CODE 2024: Reclaiming Digital Agency tackles urgent digital issues, from the Right to be Forgotten and Deep Nudes to AI opacity and digital identity. This exhibition aims to encourage audiences and policymakers to safeguard our digital rights and curb big tech’s power. Featuring artists from Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, CODE 2024 advocates for action through vibrant digital art and interactive media.
CODE 2024: Reclaiming Digital Agency tackles urgent digital challenges head-on, from the Right to be Forgotten, Deep Nudes and the opacity of machine learning to personal identity and public perception. CODE 2024 looks at technology with a critical but hopeful approach. Instead of coming up with new platforms to replace existing ones, CODE seeks to work together with politicians and policymakers to change substantially the way Big Tech companies operate and force them to adhere to stricter and democratically-decided legislation. By presenting artistic interventions made by artists, non-artists, policymakers and researchers, this exhibition asks: How can governments better protect our digital rights, and how can we convey the urgency of the need to act? What steps can we, as concerned citizens, users, researchers, and artists, take to support this critical process?
CODE brings together participants based in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. This exhibition is the result of a co-creation process in which the artists collaborated for over six months. It showcases a mix of digital art installations, interactive media and immersive experiences. Featuring works by Dorijn Boogaard, Cyan D’Anjou, Colas Fiszman, Bjørn Erik Haugen, Mona Hedayati, Hsiang-Yun Huang, Lotte Louise de Jong, Amber Macintyre, Wouter Maas, Aleksandra Naydenova, Claudia Oliveira, Kurina Sohn, Marcel Top, Sander Veenhof, Wessel de Weijer, and Gema Fernández Blanco Martín.
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Dual Narratives
Christian Schwarz (AT), Colas Fiszman (BE), Marcel Top (BE), Bjørn Erik Haugen (NO)
Dual Narratives explores the dichotomy between personal identity and public perception through an immersive and interactive media experience. The installation directly engages participants, prompting reflection on the nature of digital identity and the impact of social media storytelling.
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Espresso Exposé
Mona Hedayati (CA), Wouter Maas (NL), Sander Veenhof (NL)
Espresso Exposé is an interactive artwork that shines a light on how AI is increasingly reconfiguring our daily lives. Through interactions with a “coffee recommender” agent, with some unexpected twists, the audience is confronted with the contrast between direct front-end results and opaque back-end processes of machine learning operations.
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meta:morphosis
Aleksandra Naydenova (BG), Amber Macintyre (GB), Cyan D’Anjou (US/NL), Dorijn Boogaard (NL), Kurina Sohn (KR)
Inspired by the Right to be Forgotten legislation, meta:morphosis features a workshop and an interactive installation where participants can explore their digital pasts and learn to reshape online narratives. Audience members will add their own experiences with data by writing on dissolvable soap paper and then putting it into a fountain (like a coin to…
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ToyBoi
Hsiang-Yun Huang (TW), Claudia Oliveira (PT), Lotte Louise de Jong (NL), Gema FB Martín (ES)
ToyBoi reflects on the patriarchal infrastructure of Deep Nude technology. Specifically, it refers to AI tools that are often used to generate non-consensual nude images of women. While these tools effectively strip women, they often fail to undress men realistically, resulting in images of men with deformed genitalia.
IMPAKT (NL)
IMPAKT is a media art organization based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. IMPAKT takes a critical and creative look at how technology and media are changing society. Throughout the year, it organizes various activities such as residencies, exhibitions, artist talks and a yearly festival.
Werktank (BE)
Werktank is a production platform for media art based in Leuven, Belgium that supports the realization and distribution of installation art that investigates the relation between technology and perception.
Credits
IMPAKT: Arjon Dunnewind (Curator), Philine Kreuzer (Coordinator & Producer), Bram Koning (Producer) / Werktank: Kurt d’Haeseleer (Curator), Anouk Focquier (Advisor) / NØ SCHOOL: Dasha Ilina (Mentor), Benjamin Gaulon (Mentor) / External Mentors: Ahnjili Zhuparris, Régine Debatty
CODE 2024 is funded by Stichting Doen, Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie, the Gemeente Utrecht and the Flemish Authorities.
