Conversations on Art and Media: Unconventional Computing

Art as Evidence: Art, Whistleblowing & Data Extraction with Joana Moll, Tatiana Bazzichelli (Disruption Network Lab) on July 3rd, 6pm / HfG Lichtbrücke

Art as evidence. In other words, using art to shed light on a world that would otherwise be invisible. This conceptual framework for exploring the potential of art to uncover facts, expose wrongdoing and raise awareness of social, political and technological issues was coined a decade ago by the film director Laura Poitras (Citizenfour, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed). The talk will explore the theme of disruption in relation to art and whistleblowing, proposing an unconventional method to think about computation, that integrates the legal, social, political, and economic frameworks in which technology is developed and used.

Drawing on the events and research programme at the Disruption Network Lab in Berlin, Germany, through the voice of its founder and director Tatiana Bazzichelli and the artistic work of Joana Moll, the lecture traces the background to the concept of art as evidence and the impact of whistleblowing on art and culture. Specific examples and projects from the fields of art, digital culture, and social justice will be presented. These include 'Cookies at War: A Somatic Approach to the Kill Cloud', developed by Joana Moll during her fellowship at the Disruption Network Institute - a new center for investigation and empirical research into the impact of artificial intelligence on new technologies of war. The talk will also address the importance of creating networks of trust in times of increasing polarisation and cultural oppression, bringing together whistleblowers, artists, activists, investigative journalists, tech experts and researchers.

Conversations on Art and Media: Unconventional Computing is a new lecture series with invited guests from the expanded fields of media art and theory, co-organized by members of HfG Karlsruhe and ZKM. During summer semester 2025, the series discusses unconventional conceptions and materializations of computers as well as alternative ways of dealing with them. In the light of the quasi-monopoly of big tech companies and in view of powerful presets and standards, guest lectures and conversations will address the questions: To what extent can computers look or function differently? In which ways can we reflect on, perceive or handle computing devices differently or change them?

Concept: Victor Fancelli Capdevila (HfG), Julia Ihls (HfG), Tina Lorenz (ZKM), Lea Luka Sikau (ZKM), Nina Zschocke (HfG).

About our guests

Tatiana Bazzichelli Tatiana Bazzichelli is the founder and director of the Disruption Network Lab, a non-profit organisation in Berlin that explores the intersection of politics, technology and society. Her work focuses on whistleblowing, network culture, art and activism. Since September 2023 she is the director of the Disruption Network Institute: Investigating the Kill Cloud, a new centre for investigation and empirical research into the impact of artificial intelligence on new technologies of war, automated weapons and networked warfare. She is the author of Whistleblowing for Change (2021), Networked Disruption (2013), Disrupting Business (2013) and Networking (2006). She was a member of the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Award Committee 2020. In 2019-2021, she was appointed by the Federal Government and the City of Berlin as a jury member for the Hauptstadtkulturfonds (Capital Cultural Fund), and in 2020-2023 she was a jury member for the Kulturlichter Prize, a new award for digital cultural education in Germany. For three years until 2014, she was a curator at the transmediale art & digital culture festival in Berlin, where she developed the year-round programme reSource transmedial culture Berlin and curated several conferences, workshops and art projects.

Joana Moll She is a Barcelona/Berlin-based artist and researcher whose work critically explores how techno-capitalist narratives shape the alphabetization of machines, humans, and ecosystems. Her research focuses on Internet materiality, surveillance, profiling, interfaces, and energy. She has presented her work at major institutions, museums, universities, and festivals worldwide, including the Venice Biennale, Art Basel, MAXXI, MACBA, ZKM, Ars Electronica, The Natural History Museum in Berlin, and Harvard, NYU, Cambridge, and ETH Zürich, among many others. Her work has been widely featured in international media such as The New York Times, The Financial Times, Der Spiegel, National Geographic, Wired, and MIT Press. She co-founded the Critical Interface Politics Research Group at HANGAR [Barcelona], and has held fellowships at the BBVA Foundation, Weizenbaum Institute, and Critical Media Lab (Basel). She is currently a professor in the Art Department at KHM in Cologne, a visiting lecturer at Escola Elisava (Barcelona), and a fellow at Disruption Network Lab in Berlin.