Disruption Network Lab

Upcoming Conference: Shadows of Illiberalism, June 13–15 2025, Berlin This episode: Illiberal Realities: Understanding Propaganda and the Orbanisation of Europe With: Péter Adamik and Sára Szedlár (Freie Ungarische Botschaft, HU/DE).  Two activists from the Berlin-based Hungarian expat organisation Freie Ungarische Botschaft (Free Hungarian Embassy) will give an overview of how Viktor Orbán's government has built its machinery of power. Read more about the talk Support the Disruption Network Lab by donating or becoming a member!

How can we ensure the dystopian tech-enabled violence we are witnessing in Gaza is neither normalized nor harnessed in future armed conflicts? Marwa Fatafta discusses the technologies used by Israel in Gaza and the role of tech companies. Marwa leads Access Now's policy and advocacy work on digital rights in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Read more at https://dnlb.org/perfectstorm Organised in collaboration with Untold Stories / Untold Mag: https://www.untoldstories.media Don't miss our conference Investigating the Kill Cloud: Information Warfare, Autonomous Weapons & AI, Nov 29–Dec 1 in Berlin: https://www.disruptionlab.org/investigating-the-kill-cloud See you there!

Corruption Unveiled: Austria's Troublesome Path from Strache to Kurz  From #DNL31 #OrganisedCrime. Watch this talk and others here Julian Hessenthaler, the private detective who set the trap for Strache and triggered the "Ibiza affair," delves into the issues of power and abuse of power in the state of Austria with Frederik Obermaier one of the journalists to whom he leaked the video. In 2019, a scandal rocked Austrian politics as journalists from Der Spiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung revealed a secretly recorded video featuring Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the far-right FPÖ. In the video, he offered state contracts to a woman who claimed to be a millionaire and the niece of a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin. Among other statements in the video, Mr. Strache mentioned his desire to create a media landscape similar to what Viktor Orbán had done in Hungary. Just hours after these initial reports, Mr. Strache resigned, prompting Chancellor Sebastian Kurz to call for new elections. Following the "Ibiza affair," Austria has weathered a series of subsequent scandals. Investigations have exposed illegal donation schemes, election tampering, and inquiries funded and manipulated using taxpayers' money. Searches were conducted at various locations, including the Austrian Chancellery, the Ministry of Finance, the ÖVP party headquarters, and the media house Österreich. Consequently, Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was compelled to resign, as he and his closest associates are suspected of misappropriating taxpayers' money to purchase favorable media coverage and manipulate fake surveys on behalf of the ÖVP, with alleged involvement of the Ministry of Finance. Austria, once again, is synonymous with a country plagued by endless scandals. 

Philosopher Émile P. Torres takes you on a journey through the surreal and very influential techno-utopian – and dystopian - philosophies and ideologies of Silicon Valley billionaires and leaders. Recorded at a meet-up and workshop curated by Sabina Barcucci. Read more about the meet-up here: https://dnlb.org/torres. Our next conference is Organised Crime: A Global Business, Nov 24–26 2023: https://dnlb.org/31. Become a menber: dnlb.org/join More events and resources at https://disruptionlab.org Join our Telegram Group for Berlin event updates: https://t.me/disruptionlab Follow us: https://dnlb.org/newsletter https://twitter.com/disruptberlin https://youtube.com/disruptionnetworklab https://mastodon.bida.im/@DisruptionNetworkLab https://www.instagram.com/disruptionnetworklab/      

Sharon Hom (Executive Director, Human Rights in China, HK/US). Moderated by Magnus Ag (Journalist, Human Rights Advocate, Founder of Bridge Figures, DK/NO). In recent decades, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has increasingly challenged international human rights norms and values and aggressively promoted its alternative models for human rights, development, and even, as it claims, “democracy.” Framed within a narrative of global resistance against Western imperialism and exploitation, the CPC now centers its ideological battle on the narrative that the U.S. (and its allies) are trying to impose their values—values of democracy and fundamental rights—on countries with values that prioritize collective aims, values that have been shaped by their respective historical, cultural, and economic conditions. What are the power dimensions of this narrative? How is it promoted? Who benefits from, who is harmed by uncritical or implicit acceptance of it? And where do fundamental rights enshrined in international human rights treaties fit into this contest? Beyond discursive contests, why does this matter? How can progressive communities push back and contribute to more empowering space for and solidarity with domestic rights defenders and citizen actions? https://www.disruptionlab.org/powers-of-truth

