Meetups for the Borders of Fear conference
Meetups for the Data Cities conference
Summer meetup - 2020
Meetups for the Evicted by Greed conference
Network photo: Rosa-Luxemburg Stiftung publication: Wem zahle ich eigentlich Miete? Authors: Adrian Garcia-Landa, Christoph Trautvetter
Meetups for the Activation 2019 conference
Meetups for the Citizens of Evidence conference
Meetups for the AI Traps conference
Meetups for the Dark Havens conference
EVICTED BY GREED Online Workshop: Mapping Berlin’s property owners
Wednesday 6 May 2020, 19:00 - 21:00, online
Registration required as spots are limited - email us at info@disruptionlab.org to join
Who are you paying rent to? Who owns your house, and which company structures are behind it?
Many groups in Berlin have been working on data investigations to answer such questions: when combined, such data could have a big impact on understanding and fighting the financial speculation in the housing market.
Warming up to our online conference EVICTED BY GREED: Global Finance, Housing & Resistance (29-31 May 2020),, Christoph Trautvetter (Netzwerk Steuergerechtigkeit / Wem gehört die Stadt (RLS)), will lead a workshop on different ways of mapping Berlin’s property ownership. Participants will hear more about and can try out different datasets of several Berlin-based initiatives that have worked on data investigations, do some guided research on their own cases and discuss together how we could work towards a common database that answers all questions of tenants in Berlin and beyond.
Programme – Starting from 19:00
Introduction by Christoph Trautvetter
Short presentations on data research by:
KunstBlock
Bündnis Zwangsräumung verhindern
Guerrilla Architects
Breakout groups to work on specific cases
Final discusssion
Workshop: Mapping Berlin’s property owners
When you try to map who owns Berlin’s properties, you run into several problems. You can’t get any data unless you collect it individually from tenants, or from others who have done such research. You can also get some information from websites like Immobilienscout, but that often doesn’t contain the address of the house or the owner but usually just the name of the agent or the administrator who is taking care of the sale or rental process. The second problem is, the data collected from the tenants gives you the direct legal owner but doesn’t tell you anything about who’s behind that company.
Many initiatives have collected and sometimes mapped real estate data to trace specific issues to spread local stories and build support networks or more recently to better understand the structure of real estate ownership (as Tagesspiegel & Wem Gehört Berlin with this search engine). For the project “Who owns the city” of the Rosa- Luxemburg Foundation, Christoph Trautvetter has issued a guidebook for tenants Wem zahle ich eigentlich Miete? (Who am I paying rent to?) and is currently collecting, analyzing and combining existing data.
In this workshop, led by Christoph Trautvetter (Netzwerk Steuergerechtigkeit / Wem gehört die Stadt), we will find out more on how to research who owns your house, where to get the data, and how to come to a common future database. Participants are invited to bring their own (or their friends’/neighbours’) cases and issues, search them in the existing databases, do some guided research on them and help us understand together what additional information and tools would be required in future to really answer the questions of the tenants in Berlin and beyond.
Registration
The event is free of admission but the number of participants is limited. Booking is essential.
To register, please write to info@disruptionlab.org with your name and we will send you the link to join the online workshop.
EVICTED BY GREED Online Meetup: Eviction in times of crisis
Wednesday 22 April 2020, 19:00 - 20:30, online
Registration required as spots are limited - email us at info@disruptionlab.org to join
Since the corona pandemic, issues of affordable housing and speculation are as pressing as never before. How are activists in the city dealing with the current crisis? How are they restructuring their work and keep fighting for affordable housing for all, and what is happening to stop evictions in times where people are urged to stay at home?
Warming up to our online conference EVICTED BY GREED: Global Finance, Housing & Resistance (29-31 May 2020), we invite you to join a collective discussion with two collectives working on housing issues. The Syndikat collective, who has been running their Neukölln bar since 1985, will share the story of how they uncovered the ownership structures of their building, and how this brought them to a letterbox with 75 other names in Luxembourg. Also, they will give an update on the situation around their eviction previously planned for 17 April 2020. The Bündnis Zwangsräumung verhindern will speak about how they work on stopping forced evictions in Berlin, especially in these difficult times.
