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? 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.

According to Adam Greenfield, the familiar contours of everyday life are already being colonised by information processing. What kind of future will this bring us? If we hope to retain any influence over the shape of the world to come, we need to develop critical awareness of the technologies we embrace, as well as the modes of resistance available to us. This key-note is part of the opening programme.

The curators will introduce their festival programme to you. They will discuss how the program has developed from their initial research and the way the art projects and speakers they have selected explore today’s algorithmic superstructures.

During this informal talk with the curators, speakers and artists we want to share and discuss the questions, statements and ideas expressed in the festival so far. What new understandings has the program offered? Can we already imagine new ways to encounter the algorithmic superstructures with creative and critical strategies?