With CODE, we want to make sure the general audience, politicians and policymakers are aware of the digital challenges of our time. We want big tech companies to be regulated, curb their power, and protect our digital rights. What role should governments play, and how can we make them understand the urgency to act? What can we as concerned citizens, researchers, and artists do to support this process?

CODE was initiated in 2021 as a response to growing concerns that we are losing agency over the digital tools and platforms we use on a daily basis. CODE seeks to bring together artists, non-artists, politicians, policy makers and researchers from Germany, Belgium, and The Netherlands to engage in dialogue, critical discussion, and artistic intervention. We hope to be able to influence public policy on a national and international level, by creating awareness for issues at hand, and by defining ways in which we can improve laws and legislation that will protect us as digital citizens and consumers. We want to inspire and facilitate cross-disciplinary collaborations, which hopefully have the potential to catalyse system change.

At Public Spaces, a few of the projects which came out of these collaborations will be presented. The projects are as follows, with detailed explanations for each project below: Turning Tables, Making the Invisible Visible

CODE 2023 is the third edition of CODE, and it organised by IMPAKT [Centre for Media Culture] together with Werktank (Leuven), Privacy Salon/Privacytopia (Brussels) and transmediale (Berlin). CODE 2023 is realised thanks to the kind support of Gemeente Utrecht Stimuleringsfonds and Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie.