This year, the Impakt Festival has teamed up with the Centre for Humanities and the MA New Media and Digital Culture at Utrecht University to develop an academic program. Also thanks to the contribution of the Centre of Humanities, we proudly present this year’s festival fellow: Mercedes Bunz. Her fellowship will address digital truth, critical approaches to data visualization, and socio-political issues of digitalization and citizenship.

Mercedes Bunz is an art historian, philosopher and journalist. She co-founded and headed as its editor-in-chief the legendary German magazine De-Bug, that specializes in electronic music and digital culture. As editor-in-chief, she also directed the Berlin city magazine Zitty and the online edition of Der Tagespiegel. From 2009 to 2011 she worked for The Guardian as a media and technology reporter. Bunz was awarded the Fachjournalisten-Preis in 2010.

Bunz holds a PhD from the Bauhaus University Weimar. She published a book on the history of the Internet (Vom Speicher zum Verteiler – Die Geschichte des Internet, 2009). Her forthcoming book (Digitale Wahrheiten, 2011) investigates how algorithms shape our everyday life.

As preface to the Impakt Festival, Mercedes Bunz will give an inaugural lecture titled on ‘Digital Truth’ in the Academiegebouw of the Utrecht University on 21 October. During the festival, Bunz will be involved in the symposium Trouble Ahead and in the panel discussion that same day. In addition, she will give exclusive master classes to master students during the festival.