Dérives in the Digital: Avant-garde Ideology in Hacker Cultures

With many decision systems within our societies moving towards automation they are becoming increasingly data-driven. Algorithms are assigned a central role within these systems to make the decisions based on numbers. This evolving landscape of decision-making is hard to disentangle because many parts – the data sources, the algorithms, the processes – are deliberately kept secret and opaque. How can aesthetic practices help gain insights into these systems? And what could we do with this insight?

The upcoming streaming event entitled #ALGOREGIMES is an informal conversation between !Mediengruppe Bitnik and Felix Stalder on topics such as the invisibility of institutional processes, the functioning of infrastructures and logistics, and freedom and control in the data economy.