Programme – Starting from 19:00
Introduction of participants
Talk by Syndikat collective on their research
Talk by Bündnis Zwangsräumung verhindern on their work
Collective discussion
Communities:
Kollektiv Syndikat
Syndikat is a collectively self-organised neighbourhood bar that has existed in Neukölln's Schillerkiez since 1985. In the summer of 2018, Syndikat received an eviction notice, and supporters began the search for the actual figure behind the Luxembourg letterbox company to which the building at Weisestraße 56 belongs – at least on paper. They encountered not only a vast network of dozens of shell companies, but also the beneficiary of the entire construct: Pears Global, until that point a still-undiscovered but major player on the Berlin real estate market. The eviction of the Syndikat bar was originally planned for 17 April 2020, but has for now been cancelled for that day.
Bündnis Zwangsräumung Verhindern [Stop Evictions]
The Stop Evictions alliance has been struggling since 2012 through many forms of civil disobedience for the right of housing. At the heart of our action is the issue of forced evictions in Berlin. In recent years displacement of people on lower incomes from the city centre has become a sad reality. The process is similar to many other cities, the speculative strategies of private owners, real estate and public housing companies who are trying to extract the maximum profit from their houses. Forced evictions have been increasing massively and finding a new house has become a challenge for many of us due to skyrocketing prices. More and more tenants are left behind in hopeless situations until the bailiffs come. Our group strives for a society based on mutual aid and solidarity, and organizes diverse and public protest against this together with those who have been affected.
Registration
The event is free of admission but the number of participants is limited. Booking is essential.
To register, please write to info@disruptionlab.org with your name and we will send you the link to join the online call.
EVICTED BY GREED Meetup: Pushing back against housing disruptors
Wednesday 4 March 2020 at ACUD MACHT NEU, Veteranenstr 21, 10119 Berlin (U8 Rosenthaler Platz)
How can we counter the disruptive impact of financial speculation in the real estate market? What are the strategies of some of the many Berlin-based activist collectives, how do they organise their communities? What are their plans for the upcoming Housing Action Day on 28 March, when people across Europe will take to the streets to demand that their homes and cities must stop being sources of profit?
In our first community meetup of the year, we invite you to join us for a warm-up to the first Disruption Network Lab event of the year, EVICTED BY GREED: Global Finance, Housing and Resistance, which focuses on the issues of financial corruption and tax havens in the real estate market and the countermeasures adopted by civil society.
We will hear from three Berlin-based initiatives, Berlin vs. Amazon, Kotti & Co and KunstBlock and beyond how they work on collective responses to the ever-increasing disruption of the housing market by speculators and real estate investors, with a special focus on what they are planning for the upcoming Housing Action Day on Saturday 28 March.
Program - starting from 19:00:
Introduction to the EVICTED BY GREED conference
Input presentations by Berlin vs. Amazon, Kotti & Co and KunstBlock
Open discussion
Drinks and networking
Communities
Berlin vs. Amazon is a a coalition of activists, local initiatives, tech workers and artists who want to mobilize against Amazon and the so-called Amazon Tower, Berlin's tallest building which is scheduled to be completeled in 2023 on the Warschauer Bridge. When Amazon comes to Freidrichshain, the neighborhood will see a demographic shift, with tech firms disrupting the neighborhood staples: small businesses, schools, community initiatives and cultural centers. In Silicon Valley, the consequences of laissez faire capitalism are apparent. The recent victories in New York City and Kreuzberg show that we are not simply at the mercy of real estate, but that we can successfully push back against tech giants through grassroots coalitions. https://www.berlinvsamazon.com/en
Kotti & Co is a Berlin-based tenant initiative that formed at Kottbusser Tor in Kreuzberg in 2011 to fight against rising rents in their social housing buildings, which force more and more neighbours to move out. In 2012 Kotti & co occupied the square in front of the social housing at Kottbusser Tor (Kotti) with a self-built wooden house (Gecekondu – Turkish for ‘built overnight’): since then they have been protesting against the displacement of tenants with low incomes from the city centre and the high rents of Berlin's social housing. Beside being a tenant initiative, Kotti & co is a project of diversity – bringing together a wide range of different people, who would usually live a typical urban life next to each other but not connecting with each other. https://kottiundco.net
