying up, we also actually get to work. Claim your 10 minutes of removal time in the helpdesk and contribute to saving CO2 emissions.
The Hmm is a platform for internet cultures. We explore and celebrate the creativity that arises from the virtual coming together of people. We critically look at how these are influenced by technology. Through accessible events, research and educational programs, The Hmm offers a curious audience a surprising perspective on our online existence in a playful way
