During this year's conference, you can emerge yourself in art and culture. Art, in all its forms and expressions, has always played a unique role in exploring the complex dynamics between humans and technology. With performances, music and visual art, we will create a space where we can ask questions about how technology affects our lives and how we can create meaningful connections in the digital world.
Take a breather from the panels, talks and workshops and get inspired!
The notion of artificial intelligence may seem distant and abstract, but AI is already pervasive in our daily lives. Anatomy of an AI System analyses the vast networks that underpin the âbirth, life, and deathâ of a single Amazon Echo smart speaker, painstakingly compiling and condensing this huge volume of information into a detailed high-resolution diagram. This data visualisation by Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler provides insights into the massive quantity of resources involved in the production, distribution, and disposal of the speaker. You can find Anatomy of an AI System in the Green Room on June 27.
Motivated by his fascination for the fast developing field of artificial intelligence, Jan Zuiderveld attempts to shed light on the profound processes underlying the AI methods transforming our world by looking at the subject through both a creative and scientific lens. Through his work, Jan hopes to uncover hidden relationships between man and machine, the analogue and the digital, the organic and the mechanical. Above all, he aims to raise awareness of the power of machine learning as a tool for enhancing creativity â even for those who do not think of themselves as creative. With Dream Machine, a hacked 00âs Xerox photocopier, Jan creates a space where people can interact with a creative machine. Come draw with us on June 27 in the Green Room!
Sofia Maria is a DJ from Amsterdam who has been a part of the city's club scene for almost a decade. Her experience in event production and management, laying the foundation for her connection to music. Her music is driven by a belief in the power of house to align the body's natural rhythm with the beat, incorporating electrifying elements of electro and breakbeat. Sofia Maria will perform a live DJ set with the help of WAIVE (from Thunderboom Records), a generative AI system based on heritage materials. This novel collaboration with a generative AI system boosts the creativity of the human artist because the artist must anticipate the input provided by the system. Wrap up the day and dance along on June 27 17:00 - 18:00 in the Meeting Room!
Are you interested creating music with WAIVE Studio yourself? Check out our workshop, WAIVE Studio: from the archive to the dance floor.
Max and Joost from Thunderboom Records demonstrate how artificial intelligence can challenge and enrich the live music creation process with WAIVE Studio, a smart DJ system utilising AI to create unique music samples, beats, and loops from the digitised audio archives of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. During this demonstration, the audience will collectively create new dance music using WAIVE Studio and Dutch audio heritage materials in a unique way. Dance along on June 27 between 15:30 - 16:15 in the Meeting Room!
In this meditative performance by Abdelrahman Hassan, we will try to unpack the different levels of harm related to data and algorithms, starting from the individual, passing by the structural, and ending with widely adopted toxic imaginaries of sociotechnical futures. Presented as a meditation, this will be an invitation to subvert the cruel and often toxic pessimism that overshadows our conversation on AI. Instead, we will activate a state of power-informed joyful resistance. Using poetry and a collective ritual to create a radical imagination, we hope to create a space of mindful resistance against a backdrop of an always-on, fast-moving technological landscape. You can experience Gardens of Algorithmic Care on June 27 at 11:45 - 12:00 in the Grote Zaal.
CODE is a project initiated in response to the growing concern that we are losing agency over the digital tools and platforms we use on a daily basis. Organised by IMPAKT [Centre for Media Culture] (Utrecht) together with Werktank (Leuven), Privacy Salon/Privacytopia (Brussels) and Transmediale (Berlin), CODE brings together artists, non-artists, politicians, policy makers and researchers from Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands to engage in dialogue, critical discussion, and artistic intervention. The aim is to influence public policy at national and international level, by creating awareness and defining ways in which we can improve laws and legislation to protect us as digital citizens and consumers. In 2023, CODE received over 100 applications, on the basis of which 28 participants have been selected to closely work together in a co-creation process. Join us on June 27 at the Foyer on the 5th floor to get a taste of some of the projects that CODE has delivered so far!
Turning Tables is a new card game that turns Big Tech into Fair Tech. Itâs fun to play, and along the way youâll turn the tables on Big Tech power and pick up inspiring ideas from critical thinkers. The Turning Tables deck is an alternative to traditional decks that reflect medieval power structures. In some important ways our world is not so different from the Middle Ages: instead of the kings, queens and clans, we now have got big tech companies and their CEOs reigning supreme. Turning Tables invites you to engage this world in a critical way. The deck follows most of the structure of a traditional card deck, but it has some special additional features. For instance, there are 12 Good Jokers: authors, activists and creative thinkers who inspire us to use technology in a positive way, so we can reclaim our digital rights. Once the tables are turned, a worker in an Amazon distribution centre can beat Jeff Bezos, for instance. Come play the game where the users have more power than Apple and Google, and Big Tech turns into Fair Tech! You can play Turning Tables on June 27 in the 5th floor Foyer.