Kunstblock and beyond is an association of art and culture producers who joined the Bündnis gegen Verdrängung und Mietenwahnsinn in 2018 to show their solidarity against segregation, gentrification and the sell-out of the city. Art is not outside, but often a part of the city's upgrading. Kunstblock and beyond explicitly resists any appropriation and instrumentalisation of artists, art institutions and cultural funding for city marketing or enhancement in the service of the profits of the real estate and tourism industry. They uncover art-commercial-marketing strategies, stimulate debates and make resistance to displacement visible in artistic actions and public relations. https://twitter.com/kunstblockb
DISRUPT THE SYSTEM NOT THE CLIMATE: Surveillance, Climate Change & Global Conflict
Friday 6 December 2019, 19:30 at ACUD MACHT NEU, Veteranenstr 21, 10119 Berlin
(U8 Rosenthaler Platz)
Entrance is free, but donations to support our work are welcome
DISRUPT THE SYSTEM NOT THE CLIMATE is Disruption Network Lab’s closing event of 2019, which wraps up our 2019 conference series ‘The Art of Exposing Injustice’, as well as the first year of the Activation community programme. Following our previous conferences on exposing pervasive forms of control and investigating ways to produce technological and political awareness, the programme involves the Berlin-based Digitale Freiheit (Digital Freedom) collective and Australian journalist and OSINT researcher Michael Cruickshank. The talks will address respectively counter-surveillance techniques and the right to privacy as well as how climate change is intertwined with political conflicts. After the talks, the privacy-electropunk band “Systemabsturz” will perform live!
The programme of the evening is curated by Tatiana Bazzichelli & Lieke Ploeger.
Programme – Starting from 19:30
Presentation by Digitale Freiheit on their interventions against mass surveillance and facial recognition at the Südkreuz station in Berlin
OSINT for the Anthropocene Epoch: talk by Michael Cruickshank on how the field of open-source intelli-gence (OSINT) can be applied to the numerous emerging conflicts caused by the accelerating climate crisis
Workshop by Michael Cruickshank on OSINT research related to climate crisis
Live set: Systemabsturz - privacy-electropunk band
Bar open until midnight
Speakers
Digitale Freiheit
digitale-freiheit.jetzt
Twitter: @DigitalFreiheit
Because currently one security law is passed after the other, but nobody has the idea to write freedom laws, Digitale Freiheit was founded in the summer of 2017. They are a group of young people who are committed to fighting with colorful and loud actions against mass surveillance and for more privacy. They want awareness about the impact of surveillance and underline why democracy needs privacy. They do this with political actions such as flash mobs, protests, workshops, movie nights or parties.
Since August 2017, as part of a joint project between the German Ministry of the Interior, the Federal Police, the BKA and Deutsche Bahn AG, systems of "intelligent" video surveillance have been tested at the Berlin railway station Südkreuz. The project was divided into two subprojects: in the first project, the police tested the use of live facial recognition systems. In the second project, which ended this month, the police tested the use of live behaviour detection systems. Members of Digitale Freiheit will talk about their interventions against this, the global picture and their other actions for privacy.
Michael Cruickshank
Freelance Journalist and OSINT Researcher
Twitter: @MJ_Cruickshank
Michael Cruickshank is a freelance journalist and open-source intelligence (OSINT) researcher originally from Australia. After graduating from the University of Queensland, he studied at Shanghai’s Fudan University before moving to Europe. For the last few years he has been investigating the nexus of security, technology and the climate crisis, and has published articles from a range of locations around the world. Currently, he is working on a new project called ‘Anthropocene Intel’ which attempts to model and predict security crises caused by enviro-political factors.
OSINT for the Anthropocene Epoch
This talk and workshop looks at how the field of open-source intelligence (OSINT) can be applied to the numerous emerging conflicts caused by the accelerating climate crisis. It will discuss the utility of OSINT and why it is uniquely well-positioned for reporting and analysis of the effects of climate change on global security. Michael Cruickshank will present the common tools and approaches used within OSINT research before moving on to show how these can be applied to climate conflicts and humanitarian crisis around the world. He will complement this with example case studies showing how these techniques can be applied in practice. Finally, Michael will present a concept for how these small-scale investigations can be scaled up to provide a regional or even global model of how the environment, politics, and security are linked.
