The Glass Room London – Programme

Artists !Mediengruppe Bitnik talk about their recent works on bots and the online ecosystems that has formed around them. They will retrace their recent explorations into the infidelity website Ashley Madison, which they have been using as a case study to raise questions around the current relationship between humans and machines, internet intimacy and the use of virtual platforms to disrupt the physical.\ \ !Mediengruppe Bitnik live and work in Zurich/Berlin. They are contemporary artists working on, and with, the internet. Their practice expands from the digital to physical spaces, often intentionally applying loss of control to challenge established structures and mechanisms. !Mediengruppe Bitnik are Carmen Weisskopf and Domagoj Smoljo.

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!Mediengruppe Bitnik: Bots and Angels – Friday, 27 October, 2017 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Mahsa Alimardani is an Internet researcher leading some of Article 19’s Iran digital programs. She is researching the use of technology platforms in Iran’s information control space for her PhD at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, as well as editing Global Voices’ Iran section.

Mahsa Alimardani: Tightening the Net - Censorship, Surveillance, Sanctions and Controls Online in Iran – Tuesday, 31 October, 2017 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Jamie Bartlett, who recently hosted the BBC series ‘The Secrets of Silicon Valley’ and is author of the new book ‘Radicals’.

Jamie Bartlett (Demos): The Rise of the Radicals - How Outsiders are Taking Over - Tuesday, 7 November, 2017 3:00 pm - 4:0 pm

Varoon Bashyakarla is a data scientist at Tactical Tech, where his work explores how personal data is used for political purposes. His past statistical undertakings led him to a variety of domains: public health, public safety, sports, finance, and cybersecurity. He worked as a Data Scientist at Wealthfront and in predictive modeling at Dropbox. He was a Fellow at the inaugural Eric and Wendy Schmidt Data Science for Social Good Fellowship, a Transatlantic Digital Debates fellow, and a recipient of The American Council on Germany's McCloy Fellowship on Global Trends.

Varoon Bashyakarla (Tactical Tech) and Louis Knight-Webb (Who Targets Me): Personal Data and Elections in the 21st Century - Sunday, 5 November, 2017 5:00 pm -6.00 pm

Manuel Beltrán is an artist, activist and researcher. He researches and lectures on contemporary art, activism, contemporary social movements, post-digital culture and new media. As an activist, he was involved in the Indignados movement in Spain, the Gezi Park protests in Turkey and several forms of independent activism and cyber-activism in Europe and beyond. His work in The Glass Room, Data Production Labour, gives visitors the chance to become part of the big-data economy just by scrolling through their social media feeds.

www.ad.watch

Manuel Beltrán:'We, the Data Workers.' - Friday, 27 October, 2017 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

War Taxonomy looks at the record of transactions between the US Defense Department and the private sector. This data - over 15 million items over the last nine years - traces the corporate facilitation of the state’s monopoly of violence. It is both a compilation of financial instruments and a map of the projection of force. But its size and scope present challenges of interpretation and meaning. What can the shadow cast by a network of contracting relationships tell us of events and effects in time and space?

Crofton Black is a researcher and writer. He is co-author, with Edmund Clark, of “Negative Publicity: Artefacts of Extraordinary Rendition” (Aperture 2016).

Crofton Black War Taxonomy: An Encyclopedia of Conditions for Lethal Force - Friday, 3 November, 2017 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

We hear a lot about the technical wonders of blockchain technology, but the political philosophies, economic ideologies, ethics and governance structures found within the blockchain community are often glossed over. In this session, Brett Scott will dive into the hidden social dynamics and schisms found within blockchain projects, and explore where the technology fits within the broader financial and economic system.\ \ Brett Scott is an economic explorer and financial hacker traversing the intersections between money systems, finance, digital technology and cities. He is the author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money (2013). He works on financial reform, alternative finance and economic activism with a wide variety of NGOs, artists, students and start-ups, and writes for publications such as The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired Magazine and CNN.com. He produced the 2016 UNRISD report on blockchain technology, and is a Fellow of the Finance Innovation Lab, an Associate at the Institute of Social Banking and an advisory group member of the Brixton Pound. He helps facilitate a course on power and design at the University of Arts London, and facilitates workshops on alternative finance with The London School of Financial Arts.

Silkie Carlo from Liberty: Big Data, AI and Human Rights - Wednesday, 1 November, 2017 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Silkie Carlo: A Feminist Lens on Mass Surveillance - Saturday, 4 November, 2017 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

As governments try to domesticate the internet, it's the digital dissidents - hackers, whistleblowers, minorities, citizen journalists and others - who find themselves caught in the crossfire. One month out from Lauri Love's appeal hearing, Naomi will explain how the battle lines are being drawn and what policy changes and practical solidarity can do to help the situation.\ \ Naomi Colvin is Beneficiary Case Director at the Courage Foundation, an international organisation that protects individuals who put themselves at risk to make significant contributions to the historical record. She has written for the Guardian, FT, New Statesman and many others.

www.couragefound.org

Naomi Colvin - Courage Foundation: Data Dissidence - Speaking Truth to Power in the 21st Century – Sunday, 29 October, 2017 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Nicholas de Pencier is a Canadian cinematographer and filmmaker.

