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.
Data Morgana
The internet is increasingly controlled by a handful of Big Tech companies. Under the promise of making our world better, fairer, and more efficient, they are harvesting our data on a massive scale. But has this truly improved our livesāor is it all just an illusion? A Data Morgana?
Data Morgana is a talk show created in collaboration with AT5, OBA, Studio Julia Janssen and Display Europe, in which host Julia Janssen and her guests explore solutions to the digital challenges we face today. Tune in to thought-provoking episodes, on topics such as privacy and security, digital autonomy, sustainability, democracy, social media, education, journalism, and much more.
Featuring guests including JosƩ van Dijck, Rudy van Belkom, Douwe Smidth, Stijn Grove, Rodolfo Groenewoud van Vliet, Yael de Haan, Eva Hofman, Maaike Okano-Heijmans, and many others.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or DisplayEurope.eu. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
Where: Green Room, 3rd floor
Mesh Network
Mesh is a response to our collective dependence on digital infrastructures dominated by Big Tech. Installed as a local mesh network within Pakhuis de Zwijger, this performative work enables communication without relying on the internet. It is not merely something to observeāthe work takes shape through public interaction and the actions it generates.
The installation creates an alternative communication space that encourages critical thinking and engagement. It challenges the dominance of centralized internet systems and shows the potential of decentralized, user-driven networks. Spanning the building and nearby streets, the mesh network allows participants to communicate directly, without intermediaries.
Mesh is an initiative by Radical Data, an artist collective founded by RayƩn Jara Mitrovich and Jo Kroese. With backgrounds in mathematics, technology, dance, and design, they explore how digital technologies can be tools for joy and liberation. Their work is infused with queerness and decoloniality, and they create artworks, tools, and research that reimagine how data can serve activist and collective futures.
Radical Data is also present at the Bazaar, where visitors can build their own mesh networks. Additionally, they will join the panel session āMesh Networksā at 16:15 in the Studio, to further explore alternative digital infrastructures.
Where: Throughout Pakhuis de Zwijger
The Smartest Doorbell
Smart Doorbells with a Touch of Horror
The Dutch streets have gained a million cameras in the past five years. These cameras, known as āsmart doorbellsā, record image and audio with every movement.
For many, the smart doorbell is a source of annoyance. Users, manufacturers and even the police do not comply with Dutch rules on camera use. Neighbours feel spied on, by all these cameras on facades. Or they even suffer because images are constantly shared - without permission - on Whatsapp and TikTok.
Can the doorbell be a catalyst for a different kind of change? Can it actually be privacy-forward, or independent of Big Tech? Or could there perhaps be a way that the doorbell can provide neighbourhood cohesion?
In this mobile workshop, you are invited to create: what does the smart doorbell of your dreams look like? What conditions do you want your smart doorbell to fulfil? Assemble your prototype and write a patent for your creation. Discuss with other doorbell designers... or ring the doorbell of one of your worried neighbours.
Where: Meeting Room, 5th Floor
Concerned Neighbours
In her research into the smart doorbell, media artist Roos Groothuizen has developed an open-source smart doorbell together with Dave Borghuis (founder of hackerspace Tkkrlab). With the prototype, they seek an answer to the question of whether the smart doorbell can exist at all responsibly in the Dutch streetscape.
The doorbells hang throughout Pakhuis de Zwijger. Ring the bell and engage in conversation with concerned neighbours about peeping, strange front-door anecdotes and the future of housekeeping.
You can find all the documentation and how-to of this DIY doorbell here.
Where: Throughout Pakhuis de Zwijger
CODE Fortune Cookies
For a fair and inclusive digital future
In 1994, web pioneer Lou Montulli invented the browser software cookies. By now, we all accept cookies every day when we first visit a website. The name of these internet cookies is derived from the tradition of fortune cookies, the Chinese custom of hiding a message in the biscuits you sometimes get in a restaurant or cafƩ. CODE's Fortune Cookies put a twist on this well-known tradition with special one-liners and good luck wishes for our digital future. The texts hidden in the CODE Fortune Cookies contain advice, wishes and future perspectives that deal with digital rights, a society where technology is used fairly and a better digital future.
CODE is an international collaborative project initiated by IMPAKT [Centre for Media Culture] in Utrecht. Together with international partners such as Werktank (Belgium), Privacy Salon / CPDP (Belgium) and NO SCHOOL (France), we have been organising a co-creation process since 2021 in which participants from diverse backgrounds work on art projects that address issue related to our digital rights.
Where: Foyer 2nd Floor
Off the Record
OFF THE RECORD is an immersive performative lecture that unveils an algorithmic reality shaped by the use of risk assessment tools by the Dutch Police.
Grounded in real events, we delve into the complexities of algorithmic systems employed to predict youth crime. This lecture is an inquiry into our emotional reality within our digital landscape. Featuring a journalist; a police officer; a human rights lawyer; and 125 boys singled out as potential future criminals. OFF THE RECORD invites speculation and radical imagination, while remaining anchored in investigative research. Merging fiction and documentary, we ask the question: Who writes the script that dictates our lives?
Where: Grote Zaal, at 13:00
Digital Flower Towers
Taking inspiration from both the natural and digital world, these Digital Flower Towers showcase a Utopian and at the same time Dystopian fairy tale. Just like with technical innovations, it is all in the eyes of the beholder to determine whether this is a positive or negative evolution. Are we looking at a flourishing forest where technical innovations collide in a beautiful way, or is this a product of over consumption and a wasteland thatās been taken over by orchids and ivy?
The DIRT ā which stands for the Dutch Institute of Royal Taste ā likes to play with beauty and decay in a playful manner. The irony that is within their name, continues into their projects. By creating different scenographyās and temporary settings, the DIRT often searches for bridges between content heavy programmes and a light translation of this to the public.
Digital Flower Towers are created to evoke imagination, creative thoughts and combined with interesting stories and innovation, spark new ideas and insights.