Following the talk, Michael will present a practical workshop on OSINT research. This workshop will teach attendees how to use common OSINT techniques for a wide variety of situations and investigations.
Systemabsturz
Twitter: @system_absturz
Systemabsturz (German for system crash) is a data privacy electro punk band from Berlin. Following their duty as good citizens they call for an even faster teardown of civil rights and more surveillance for everyone.
ACTIVATION Meetup: Circle of Exchange
Tuesday 12 November 2019 at STATE Studio, Hauptstr 3, 10827 Berlin (U7 Kleistpark)
On 30 November 2019 we will host our closing community gathering of the year, ACTIVATION: Collective Strategies to Expose Injustice, at Studio 1, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, where we bring together the different communities, collaborators and initiatives that worked with us over the course of the year through our Activation community program, and look back together at our conference topics of 2019.
Leading up to this event, we invite you for an evening with some of our collaboration partners of 2019: SUPERMARKT, r0g agency, School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe and STATE Studio, to hear more on their strategies and initiatives for working on social, political and cultural change, and how they involve community in their projects.
Program - starting from 19:00:
Introducing the first Activation community gathering
Circle of exchange with:
Ela Kagel (SUPERMARKT)
Rachel Uwa (School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe)
Stephen Kovats (r0g agency for open culture)
Johanna Wallenborn (STATE Studio)
Drinks and networking
Participants
Supermarkt is an independent project space in Berlin-Kreuzberg that organizes projects, workshops and conferences on digital culture and alternative economies. SUPERMARKT’s program increasingly focuses on the intersection of technology, money and society. The current program includes the event series MONEY TALKS, a bi-monthly talk and discussion format which features experts on alternative money systems, community currencies and collaborative economies, PLATFORM COOPS BERLIN: an event series based on new cooperatives and the link to the digital economy and FACILITATE CHANGE!, which invites coaches, curators and everyone interested in collaborative group work to get a deeper understanding of the methodologies of group facilitation. In 2019 they have hosted several workshops of the Disruption Network Lab.
School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe provides one-of-a-kind hands-on learning experiences in the areas of art, technology, design, and human connection. Their philosophy is centered around the idea that we are all lifelong learners. They would love for their students to leave our programs activated; not only equipped with technical and hands-on tools and skill sets, but also critically-minded, more deeply engaged with their surroundings and with themselves. They embrace art, creativity and exploring the latest technology and ourselves with openness, humility, and curiosity. We have collaborated in 2019 on the Evidence program, connected to our Citizens of Evidence conference.
As a collaborative and internationally networked organisation, _r0g / agency for open culture and critical transformation supports sustainable and hybrid forms of cultural innovation and social enterprise in regions undergoing rapid and fundamental transformation. Following a philosophy of ‘open knowledge for open societies’ r0g_ acts to put into practice the mechanisms of sustainable open source methodologies using appropriate and community based technologies. It sees these as tools for empowering citizens, where exchange, collaborative production and access to open knowledge are of fundamental importance in creating free and open societies. Their particular focus is on how these mechanisms can held enable peace and foster innovation in crisis and post-conflict regions.
STATE Studio, our host of the meetups in 2019 of our Activation program, is a public gallery, showroom and event space in central Berlin. It’s a place for creative synergies between science, art, and innovation to discover and explore the breakthrough developments that shape our future. Through its exhibition laboratory and open program, it offers curated deep-dives into current trends in cutting-edge research and innovation. In October 2019, STATE Studio was involved in the “Pocket Democracy” workshop and conference between Berlin and Seattle to investigate how digital technologies can be used for alternative political solutions.
CITIZENS OF EVIDENCE Meetup:
Searching the Earth: Using geolocation techniques as a verification method
Wednesday 2 October 2019, 19:00 at STATE Studio, Hauptstr 3, 10827 Berlin (U7 Kleistpark)
Free admission – registration required as spots are limited.
