IMPAKT Festival 2018: Algorithmic Superstructures, curated by Alex Anikinia, Luba Elliott and Yasemin Keskintepe, took place from 24 until 28 October.

Algorithmic superstructures are looking over your shoulder. Moving as you move, determining what you see, anticipating what you desire, they construct the reality around you. How and when did that happen, and why haven’t we noticed?

Algorithmic superstructures re-imagine the world as a matter of computational design. Caught in the interconnections of opaque operating systems, created in pursuit of profit and control, we have become streams of data subjected to continuous analysis.

As the democratic foundations of our society are being actively hollowed out and populist rhetoric takes over public space, protocols and interfaces come to govern our experiences, aspirations, life decisions and even politics. The IMPAKT Festival 2018 explores the architecture behind algorithmic super-structures. What hidden realities and new imaginaries do algorithmic superstructures uncover in the post-truth era?

About the curators:

Luba Elliott (UK)

Luba Elliott is a curator, researcher and consultant specialising in creative applications of artificial intelligence. She is the founder of the Creative AI meetup and has curated events and exhibitions on art and AI.

Yasemin Keskintepe (Germany)

Yasemin Keskintepe is a curator and researcher whose work examines the politics and poetics of digital condition. Since 2016 she is working at the ZKM | Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe, where she is the co-curator of the exhibition Open Codes. Living in Digital Worlds, and most recently Digital Culture Techniques in Mumbai.

Alex Anikina (UK/Russia)

Alex Anikina is an artist, researcher and film-maker. Her work has been shown internationally, VI Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, IV and V Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin among others. She is currently a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths, where she is also Assistant Lecturer in Film and the Audiovisual.