Award-winning investigative journalist and author Tom Burgis discusses the opportunities that the pandemic has provided for kleptocracy to flourish. Across the world, we've seen dramatic increases in government spending, logistical obstacles for watchdogs monitoring kleptocratic financial flows, and a ready-made excuse for restrictions on freedom of movement... and political protest. In our conversation, Tom shared his wealth of experience on the topic (nodding to his recently published second book, 'Kleptopia: How dirty money is conquering the world"), on how the crisis has helped to break down defences against kleptocracy. What can we learn about the response to the pandemic and the structures that allow the transnational kleptocracy to thrive, what are our strategies to hold power to account and could the post-pandemic future look brighter?

Renata Avila, Joseph Farrell & Rima Sghaier discuss the role of whistleblowers during COVID-19 and the importance of exposing the truth during the pandemic. The work of whistleblowers is central to denounce power violations and to protect the most vulnerable sectors of our society, but also whistleblowers are people at risk. They are subjects of repression and opposition before and after blowing the whistle, and often confined in isolation, imprisoned or persecuted while their civil rights are suspended.

This keynote conversation brings together Eileen Chubb, a former care assistant in the UK who became a whistleblower and later a campaigner, and Erika Cheung, one of the key whistleblowers in the Theranos scandal and today co-founder and executive director of Ethics in Entrepreneurship. The conversation is based on two important experiences of raising concerns in the healthcare field, wants to discuss systemic problems around corporate governance, ethical decision-making and the importance of protecting people that decide to hold companies accountable and highlight poor standards of care. www.disruptionlab.org/behind-the-mask

Jennifer Robinson is an Australian human rights lawyer and barrister with Doughty Street Chambers in London. Her practice focuses on defending cases for freedom of expression before national and international courts such as the European Court of Human Rights. Robinson is best known for her role as a long-standing member of the legal team defending Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. www.disruptionlab.org/behind-the-mask

This panel brings together four experts in the field of technology, human rights, investigative journalism and law to address the importance of transparency, government accountability and media freedom through the case and the present conditions of Julian Assange. www.disruptionlab.org/behind-the-mask

Helen O'Connor, National Health Service nurse in the United Kingdom for many years and today GMB NHS Union Organiser will give a critical perspective on the UK health care system and the measures that need to be taken to protect the rights of the workers, rather than allowing private companies to profit, in order to help resolve the pandemic and future public health emergencies. From the conference: www.disruptionlab.org/behind-the-mask

In this conversation between Wu Ming 1 and Florian Cramer, QAnon is discussed as a template for contemporary social-media-driven conspiracy fantasies that work simultaneously as games and a new kind of cults. By focusing on the mutation of conspiracy myths from countercultural phenomena to contemporary meme and influencer culture, they will focus on three conspiracy narratives: "The Great Replacement" (from Renaud Camus to Charlottesville), QAnon (from Pizzagate to the Capitol storming) and "The Great Reset" (as a set of pandemic-inspired variations on the old New World Order trope).

This talk brings into dialogue different modalities of fighting speculation, sharing tactics of resistance in the political and media landscape, and presenting concrete interventions in the urban territory of Berlin and internationally. www.disruptionlab.org/evicted-by-greed

This keynote event brings in conversation Leilani Farha, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, and Justus von Daniels, Editor-in-Chief of CORRECTIV, to discuss how civil society can be directly involved in fighting real estate speculation, and which measures can be adopted to guarantee the right to adequate housing on a global scale. www.disruptionlab.org/evicted-by-greed

Volkan Sayman from Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen discusses Berlin's housing crisis as a result of the privatisation and financialisation of housing, highlights major milestones of the expropriation campaign, and gives a glimpse on what's next in the struggle against displacement and for socialised housing in Berlin. www.disruptionlab.org/evicted-by-greed

In major cities across the world local working and middle class citizens are being pushed out of their very own homes – because living in them has become unaffordable. Join us for a discussion between PUSH: the film director Fredrik Gertten and activist Leilani Farha on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on real estate speculation and eviction. www.disruptionlab.org/evicted-by-greed

In this panel Sam Leon from "Global Witness" and Karina Shedrofsky from "OCCRP" analyse how money laundering, organised crime and corruption interfere and influence real estate, addressing respectively the contexts of London and Dubai. www.disruptionlab.org/evicted-by-greed