After our 17th conference Citizens of Evidence: Independent Investigations for Change (20-21 September 2019, Studio 1, Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien), we invite you to join us for a workshop by Hadi Al Khatib of the Syrian Archive on their workflow for collecting and verifying information about human rights violations – with a special focus on geolocation techniques.
Program - starts from 19:00:
Lookback on the conference Citizens of Evidence: Independent Investigations for Change
Introduction to the Syrian Archive
Workshop
Drinks and networking
The Syrian Archive (https://syrianarchive.org/en/about) is an open source platform that collects, curates, verifies, and preserves visual documentation of human rights violations in Syria. It aims to preserve data as a digital memory, to establish a verified database of human rights violations, and to act as an evidence tool for legally implementing justice and accountability as concept and practice in Syria. Transparent, detailed, and reliable visual documentation is critical towards providing accountability and can positively contribute to post-conflict reconstruction and stability.
Workshop: Searching the Earth: Using geolocation techniques as a verification method
Participants will be introduced to the geolocation techniques: determining the exact location where a photo or video was taken in order to verify it. Online maps and satellite imagery services are important tools for this verification method that is used by investigative journalists as well as international human rights organizations and institutions such as the International Criminal Court.
During the workshop, the Syrian Archive's workflow on how to collect and verify information about attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure will be presented.
Participants need to bring their computers with Google Earth pro (https://www.google.com/earth/versions/#download-pro) installed on them.
Registration:
The workshop is free of admission and the number of seats is limited to 20. Booking is essential.
To register, please write to info@disruptionlab.org with your name
Please make sure to attend the workshop if you confirm your availability. If you can't attend please inform us so we give your place to another participant from the waitlist.
Workshop instructor:
Hadi Al Khatib is the Founder and Director of the Syrian Archive. He has been working since 2011 on collecting, verifying, and investigating citizen-generated data as evidence of human rights violations in order to expose and draw attention to human rights violations committed by all sides in the Syrian conflict, and to make sure that journalists and lawyers are able to use the verified data for their investigations and criminal case building. Hadi has previously worked with Tactical Technology Collective for the last 5 years to support journalists and news agencies in securing their data, devices and communications online. He has also worked as a part-time open source investigator with Human Rights Watch and Bellingcat. He is a fellow at the Centre for Internet and Human Rights, and is currently teaching a Masters of Arts course for the Raumstrategien program at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee.
CITIZENS OF EVIDENCE Meetup:
Secure Self-Hosted File Distribution Systems for Everyone
Wednesday 4 September 2019, 19:00 at STATE Studio, Hauptstr 3, 10827 Berlin (U7 Kleistpark)
Free admission – registration required as spots are limited.
In preparation of the Disruption Network Lab 17th conference Citizens of Evidence: Independent Investigations for Change (20-21 September 2019, Studio 1, Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien). We invite you to join us for a workshop by Danja Vasiliev and Sarah Grant of Radical Networks on how to set a self-hosted secure file sharing system.
Program - starts from 19:00:
Introduction to the next Disruption Network Lab event Citizens of Evidence: Independent Investigations for Change
Introduction to Radical Networks
Workshop
Drinks and networking
Radical Networks (https://radicalnetworks.org) is a conference that celebrates the free and open Internet, with hands-on workshops, speakers, and a gallery exhibiting artworks centered around radio and networking technology. Radical Networks is also an arts festival that considers networking technology as an artistic medium, featuring works that run the gamut from ethical hacks to creative experiments to live performances. This event brings together artists, activists, community organizers, journalists, technologists, educators, and the public, to exchange ideas and look under the hood of what makes the Internet work. Radical Networks is in its fifth year and is the first festival and conference of its kind in the United States. The next edition will take place October 18-20 at Prime Produce in NYC.
Workshop: Secure Self-Hosted file distribution systems for everyone
In this workshop, attendees will be lead through the process of configuring a Raspberry Pi as an offline web server and wireless access point. Participants will also learn how to set up a self-hosted installation of Nextcloud, an open source alternative to Google Drive and Dropbox, for collaborative file authorship, sharing and distribution. If time permits, participants will also be shown how to securely bring their Raspberry Pis online via a VPN configuration for allowing others to access their files over the internet.
