In November 2024 we launched the fifth CODE open call for participants, in collaboration with Werktank, NØ SCHOOL, PrivacySalon and Kunsthal Mechelen. The call was open to anyone from Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands who shared our concern about digital rights and the power of big tech companies. Participants were selected on the basis of their motivation.

The aim of the CODE 2025 programme is to influence public policy on a national and international level, by creating awareness and by defining ways in which we can improve laws and legislation that will protect us as digital citizens and consumers. For the next months, from February until July 2025, we will therefore work closely together in a co-creation process consisting of a series of events: five workshops, a three-day hackathon, various presentations at inspiring festivals, and an online exhibition. We will develop interventions and awareness campaigns to expose the power of tech companies and to activate politicians, policymakers and citizens to take action.

MEET THE PARTICIPANTS OF CODE 2025

Anastasia Karagianni (BE)
Anastasia Karagianni is a doctoral researcher in Law, Gender and Technology at the Law Science Technology and Society research group of Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB). She is also a former FARI scholar. FARI, an initiative from the VUB and Université Libre de Bruxelles, is an independent Institute that supports research in AI. Anastasia is co-founder of DATAWO, a Greece-based civil society organisation advocating for gender equality in the digital era, and founder of femme group Brussels GR. She was a 2023 MozFest Ambassador and a Mozilla Awardee for the project A Feminist Dictionary in AI, developed within the Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence working group.

Antoine Begon (BE)
Antoine Begon is a software developer and digital artist challenging the dominance of major platforms while preserving space for freedom, expression and poetry in the cyber world. Their work spans from teaching digital literacy to marginalized communities, getting involved in libre software (open-source) and digital commons, as well as developing creative softwares and games.

August Kaasa Sundgaard (NL)
August Kaasa Sundgaard is an artist and digital culture researcher with a Culture, History and Society BA from Leiden University College, currently interning for the Institute of Network Cultures. His research explores topics such as post-internet art, digital subcultures, platform politics, surveillance-tech, and the military-entertainment complex. In his artistic practice, August works with video, digital performance, and publications while examining themes such as algorithmic surveillance, digital immortality, and online religiosity.

Ayoon Ro (NL)
Ayoon Ro is a South Korean-born, Amsterdam-based artist exploring the fragile tension between destruction and beauty through her paintings. Expanding her artistic practice into digital media, she works with animation, gaming, and extended reality (XR) with a focus on challenging how we experience memory and emotion. Through her work, Ayoon invites us to introspect into the imperfect nature of being human. 

Benze de Ream (NL)
Benze De Ream is a multidisciplinary designer and researcher working with moving image, new media, spatial installation, text, and sound. With a background in sound arts and hands-on experience in carpentry and metalwork, his practice involves creating environments which abstract and distort variations of reality to expose its discursive absurdities. Benze’s research explores the political, social, and material impacts of computational influence, translating digital phenomena into physical forms to challenge dominant and oppressive narratives.

Caitlin van Bommel (NL)
Caitlin van Bommel is a current New Media and Digital Culture student at the University of Amsterdam, focusing on accelerationist philosophy and Silicon Valley. She helps run the network cultures organisation Terminally Online and is a writer/editor for FARSIGHT magazine. Caitlin has contributed to a speculative design and AI imaginary exhibition at the NXT Museum, the AI_Anxiety symposium for the Institute of Network Cultures, and worked for the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. Her research interests include speculative futures, the microchip industry, and digital divinity.

Colas Fiszman (BE)
Colas Fiszman is a media artist and designer with a background in visual effects for film, television, and commercials across Europe and North America. Currently based in Brussels, he is the founder of Tyrell, a multidisciplinary design studio specializing in media art installations and audiovisual performances for public spaces and major events. Colas’ work, which aims to use technology and information as artistic fabric, has been showcased at international festivals and institutions, including Mapping Festival, ArsElectronica, Bright Festival, Riyadh Light Festival, Volvo Art Session, and RXPerience. 

David van Walderveen (NL)
David van Walderveen is a designer working with various mediums to shape brands, events, and policies with the underlying goal of translating messages to target audiences. Currently based in Utrecht, he works at an institute for fundamental energy research, bridging scientific knowledge with industry, politics, and the general public. Passionate about the frankness of science and concerned about digital spaces, David is interested in bringing this forthrightness to the digital as a means to reclaim online transparency. 

