CODE: Reclaiming Digital Agency

About CODE

When it comes to digital rights: how do we Get Set? What can we as concerned citizens, designers, artists do? How can we influence politics to fight for better legislation that will protect us as digital citizens and consumers? For the DDW 2022, IMPAKT presents CODE: an international programme bringing together designers, artists, non-artists, politicians, policy makers and researchers from Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands to engage in dialogue, critical discussion and artistic intervention. CODE addresses our lack of agency over the digital platforms and devices we are so dependent on, calling politicians and policymakers to take action. We want to get people in the right mindset and create awareness for the important digital challenges of our time. CODE is a collaboration between IMPAKT [Centre for Media Culture] (Utrecht), School of Machines, Making & Make Believe (Berlin), Werktank (Leuven) and Privacy Salon (Brussels/Antwerp). With the support of Creative Industries Fund NL, City of Utrecht, Democracy and Media Fund, Fonds Soziokultur, Cultural Participation Fund, Dutch Embassy in Belgium (Brussels), Dutch Embassy in Germany (Berlin), Goethe Institut.

Installations and awareness-raising campaigns

Over the last months we worked with 22 participants in a series of workshops, hackathons and other public events. Working in cross-disciplinary teams, the participants developed creative interventions and awareness campaigns to expose the power of tech companies and to activate politicians, policymakers and citizens to take action. During the DDW week we want to present a selection of these interventions. These thought-provoking or subversive projects address themes like surveillance, the use of artificial intelligence, face recognition technologies and the power of lobbyists. From a game to an interactive installation about the way we are constantly being tracked online, all the interventions are intended to engage and activate the DDW audience in a creative and playful way.