Film Screening: Black Code (2016) - Saturday, 11 November, 2017 8:15 pm - 10:00 pm

Wesley Goatley is the creator of the Glass Room’s work “The Listener”.

Wesley Goatley: Critical Data Aesthetics - Friday, 10 November, 2017 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies.

Joss Hands: Networks, Things and Objects: The Saving Power of Gadgets - Thursday, 2 November, 2017 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

What's a photo? And what's a face? Both are foundational terms for facial recognition systems, yet there is no clear understanding of either. This talk will discuss recent developments in biometric technologies and why facial recognition has become an entry-level term for increasingly aggressive biometric acquisition technologies. Now, with as little as 1% of one Instagram photo, it's possible to infer someone's race, gender, age, identity, emotion, intelligence, criminality, sociability and a growing list of other metadata. The talk will also present MegaPixels, Harvey's installation at The Glass Room, which explores the shadowy role we, as technology users, have come to play in training these systems.\ \ Adam Harvey is an artist and researcher based in Berlin exploring the societal impacts of networked data analysis technologies with a focus on computer vision, digital imaging technologies and counter surveillance. His work MegaPixels, on view in The Glass Room, invites viewers to query their own face and find their visual doppelgänger among the thousands of images in facial-recognition training datasets.

www.ahprojects.com

Adam Harvey:'Deep Facial Recognition Query' - Thursday, 26 October, 2017 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Writer and director of PRE-CRIME (2017).

UK Film Premiere: PRE-CRIME(2017) Written and directed by Monika Hielscher & Matthias Heeder - Saturday, 28 October, 2017 8:00 pm - 11:00 pm

Writer and director of PRE-CRIME (2017).

UK Film Premiere: PRE-CRIME(2017) Written and directed by Monika Hielscher & Matthias Heeder - Saturday, 28 October, 2017 8:00 pm - 11:00 pm

Founder and executive director of Bellingcat.

Eliot Higgins (Bellingcat / The Brown Moses Blog)The End of Secrets: Conflict in the Engagement Age - Friday, 3 November, 2017 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Harmit Kambo is the Director of Campaigns at Privacy International and leads PI’s Communications and Campaigns team. He is responsible for developing greater public engagement in privacy issues. He works across our programmes to devise strategies that will increase the reach and impact of our work.

Scarlet Kim & Harmit Kambo from Privacy International - Thursday, 2 November, 2017 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Legal Officer, Privacy International.

Scarlet Kim & Harmit Kambo from Privacy International - Thursday, 2 November, 2017 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Co-founder of Who Targets Me, a small group of activists creating and managing a crowdsourced global database of political adverts placed on social media.

Varoon Bashyakarla (Tactical Tech) and Louis Knight-Webb (Who Targets Me): Personal Data and Elections in the 21st Century - Sunday, 5 November, 2017 5:00 pm -6.00 pm

Through her films and art works, Manu researches the effects of emerging technologies on daily life, social relations, urban space, and political structures. Her current focus is on corporate-governmental relationships and the social effects of predictive analytics in the algorithmic city. Her work is included in the Collection de Centre Pompidou, the BFI National Archive, and the Core Collection at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences; she is a Resident Artist at Somerset House, and was formerly an Open Society Fellow and visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. Awards include ZONTA Award – 65th Kurzfilmfest Oberhausen 2019; Open Media Award 2019; Best Feature – Moscow International Documentary Film Festival 2016, Elevate Artivism award 2015, M. v. Willemer Prize by Ars Electronica Centre and City of Linz. [source](http://www.manuluksch.com/studio/)

Film Screening: Manu Luksch - The Billion Dollar Dissident: Smart Cities, Spyware and Silenced Voices - Saturday, 11 November, 2017 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Editors and reporters from Mashable UK.

"How to Hack Your Breaking News Feed" with editors and reporters from Mashable UK - Tuesday, 7 November, 2017 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Surya Mattu is an artist and engineer based in Brooklyn. He is a fellow at Data&Society; where she has been investigating how our wireless devices leak data and the impact that has on us. He also has been a contributing researcher at ProPublica and has been working on Machine Bias, a series that aims to highlight how algorithmic systems can be biased and discriminate against people. He has recently shown work at: The Haus der Kulturen der Welt , Sundance Film Festival, The Whitney Museum, and Bitforms Gallery.

Algorithmic Disobedience with Surya Mattu - Saturday, 11 November, 2017 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Carl Miller, founder of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos and author of the forthcoming book Power, talks about his attempts to track down and expose new forms of digital power that our shaping our lives.