Denisa Pubalova (NL)
Denisa Půbalová is an audiovisual artist, researcher, creative coder, and lecturer focused on environmental philosophy, critical posthumanism, and technological infrastructures. Her current research, at the intersection of arts and science, explores the role of diatoms (microalgae) as climate storytellers and critically reflects on Earth’s digital twin. For her artistic research, Denisa has collaborated with Waag Futurelab, Posthuman Art Network CA, and Artbiom Prague. She is co-founder of the collective sikau/pubalova, which has been commissioned by Ars Electronica, IMPAKT Festival, Science Gallery Bengaluru, among others. Additionally, she works as a creative software developer at Woven Studio, where she translates environmental data into data-driven art installations, and as a visual artist with Metanoia Creatives, a collective creating digital animation, generative arts, projection mappings, and large-scale audio-visual events. 

Elena P. Zaghis (NL)
Elena Zaghis is a Millennial proselyte of the gaming age operating at the intersection of Digital Culture, Speculative Design, and Design Fiction. Currently part of AIxDESIGN and The New Centre for Research & Practice, Elena is devoted to the exploration of alternative futures in this era of technological acceleration. Her work shapeshifts to fit its context — to examine the relationships between simulation and authenticity, alienation and liberation, and machine and indulgence. 

Franc Archive (NL)
Franc Archive is a Netherlands-based multidisciplinary artist from Cyprus. With a background as an urban artist and degrees in Graphic Design and Media Art, he creates immersive, multi-screen installations with an urban character and satirical edge. His work blends his street art roots with digital media to critique contemporary issues such as information overload, fake news, and the growing influence of artificial intelligence.

Freyja van den Boom (BE)
Freyja van den Boom is a transdisciplinary researcher exploring how anticipatory governance can shape emerging technologies for better futures while mitigating risks and harm caused by increasingly AI-enabled societies. Her work has focused on issues related to protection of privacy, data rights, autonomous vehicles, drones, and 3D printing. Freyja’s current artistic research focuses on anticipatory AI governance, AI stakeholder influence, and policy at national and global levels. She draws from topics such as glitch feminism, open-source culture, speculative critical design, and futures thinking.

Gema FB Martín (NL)
Gema FB Martín is a social scientist, clinical psychologist, and media artist. She does academic research on how technologies work and their societal impact from a psychological perspective (specifically in artificial emotions).Based in Utrecht, Gema works as a lecturer and researcher. Her work blends art, science, and tech, with a focus on sound fiction and conceptual projects. She previously collaborated with CODE 2024 on ToyBoi, exploring themes of AI ethics and the male gaze.

Giulia Timis (NL)
Giulia Timis is a visual artist and researcher based in Amsterdam. Her works experiment with the creation of virtual worlds, playing with the various possible interactions between digital emotional landscapes and performance practices. Giulia is an affiliate researcher at the Institute of Network Cultures and part of the expanded publishing project THE VOID. Her works have been featured at Sónar Festival, UNSOUND and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. 

Isabella Bremmers-Carrasco (NL)
Isabella Bremmers-Carrasco is a PhD candidate at the KIN Centre for Digital Innovation at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the legitimacy, creation, and attainment of new organizational forms, particularly digitally enabled platforms. Before joining KIN, Isabella held various roles within the UK Government and the United Nations, specializing in digital technologies and their impact on governmental and business practices. 

Jaap Goldhoorn (NL) 
Jaap Goldhoorn comes from a background in engineering with an interest in exploring the social realities of an increasingly technologically advanced society. Currently, Jaap interns as a coach in a multidisciplinary makerspace for children, helping them use technical tools to realise ideas in a safe and supportive environment that encourages experimentation.

Joyce den Hertog (NL)
​​Joyce den Hertog is a creative technologist and a mixed-media artist with a curiosity for the intersection between technology and traditional arts such as dance, poetry, and theatre. With a MSc in Media Technology, she has published on text-to-motion AI generating dance movements from poetic input. She works with motion capture, lights, visuals, sensors, AI and mixed media to explore themes of fragility, time, and what it means to be human in an AI-driven world. She has participated in residencies across Europe and Japan and enjoys collaborating with others to integrate new technologies into performance art and live shows. 

Kaspar Ravel (BE)
Kaspar Ravel is a researcher in tactical media, as well as a teacher and artist designing and employing safe(r) technologies to address societal issues. Their practice takes the form of ‘poelitical’ experiments, merging poetic expression and political critique through art and investigative practices. They work collaboratively with schools, embassies, NGOs, designers and activists, helping them develop tools to short-circuit our uneasy present and inspire alternative futures. As a self-taught coder, Kaspar also volunteers making data visualisations and writing tech reports for militant groups working on geopolitical conflicts and digital privacy. 

Lena Defay (NL)
Lena Defay is a User Experience Researcher with over five years of experience in the tech industry, focused on designing user-centric systems. Passionate about enhancing urban living, Lena explores how public spaces can increasingly prioritize the comfort, privacy, and digital autonomy of its citizens.