This keynote panel focuses on two different but related investigations in Berlin and Barcelona on real estate ownership and aggressive international investors. https://disruptionlab.org/evicted-by-greed

AN AUTOPSY OF ONLINE LOVE, LABOUR, SURVEILLANCE AND ELECTRICITY/ENERGY Joana Moll (Artist and Researcher, ES) in conversation with Tatiana Bazzichelli (Founding Director, Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE). Our so-called networked society has failed so far to transpose the logic of interconnectedness into our lives. Citizens are becoming increasingly machine-like and dependent on data, threatening the connection between humans and their natural habitats. In this talk, artist Joana Moll will try to trace the connection between interfaces, patriarchy, data, language, business models, free labour, surveillance, CO2 and domesticated electricity. She will specifically go into two of her recent projects, The Dating Brokers and The Hidden Life of an Amazon User. ACTIVATION: Collective Strategies to Expose Injustice The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 4 The 18th conference of the Disruption Network Lab www.disruptionlab.org/activation (https://www.disruptionlab.org/activation) Photo credit: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

UNTANGLING COMPLEXITY: Working on Anti-Corruption From the International to the Local Level Max Heywood (Transparency International Global Outreach and Advocacy Coordinator, UK/DE) and Stephan Ohme (Lawyer and Financial Expert, Transparency International Deutschland e. V., DE). In the fight against corruption, one of the key elements is making the complex and often hidden system of global economic power transparent. Through chapters in more than 100 countries and an international secretariat in Berlin, Transparency International works on anti-corruption from the international to the local level. In this panel the speakers will address the different ways their organisations are working together on untangling the hidden complexity of the inner mechanisms of the financial system, and present some of the progress that has been made both internationally and locally. ACTIVATION: Collective Strategies to Expose Injustice The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 4 The 18th conference of the Disruption Network Lab www.disruptionlab.org/activation (https://www.disruptionlab.org/activation) Photo credit: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

ALGORITHMIC BIAS: AI Traps and Possible Escapes Caroline Sinders (Machine Learning Designer/User Researcher, Artist, Digital Anthropologist, USA/DE) and Sarah Grant (Media Artist and Educator, Radical Networks, USA/DE) in conversation with Ruth Catlow (Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director, Furtherfield, UK). Algorithms are not neutral and unbiased, but instead often reflect, reinforce and automate the current and historical biases and inequalities of society, such as social, racial and gender prejudices. This panel frames this issue, and aims to discuss some possible escapes. Caroline Sinders discusses what an intersectional Feminist AI could look like, and how we could get it. Sarah Grant organises Radical Networks, a community event and arts festival for critical investigations in telecommunications. She will go into how the repeated biases and behaviours that we find in Internet could find themselves patterned and spread into AI systems. ACTIVATION: Collective Strategies to Expose Injustice The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 4 The 18th conference of the Disruption Network Lab www.disruptionlab.org/activation Photo credit: Maria Silvano

AI TRAPS: Automating Discrimination The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 2 The 16th conference of the Disruption Network Lab ON THE POLITICS OF AI: Fighting Injustice & Automatic Supremacism Dia Kayyali (Leader of the Tech & Advocacy program at WITNESS, SY/US/DE), Os Keyes (Ada Lovelace Fellow, Human-Centred Design & Engineering, University of Washington, US), Dan McQuillan (Lecturer in Creative & Social Computing at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK). Moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli (Founding Director, Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE). What do we need to take into consideration when calling for a just AI? Do we need to implement changes in how we design AI, or shall we rather adopt a larger perspective and reflect on how human society is structured? Dia Kayyali will present ways in which AI is facilitating white supremacy, nationalism, racism and transphobia. They will focus on the ways in which AI is being developed and how it is being deployed, in particular for policing and content moderation - two seemingly disparate but politically linked applications. Conversations around AI bias tend to discuss differences in outcome between demographic categories, within notions of race, gender, sexuality, disability or class. Rather than treat these attributes as universal and unquestioned, opening up space for cultural imperialism and presumption in how we "fix" bias, Os Keyes will reflect on how contextually shape these issues. They will discuss how not to fall into the trap of universalise such concepts, arguing that a truly "just" or "equitable" AI must not just be "bias-free" - it must also be local, contextual and meaningfully shaped and controlled by those subject to it. Finally, focusing on machine learning and artificial neural networks, also known as deep learning, Dan McQuillan will reflect on how developing an antifascist AI, influencing our understanding of what is both possible and desirable, and what ought to be. https://www.disruptionlab.org/ai-traps Photo Credit: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