Equipment needed:
Your laptop
USB->Ethernet adapter if needed
A class 10 minimum 8GB microSD card
Your cell phone wall charger
A raspberry pi version 2 B+ or newer
Registration:
The workshop is free of admission and the number of seats is limited to 20. Booking is essential.
To register, please write to info@disruptionlab.org with your name, a short description about your interest to attend the workshop and the operating system you will be running on (max 100 words).
Let us know in your email if you have your own kit. We will be able to provide a limited number of kits (Raspberry Pi + Ethernet adapter) to borrow in the workshop: first come, first serve.
Please make sure to attend the workshop if you confirm your availability. If you can't attend please inform us so we give your place to another participant from the waitlist.
Workshop instructors:
Danja Vasiliev is a Critical Engineer born in Saint-Petersburg, currently living and working in Berlin. Vasiliev studies Systems and Networks through anti-disciplinary experimentation with hardware, firmware and software. Using computational platforms he engages in examination and exploitation of System and Network paradigms in both the physical and digital realms. Based on these findings, Vasiliev creates and exhibits works of Critical Engineering.
Sarah Grant is an American media artist and educator based in Berlin. With a focus on radio and computer networking, she researches and develops open source software, artworks as educational tools, and workshops that demystify computer networking technology. She organizes the Radical Networks conference in New York and Berlin, a community event and arts festival for people doing critical investigations and creative experiments with computer networking.
AI TRAPS Meetup: Reshape the future - Revealing & transforming algorithmic inequality
Wednesday 26 June 2019, 19:00 at STATE Studio, Hauptstr 3, 10827 Berlin (U7 Kleistpark) - Entrance is free.
Following on our recent Disruption Network Lab conference ‘AI TRAPS: Automating Discrimination’ , where we took a closer look at how AI & algorithms reinforce prejudices and biases of its human creators and societies, in this meetup we focus on possible strategies for exposing and transforming algorithmic inequality. We will hear from the OpenSCHUFA project, which has worked since 2018 on unveiling the algorithm behind the SCHUFA credit score, and from The Oracle for transfeminist technologies, which opens up the debate on algorithmic bias through a speculative codesign card game.
Program - starting from 19:00:
Looking back at the ‘AI TRAPS: Automating Discrimination’ conference: sharing our thoughts.
OpenSCHUFA. In early 2018 the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany and Algorithm-Watch launched the project OpenSCHUFA, which works on reverse-engineering the algorithms of the SCHUFA, Germany’s credit rating system. The SCHUFA has immense power over people’s lives: a low SCHUFA score means landlords will refuse to rent you an apartment, banks will reject your credit card application and network providers will say ‘no’ to a new contract. But what if your SCHUFA score is low because there are mistakes in your credit history? Or if the score is calculated by a mathematical model that is biased? The scoring procedure of the private company SCHUFA is highly intransparent and not accessible to the public. OpenSCHUFA launched a large-scale data donation campaign to shed light on the black box SCHUFA. Arne Semsrott of OKF Germany joins us to share more on the process and results.
The Oracle for transfeminist technologies. Most of the algorithms commanding our digital interactions are biased and help maintain the norms of a consumerist, misogynist, racist, ableist, gender binary, and heteropatriarchal society. The Oracle for transfeminist technologies invites people through a speculative codesign game to radically re-imagine what AI could look like if built around transfeminist values. Clara Juliano, a designer and illustrator at Coding Rights, recently developed the project as part of the Superrr Feminist Tech Fellowship. Inspired by the use of divination procedures as technologies to understand the present and reshape the future, the set of divination cards functions as an Oracle to guide us towards envisioning transfeminist AIs.
Drinks and networking, with the option to try out The Oracle for transfeminist technologies for yourself
Further reading:
AI TRAPS Meetup:
AI Threats on Queer Bodies:
Thu May 30 2019 · 19:00 · State Studio · Haupstr 3, 10827 Berlin (U7 Kleistpark)
Facebook Event · Meetup.com Event
We are excited that XEN, the XenoEntities Network community, joins us for the meetup that anticipates the next Disruption Network Lab event AI Traps: Automating Discrimination (14-15 June 2019, Studio 1, Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien). In this next conference we take a close look at how AI & algorithms reinforce prejudices and biases of its human creators and societies, and how to fight discrimination.