The days when Big Tech could get away with wantonly creating economic bubbles and selling usersâ data are over. But real regret and change are not forthcoming. In The Silicon Passion, theatre collective De Transmissie search for a way out of the pit dug by technology and for a new relationship with Big Tech. The collective draws inspiration from one of our cultureâs most important stories about atonement: the crucifixion. With Bachâs St Matthew Passion, live synthesiser music, audio visual technology, and a parade of colourful characters, De Transmissie hunts for who or what exactly should be nailed to the cross â and what the world might look like after the resurrection. You can see The Silicon Passion on June 27 from 12:45 to 13:15 in the Grote Zaal.
We invite you to unleash your creativity and bring your wildest imaginings to life in a showdown of epic proportion. Our prompt battle challenges participants to generate an image using AI text-to-image software more creative than that of their rival. Participants, ranging from audience members to keynote speakers, will compete against their opponent to generate the most creative image as they react to playful assignments intersecting with the conference's themes. The audience decides who will be crowned Prompt Queen or King. Can you create the most original, funniest, or weirdest AI generated image? Come join the battle on June 27 between 15.00 â 16.00 in the Studio to find out!
Making the Invisible Visible is a project produced as part of CODE, an international collaboration program initiated by IMPAKT [Centre for Media Culture] in Utrecht. CODE brings together artists, non-artists, politicians, policy makers and researchers to engage in dialogue, critical discussion and artistic intervention on digital agency. The project Making the Invisible Visible is produced by a group of international makers (Jennifer Jiang, Dana Foth, Merel Noorlander, Sanne van Deijl, Alice Dallinga, Adriaan Bernstein and Alistair Alexander) with support from IMPAKT and School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe from Berlin.
A new form of extractivism defines life in the 21st Century. It is one that reaches into the furthest corners of the biosphere and the deepest layers of human cognitive and affective being. The stack that underpins contemporary technological systems goes well beyond data modelling, hardware, servers and networks. Todayâs full stack reaches into capital, labour and nature while demanding an enormous amount from each. Vladan Jolerâs New Extractivism is a cartographic project that gathers different concepts and images of this ânew extractivismâ. They add up to a blueprint for a machine-like superstructure â a super allegory that encompasses the whole world. You can see New Extractivism on June 27 in the Green Room or learn more about this work during Vladan Joler's session in the Studio on June 27 between 12:45 and 14:00.
Everyday Data (H)activism is a community research project that explores how ordinary people can engage in everyday acts of data activism. This workshop introduces participants to the Everyday Data (H)activism Toolkit as an archive of resistance. In this workshop, you will then engage in a practice of critical making, adapting the cards of the toolkit to local contexts, and creating a shared manifesto that interrogates the idea of activism itself. The workshop will take place on June 28 between 11:00 - 12:00 at the Expo.
A whole world comes to us through our sense of smell, but rarely do we ask our nose to think with us. Artist Cesar Majorana has a fragrance laboratory where practically any scent can be made. In his lab full of synthetic molecules, he transforms any story into a scent. With input from the participants, he creates in no time a familiar scent like fresh scoop ice cream, a rain shower or sunscreen. Or, more complex: the smell of the Internet, the commons, and public values. In this session, In this session, Cesar will together with the audience develop a scent. What values formed the basis? And what discoveries will be made? On the side, Cesar shares his vast knowledge of smell(s) special and entertaining anecdotes and facts from the world of our smell.
Cesar will also participate in the talk âNagesprek âThe Sillicon Passionâ on Tuesday June 27 13.15-14.00
Every day we present various identities of ourselves that depend on audiences such as friends, family, and colleagues. When you are developing an identity, individuals explore the moral values and beliefs they stand for. However, the digital space has amplified social connectivity, enabling us to share and create narratives of our lives. Online, everybody can be our audience, merging various audiences into one context and potentially leading toward a context collapse, for example, accidentally showing a hidden identity to your colleagues. Young adults want to experience a sense of control, extensive filters, and privacy settings to keep values such as authenticity, trust, and a sense of belonging. The fictional artificial identity manager Identigenie, derived from this desire, manages identities and audiences for young adults to prevent context collapse by editing content before sending it out. This manifestation is projected through four everyday scenarios. Scan the QR codes in the Foyer (2nd floor) on June 28 to experience their journeys first-hand and discuss new upcoming challenges.
