For you and the dream of a better future
This upcoming Saturday, 26. June, we will run our first online Symposium together with our collaborators and friends at IMPAKT Center for Media Culture in Utrecht, NL. One always remembers their first of anything. This will be ours!
This CODE NL-D program is a long time in coming. Discussions began at the end of 2019. At that time, the scope and collaborators were a bit different but in its current form the essence is the same.
Having been a community organiser for many years and speaking with others in similar positions, there comes a time when you start to wonder how you might begin to make more of an impact in the work you do. Or perhaps it’s even simpler than that. As we get older, the desire to make a difference in the world becomes stronger.
Throughout this collaboration, what we’ve been asking ourselves is: how can we bring artists, activists, and concerned citizens of all kind together to create interventions that could ultimately influence future politics and public policy?
Why?
Because we’re tired of seeing a world that doesn’t quite represent the concerns of the people. Because the world’s tech leaders do what they want and the world’s politicians appear to be letting them.
Isn’t the creative and artistic work at the intersection of technology and society attempting to communicate just that, anyway? That we should all think more critically, question everything about what is happening now, and try to show another way, motivating people to imagine what life would be like if things were different?
This is the work that many of you are already doing and have been doing for some time. Thank you for that. In a better future society we will all have our roles to play and you’ve found yours.
So we’ve put together a small but lovely Symposium with two panels and a keynote speaker all of whom represent some of the voices we feel in this moment should be amplified. They will present work, projects, and ideas focused on detailing the world they see, the changes we should aim to work towards and how artists can and have been inspiring these changes.
We’ve worked hard to put this event together for all of you and for the dream of a better future which we would like to believe some day will come. Please join us!
In Solidarity,
Rachel Uwa
Creative educator, human, and artist at School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe
CODE NL-D Symposium I: Reclaiming Digital Agency
14.00–14.05h Opening and introduction
14.05–15.00h PANEL 1: “What changes do we want?”
In this panel we will put forth several questions in order to dissect and discuss the current state of our digital agency. How do our invited speakers see the power imbalance between technology companies and us as users and consumers? Which technological developments should we be most concerned about? And what kinds of solutions are possible? What changes in legislation need to be made? How can politicians, NGO’s, activists and artists collaborate?
Participants: Evelyn Austin (Bits of Freedom), Leonieke Verhoog (Public Spaces), Queeny Rajkowski (Digital Affairs Committee Dutch Parliament and member of parliament for the liberal VVD party).
15.00–15.15h BREAK
15.15–16.00h KEYNOTE
Jillian C. York is an author and the director of International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
16.00–16.15h BREAK
16.15–17.15h PANEL 2: “How can artists inspire these changes?”
In order to create the changes that are needed to improve our digital agency we need to raise awareness on the issues we are most concerned about. How can we inform the general public and inspire them to learn about and seek alternative platforms and technologies? How can we contribute to the surrounding discussion of these issues in the media? How can artistic intervention lead to dialog with politicians and policy makers in support of legislation that brings the interests of citizens and users to the fore?
Participants: Marek Tuszynski (Creative Director and co-founder of Tactical Tech), Sarah Grant (Founder of Radical Networks) and others.
CODE NL-D is funded by the »Jonge Kunst« funding program, which is jointly supported by the Fonds Soziokultur e.V. (Bonn) and the Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie (Utrecht), Botschaft des Königreichs der Niederlande, Goethe Institute NL, and Creative Industries Fund NL.
A version of this originally appeared on the School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe newsletter. You can sign-up to it here.
