Exhibits at The White Room Berlin

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Andrea Figari 2016

The White Room was a live installation in the exhibition Nervous Systems at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), curated by Stephanie Hankey and Marek Tuszynski of Tactical Tech and Anselm Franke of HKW. Open from 11 March to May 9 2016, The White Room had nearly 10,000 visitors during its opening.

The Bar

Presenting objects to clearly illustrate the inner workings of a quantified society. The Ingenious Bar demonstrates the practicalities of material and immaterial realities of quantification - for example, how does mobility around our cities, streets and institutions look when digitalized? And how is that information used?On Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, The Bar is staffed by workers who lead visitors through the devices and interfaces we interact with on a daily basis. Workshops, demos and consultations are lead by staff workers that help visitors understand how the data on these devices is collected, traced, and who has ownership over that data. The Bar staff also offer tours of our “App Center”, a compilation of applications that offer safer and better control of personal data. Ultimately, the White Room is a space for reflection, experimentation and play. On Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, The Bar is staffed by workers who lead visitors through the devices and interfaces we interact with on a daily basis. Workshops, demos and consultations are lead by staff workers that help visitors understand how the data on these devices is collected, traced, and who has ownership over that data. The Bar staff also offer tours of our “App Center”, a compilation of applications that offer safer and better control of personal data. Ultimately, the White Room is a space for reflection, experimentation and play.

“The App Center” is a collection of The White Room’s recommended tools, plugins, and software with which to explore data traces and increase privac...
IC WatchMany of us use social networking sites to find new jobs, get new clients or build new business relationships. In doing so, we share a lot o...
Whenever you browse a website, someone is looking over your shoulder. Almost every site visit is tracked by a third-party that shares and sometimes...
Open Data City Tactical Tech @Info_Activism
As we go about our daily lives, we generate all kinds of information through our smart phones, all of which can disclose insights into our actions,...
What are you doing with my Data? evidences a process of how Malte Spitz, the German Green Party politician, author, and privacy activist, requested...
We often hear about metadata – that is, data about data. Apart from the content of your communications, metadata can reveal what we are doing, with...
Architecture of Radio is an iPad application that reveals an invisible landscape of Wi-Fi, satellite, and electromagnetic spectrum waves.
Every time you go online, you are connected through servers in different countries and jurisdictions. These virtual journeys are tracked, and your ...
Open Data City Tactical Tech @Info_Activism
Whenever we can, we join free WiFi networks to get online when we are on the move. This animation – based on data gathered from a conference held i...
Eric King Matthew Rice 
The Wiretappers’ Ball contains some of the 287 brochures and promotional material collected by a network of investigators attending surveillance te...
“If we had eyes to see what Snowden has given us” is a mind-map created by the Guardian newspaper’s former editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger, showing...
The buying, selling and analysing of our data is a massive industry, yet it is one we don’t know much about. Who are data brokers and how do they o...
The Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS) program is a nationwide information-collection and analysis initiative implemented in Singapore for...
The Sickweather app’s “patent pending algorithm” scans social media for people who show their locations and share information about being unwell, f...
Churchix uses facial recognition software to track church attendance. It helps church administrators to monitor members of their congregation and p...

Something to hide

A response to the “Nothing to hide” ideology and campaign, Something to Hide asks how does the self operate in a quantified society? A series of critical interventions by creative practitioners and artists present alternative ways to interact and feed our devices. On display are metronomes for your activity tracker ('Unfit Bits’) as well as a toy panda stuffed with shredded Snowden documents.

Who are you really working for when you work out? The information your Fitbit collects about you is not only valuable to you alone. Your doctor or ...
Life Is Too Short is a series of video re-enactments of self-help YouTube videos that question the notion of individuality and self-made celebrity.
Bee and Hug were hoax interventions presented at the technology and society conference re:publica in Berlin, 2013. Activists from the culture-jammi...
Buttons is a camera without a lens and only a shutter that records the exact time and location the shutter was released. This information is used t...
Julian Olivier Danja Vasiljev 
Do your friends and colleagues complain that media coverage is too boring/depressing/celebrity-laden/happy? With the Newstweek, you can be a master...
Even if you think your password is unique, according to a 2019 survey by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, “123456” is the most commonly use...
Panda to Panda is one of twenty toy pandas (in China, “panda” is a word used to refer to the secret police) stuffed with shredded paper copies of t...

Big Mama

A comprehensive look into the modern state, Big Mama explores the reinvention of the state as the e-government or digital agency. Objects here demonstrate institutionalized methods of data observation, tracking, pattern recognition and its adaptation to governmental operations from national identification to refugee aid. Dressed up as care, Big Mama takes these precautions because "it's for your own good”.

The Nigerian National Identity Card is in the process of implementation in partnership with MasterCard. Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN) and the P...
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency 
This promotional video illustrates how the UNHCR and the private company IrisGuard have collaborated to implement iris scanning – the unique identi...
Sesame Credit is a credit-rating system that creates scores based on spending behavior, habits, patterns, interests, and affiliations. It is create...

Normal is boring

Re-creating the internet landscape as a miniature world for a top- down view, Normal is Boring represents the tech oligarchs developing fertility chips for women in previously colonized countries and the Google Empire - "One Account, All of Google”. On the surface, it is California-meets-cybernetics; underneath, it is big business. Startups aren't the product of hobbyists and technology enthusiasts, but rather designs of marketing departments, Washington D.C. lobbyists, and Wall Street analysts. Branded as disruptive 'Un-Companies', these entities are more precisely major stake holders of power, influence, and wealth.

Radimparency is a parody of a promotional video for a fictitious digital product with a “pitch” feel. Replete with tech start-up buzzwords and clic...
In 2010, Mark Zuckerberg – the founder of Facebook – claimed the age of privacy was over. A couple of years later, Zuckerberg paid over $40 million...
The Google Empire is a three-dimensional infographic showing the 180 companies Google has acquired, and the more than 400 companies in which it has...
Remote-control birth control may be the wave of the future. In 2012, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave a grant of nearly £8 million to Mic...
Based on technology developed at PayPal, Peter Thiel founded a data-analysis company known as Palantir Technologies. Palantir is a start-up with a ...