XEN will warm up this discussion with a focus on AI Threats on Queer Bodies: Computational Gaze and Toxic Normalization.
Program - starting from 19:00:
Introduction to next Disruption Network Lab event ‘AI TRAPS: Automating Discrimination’
Introduction to the XenoEntities Network (XEN)
AI Threats on Queer Bodies: Computational Gaze and Toxic Normalization: open conversation mediated by Pedro Marum and Steph Holl-Trieu
Drinks and networking
XenoEntities Network (XEN) is a platform for discussion and experimentation focusing on intersections of queer, gender, and feminist studies with digital technologies, organized by Lou Drago, Pedro Marum, and Zander Porter. The XEN-curated programs comprise events with performances, screenings, and panels. Programs revolve around contemporary art and philosophical-theoretical themes such as posthumanism, xenofeminism, cyborgs and prosthetics, surveillance technologies, and virtual reality, amongst others.
AI Threats on Queer Bodies: Computational Gaze and Toxic Normalization
In an era of increasing digital-surveillance and info-militarism, we realise that the targets of certain oppressive gazes are not only state-proclaimed criminals but also all citizens: all potential deviants to the state order.
From CCTV, drones, border checks, and police raids, the immense dragnet of surveillance extends to even more intimate mechanisms, collecting data and metadata from personal emails, social media, and clouds. With the latest technologies of biometric surveillance and dataveillance, our physical and virtual bodies have become rich pools for data-mining. Yet, under mechanic scrutiny, surveillance has a normative effect on how bodies should look in order to distinguish the “citizen” from the “terrorist” and the “normal” from the “deviant”, an algorithmic supremacy that perpetuates ableism, classism, homophobia, sexism, racism, and transphobia.
It is easy to succumb to feelings of disempowerment and paralysis. How do we deal with these mechanisms of oppression?
In the open and fluid format of this meetup we will look into artists, hacktivists and theorists who deal with AI technologies, how they are used as forms of governance and control and speculate on strategies of counteraction. We will meditate on communal practices of disruption and contamination of a voracious system that feeds on biometric data in order to regulate, police, criminalise those who do no conform to the binary-constructed reality seen by algorithms. Our world is a world of absolute indeterminacy, our bodies are radically deviant, a deviance that cannot be eviscerated by data capture. Rather than "opt out", we must think of staying with the trouble as a queer radical practice.
Pedro Marum and Steph Holl-Trieu will mediate this open conversation. You are warmly invited to join us and share your thoughts: please bring materials, ideas, questions or concerns you would like to discuss.
DARK HAVENS Meetup:
Diving Deeper into Data
Wed April 17 2019 · 19:00 · State Studio · Haupstr 3, 10827 Berlin (U7 Kleistpark)
Following up #DNL15 DARK HAVENS
At our second meetup, which follows after the Disruption Network Lab’s conference DARK HAVENS: Confronting Hidden Money and Power (5-6 April 2019, Studio 1, Kunstquartier Bethanien), we will dive deeper into some of the tools that were discussed for handling the large amounts of data of leaks such as the Panama Papers. We also take a look back at the workshop of RYBN.org of 7 April and hear from participants what they discovered on their psycho-geographic tour of Berlin shell companies & shadow finance offices.
Program - Starting from 19:00:
Looking back at the DARK HAVENS conference: sharing our thoughts. We’ll start with a round of feedback on the recent DARK HAVENS conference, to see which issues came up that we want to explore further, or which questions are still unanswered.
Diving deeper into OCCRP Data with Friedrich Lindenberg (Data Team Lead, OCCRP, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project). OCCRP Data is a platform for investigative reporters, or anyone looking into corruption, to find leads to investigate. It is powered by Aleph, an open source software tool that indexes large amounts of data for easy browsing and searching. After speaking at our DARK HAVENS panel, Friedrich will share more with us on how to handle massive amounts of data, ways that the Aleph tool could be used in other contexts, and possible future improvements of the database.