Lina Mittendorff (NL)
Lina Mittendorff is a writer and spatial researcher currently studying at the Studio for Immediate Spaces at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. With a Bachelor in anthropology, she is primarily concerned with the (im)material spatialities of everyday life. Having an interest in alternative modes of experiencing reality, Lina’s current focus within CODE 2025 lies in the imminent societal entanglement with (information) technologies and the inherently political, social, and normative currents that underlie these affective encounters.

Luis Ferreira (NL)
Luis Ferreira is a creative technologist based in Eindhoven, focused on bridging the digital and physical to enable new forms of creativity and expression. With a background in engineering and a passion for blending technology and art, Luis develops interactive tools and generative experiences that connect disciplines in innovative ways. 

Marianna Stefanitsi (NL)
Marianna Stefanitsi is an interdisciplinary practitioner working across art, research, and communication. Her practice centers on creative labor, art institutions, digital media, and intersectional feminism. She engages with both the structural and affective dimensions of cultural production. Through research-driven projects, she explores how care, value, and cultural practices take shape within contemporary artistic ecosystems, working through writing, installation, and collaborative formats. Since 2019, she has been a core member of the Centre of New Media and Feminist Public Practices, contributing to research initiatives. Additionally, she participates in transdisciplinary exhibitions, residencies, and public programs that connect artistic and academic spheres.

Minka de Regt (NL)
Minka de Regt is an interdisciplinary feminist researcher, interested in merging sound studies, digital media, and multisensory ethnography. She holds a research master’s degree in Gender Studies and a bachelor’s in Cultural Anthropology from Utrecht University. Her ethnographic research project, “Commoning through Sound”, analysed online community radio in Copenhagen and Palestine from a transnational perspective. Beyond academia, Minka is a Rotterdam-based DJ and radio maker, hosting residency shows at Retreat Radio (Malmö) and Stranded FM (Utrecht).

Montse Ollés Roig (NL)
Montse Ollés Roig is an interdisciplinary researcher with a background in social sciences and creative technology. Her research takes a systemic, relational and transdisciplinary approach to contemporary issues. She is driven by the potential of art, design and participatory processes for social change and social justice. Montse has experience in the field of ethical AI, Human Rights, Human-Computer Interaction, critical data studies, and digital degrowth. She is currently interested in social biomimicry and regenerative design practices. 

Queenie F Charles (BE)
Queenie F. Charles is a graphic designer, DJ, and new media artist. They explore the nostalgia associated with our uses of technology to reflect on our current and evolving digital relationships. Queenie’s practice seeks to contrast the technical precision acquired through their experience as a graphic designer with the tactical use of technology, negotiating its different uses and developing empirical approaches as tools for reflection.

Rising Lai (BE)
Rising Lai is an artistic researcher, critical designer and current PhD candidate in the research unit of Contextualised Creation at KU Leuven in Belgium. Focused on uncovering the stories behind objects, they explore the complexity of human creations–from industrial products to cultural artefacts–and curate these narratives in a communicative manner. Through design, Rising’s work researches the relationships between society, individuals and material culture. Their work takes the form of objects, installations, exhibitions, videos and writing.

Sophia Bulgakova (NL)
Sophia Bulgakova is a Ukranian interdisciplinary artist, scientist and activist, currently based in the Netherlands. She works with art, technology, and contemporary social structures, focusing on the relationship between cultural identity, perception, and imagination. Sophia seeks to impact people’s way of perceiving and reenvisioning reality. In her installations and performances, she approaches this by utilising various sensorial inputs. Her works incorporate various projection techniques, interactive soundscapes, AI and XR technologies to create embodied immersive experiences that challenge conventional narratives. 

Susannah Montgomery (NL)
Susannah Montgomery is a Business Development Manager at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Culture & Creativity, where she connects stakeholders to drive innovation in the culture and creative sectors. She specializes in making complex topics, such as AI, misinformation, and European values, tangible through interactive experiences. Recently, she has managed cultural game jams across Europe for the EPIC-WE project and co-created Fabricated – Unravel Fact from Fiction in Your Digital World, an award-winning exhibition engaging participants across Europe and the United States on AI, misinformation, and digitization.

Xuanning Chen (NL)
Xuanning Chen is an artist based in China and the Netherlands. They graduated from the Media, Art, Design, and Technology (MADtech) program from the Frank Mohr Institute in Groningen. Xuanning works with electronics, art, hardware, and software, as a means to design and sell modular synthesizer parts. 

 

CODE 2025 is the fifth edition of CODE, and is organised by IMPAKT [Centre for Media Culture], Werktank (Leuven), NØ SCHOOL (Nevers), PrivacySalon (Brussels) and Kunsthal Mechelen. CODE 2025 is realised thanks to the kind support of Creative Industries Fund NL and laureate of the programme IF Export 2024 from the Institut Français.