Carl Miller: Digital Power - Wednesday, 8 November, 2017 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Matt Mitchell is a hacker, security researcher, operational security trainer, developer and data journalist who founded & leads CryptoHarlem, impromptu workshops teaching basic cryptography tools to the predominately African American community in upper Manhattan. Matt trains activists & journalists (as an independent trainer for Global Journalist Security) in digital security. His personal work focuses on marginalized, aggressively monitored, over-policed populations in the United States. Currently he is a 2016 Mozilla Foundation / Ford Foundation Open Web Fellow, embedded at Color of Change a civil rights / social justice organization. Matt is an Internet Freedom Festival 2016 Fellow , a New America 2016 CyberSecurity Initiative Fellow, and an advisor to the Open Technology Fund. He worked as a data journalist at The New York Times and a developer at CNN, Time Inc, NewsOne/InteractiveOne/TVOne/RadioOne/AOL/Huffington Post, and Essence Magazine.

Matt Mitchell: TECHing while Black - Wednesday, 25 October, 2017 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Ravi Naik is a partner and the head of data protection and information rights department at Irvine Thanvi Natas Solicitors. His practice encompasses a wide range of areas including national security, privacy, data and information law. In that role, Ravi is regularly instructed on a range of high-profile and precedent setting litigation. Ravi has also written extensively on rights protection in the digital age, including on the new “data rights” movement.

Ravi Naik: Your Data, Your Rights – Saturday, 11 November, 2017 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

If a woman decides to be publicly naked once, does it mean she gives her consent to be forever portrayed like that online? Artistic, political or erotic nudity can be eternal. Search engines based in the United States will forever define us by those images, placing them at the top of search results under our names. Is it the bias of the white, male programming engineers that determined our topless bodies are the most important thing? For women, choice is a loaded word, and forms the basis for a century-long struggle to decide the fates of our own bodies. A choice over our bodies and identities should belong to us. As we outsource complex search processes to opaque and external algorithms, the decision now belongs to a Silicon Valley company. In this talk, Gisela Perez de Acha will explore the right to identity linked to our data selves regarding female nudity and consent in the digital era, where search algorithms define us and the ‘right to be forgotten’ does not cover the complex nature of identity.\ \ Gisela Perez de Acha is a Mexican lawyer and activist who specialises in free speech and gender rights within the digital world. She is the public policy manager for Latin America at Derechos Digitales, a non-governmental organisation where she mostly conducts research on algorithmic accountability and malware in the region. Gisela also runs an independent cultural centre in Mexico City where she manages art, live performances, and literature events related to technology.

Gisela Perez de Acha: Our Naked Selves as Data - Gender and Consent in Search Engines – Saturday, 28 October, 2017 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Jon Ronson’s nonfiction books So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, The Psychopath Test, Them: Adventures with Extremists, Lost at Sea and The Men Who Stare At Goats have all been international and/or New York Times bestsellers. The Psychopath Test spent nearly two years on the UK bestseller list. His most recent work is an Audible Original audio series, The Butterfly Effect. It was released in July 2017 and went straight to Number One in the US and UK audiobook charts. Jon’s original screenplays include the critically acclaimed Netflix original Okja, which he co-wrote with Bong-Joon Ho, and Frank, which he co-wrote with Peter Straughan. For Frank, Jon and Peter won the 2014 best screenplay award at the British Independent Film Awards. Jon’s two TED talks have been watched more than 12 million times. In the UK Jon writes regularly for The Guardian. His many UK documentaries include Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes, The Secret Rulers of the World, and seven seasons of the multi-award-winning BBC Radio 4 programme Jon Ronson On…

Jon Ronson: Tech and Porn and Shame – Sunday, 5 November, 2017 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm

We hear a lot about the technical wonders of blockchain technology, but the political philosophies, economic ideologies, ethics and governance structures found within the blockchain community are often glossed over. In this session, Brett Scott will dive into the hidden social dynamics and schisms found within blockchain projects, and explore where the technology fits within the broader financial and economic system.\ \ Brett Scott is an economic explorer and financial hacker traversing the intersections between money systems, finance, digital technology and cities. He is the author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money (2013). He works on financial reform, alternative finance and economic activism with a wide variety of NGOs, artists, students and start-ups, and writes for publications such as The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired Magazine and CNN.com. He produced the 2016 UNRISD report on blockchain technology, and is a Fellow of the Finance Innovation Lab, an Associate at the Institute of Social Banking and an advisory group member of the Brixton Pound. He helps facilitate a course on power and design at the University of Arts London, and facilitates workshops on alternative finance with The London School of Financial Arts.

Brett Scott: The Politics of Blockchain Technology - Saturday, 28 October, 2017 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Danja Vasiliev is working with digital systems, networks and software. His research and practice aimed at re-examination and exploitation of Network paradigms in physical and digital realms. Danja experiments with methods, tactics and techniques that question communication models established between Users and Systems. In October 2011, together with his colleagues Danja Vasiliev coauthored The Critical Engineering Manifesto.

Eyal is an architect, professor at Goldsmiths, University of London and director of Forensic Architecture.

An Inquiry into the Undetectable: Eyal Weizman of Forensic Architecture in conversation with Marek Tuszynski - Wednesday, 8 November, 2017 8:15 pm - 9:30 pm