Reflection on the RYBN.org workshop ‘Offshore Tour Operator Berlin’: we will hear from workshop participants what they discovered on their psycho-geographic tour of Berlin shell companies & shadow finance offices. In the workshop, participants used the „Offshore Tour Operator“, a psycho-geographic GPS prototype, to hunt the streets of Berlin for shell companies, trust firms, domiciliation agencies and shadow finance offices and agents that are referenced in the Offshore Leaks, Panama Papers and Bahamas Leaks data-bases. Participants were invited to photograph the entrance, describe the area, observe the letterboxes and intercom systems to check if the name of the offshore entity, revealed by the leaks, is still there, and take notes on the path taken to it, to later discuss the experiences and share collected images.
Drinks and networking
You are warmly invited to join us, share your thoughts and find out more about how to get involved.
Further reading:
How to handle massive datasets – and other lessons from OCCRP Data and Aleph. Interview with Friedrich Lindenberg by Teemu Henriksson on occasion of the Data Journalism Awards, 9 May 2018.
Psychogeographies of the Financial Imaginary - Uncovering the tax havens hidden in plain sight through counter-financial dérive. An interview by Max Haiven with RYBN.ORG, 13 July 2018.
DARK HAVENS Meetup:
Exposing Secret Connections
March 20 2019 · 19:00 · State Studio · Haupstr 3, 10827 Berlin
In anticipation of #DNL15 DARK HAVENS
In our first community meetup of the year, we invite you to join us for an introduction to the 2019 program of the Disruption Network Lab, ‘The Art of Exposing Injustice’, in cooperation with Transparency International.
On this night we kick off the exploration around our first event of the year, Dark Havens: Confronting Hidden Money & Power (5-6 April 2019, Studio 1, Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien), which focuses on the issues of financial corruption and tax havens and the informational, political, technological and artistic response to such topics.
We will hear from two Berlin-based initiatives, Transparency International Deutschland e. V. and Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland how they work on opening up data and increasing transparency in the fight against corruption.
Program - Starting from 19:00:
Introduction to the 2019 program ‘The Art of Exposing Injustice’ and the Activation program by the Disruption Network Lab team
Input from Transparency Germany on how they work on financial transparency and whistleblowing. Transparency Germany is the national chapter of Transparency International, the global network leading the fight against corruption including more than 100 established national chapters. Transparency Germany’s aim is to raise public awareness about the harmful consequences of corruption and to strengthen integrity systems. A key element is their work with volunteers: thematically organized groups serve as forums for the exchange of information and the development of new positions and demands.
Input from Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland e. V. on their recently launched initiative to open up company registration data, https://offeneregister.de. Together with OpenCorporates, they make information from the German company register accessible as open data. For the first time, data such as the registered office, legal form and authorised representatives of 5.1 million German companies, foundations and associations are openly and freely available on the Internet. Linking international company data with data from the Panama and Paradise Papers can be of great help for investigative journalists when they investigate international cases of money laundering and corruption.
Drinks and networking. You are warmly invited to join us, share your thoughts and find out more about how to get involved - entrance is free.
Read more:
Mehr Transparenz von Unternehmensdaten – OpenCorporates veröffentlicht eine neue Datenbank (Transparency Deutschland)
Finally: Open Company Data! (Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland)
Disruption Network Lab Meet-Ups
Digital Rights Activism & Social Advocacy
During the year, we connect with Berlin-based activists, communities and initiatives to share skills and create new tools to fight digital injustice. In regular meetups around our main events we invite you to join us and hear from others how they are working on social, political and cultural change in the fields of our conference topics.
Everyone interested is welcome to provide their input to our ongoing activities and research: our meetups are a mixture of open discussions, workshops and input presentations. They provide you the opportunity to get involved with our topics before each conference, dive deeper into it after the event itself, and to connect with each other on a regular basis. Our meetups usually take place at ACUD Macht Neu, an art space offering room for discourse, exchange and experimental artistic formats in Berlin-Mitte.
The results of our exchange feed into the community workshop days that take place in connection to our main conferences. Aligning with the conference themes, these community days are focused on actively responding to technological advances that continue to change the ways that we interact, urging us to explore new modes of operation. Through community workshops, for which we partner with both Berlin-based and international activists and communities, we combine the culture of investigation with artistic practice, to reposition art as a process for investigating political misconduct & wrongdoing.