AI TRAPS: Automating Discrimination The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 2 The 16th conference of the Disruption Network Lab RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN THE AGE OF AI: The Future of Civil Rights in the United States Mutale Nkonde (Tech Policy Advisor and Fellow at Data & Society Research Institute, US). Moderated by Rhianna Ilube (Writer, Curator and Host at The Advocacy Academy, UK/DE) To many, the questions posed to Mark Zuckerberg, during the Facebook Congressional Hearings displayed U.S. House and Senate Representatives' lack of technical knowledge. However, legislative officials rely on the expertise of their legislative teams to prepare them for briefings. What the Facebook hearings actually proved were low levels of digital literacy among legislative staffers. Mutale Nkonde will address the epistemological journey taken by congressional staffers about the impact of AI technologies on wider society. Working with low income black communities in New York City, who are fighting the use of facial recognition in public housing, she targets staffers of the Congressional Black Caucus with the goal to advocate for the fair treatment of Black Americans in the United States. She aims to make congressional staffers concerned how police jurisdictions, public housing landlords, retailers, and others have proposed using facial recognition technology as a weapon against African Americans and other people of colour. This talk explores how a conscious understanding of racial bias and AI technology should inform the work of policy makers and the society at large while building up the future of civil rights. https://www.disruptionlab.org/ai-traps Photo Credit: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

AI TRAPS: Automating Discrimination The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 2 The 16th conference of the Disruption Network Lab HOW IS GOVERNMENT USING BIG DATA? Crofton Black (Researcher, Journalist & Writer, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, UK). Moderated by Daniel Eriksson (Head of Technology, Transparency International, SE/DE). AI, algorithms, deep learning, big data - barely a week goes by without a new revelation about our increasingly digital future. Computers will cure cancer, make us richer, prevent crime, decide who gets into the country, determine access to services, map our daily movements, take our jobs away and send us to jail. Successive innovations spark celebration and concern. While new developments offer enticing economic benefits, academics and civil society sound warnings over corporate accountability, the intrusiveness of personal data and the ability of legal frameworks to keep pace with technological challenges. These concerns are particularly acute when it comes to the use of digital technology by governments and the public sector, which are compiling ever larger datasets on citizens as they move towards an increasingly digitised future. Questions abound about what governments are doing with data, who they are paying to do the work, and what the potential outcomes could be, especially for society's most vulnerable people. In May, Crofton Black and Cansu Safak of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism published a report, ‘Government Data Systems: The Bureau Investigates', examining what IT systems the UK government has been buying. Their report looks at how to use publicly available data to build a picture of companies, services and projects in this area, through website scraping, automated searches, data analysis and freedom of information requests. In this session Crofton Black will present their work and their findings, and discuss systemic problems of transparency over how the government is spending public money. Report: How is government using big data? The Bureau Investigates(https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2019-05-08/algorithms-government-it-systems). https://www.disruptionlab.org/ai-traps Photo Credit: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

AI TRAPS: Automating Discrimination The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 2 The 16th conference of the Disruption Network Lab WHAT IS A FEMINIST AI? Possible Feminisms, Possible Internets Charlotte Webb (Co-founder, Feminist Internet & Even Consultancy, UK). Moderated by Lieke Ploeger (Community Director, Disruption Network Lab, NL/DE). What kind of new socio-political imaginary can be instantiated by attempting to design a Feminist Internet? How can feminist methods and values inform the development of less biased technologies? What is a feminist AI? In this keynote, Charlotte Webb will discuss how a collection of artists, designers and creative technologists have been using feminisms, creative practice and technology to explore these questions. She will discuss the challenges of designing a ‘Feminist Alexa', which Feminist Internet has been attempting in response to the ways biased voice technologies are saturating markets and colonising homes across the globe. She will discuss how the use of feminist design standards can help ensure that technologies do not knowingly or unknowingly reproduce bias, and introduce the audience to Feminist Internet's most recent project – a feminist chatbot that aims to teach people about AI bias. https://www.disruptionlab.org/ai-traps Photo Credit: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

AI TRAPS: Automating Discrimination The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 2 The 16th conference of the Disruption Network Lab AI FOR THE PEOPLE: AI Bias, Ethics & The Common Good Maya Indira Ganesh (Research coordinator, AI & Media Philosophy ‘KIM' Research Group, Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design; PhD candidate, Leuphana University, Lüneburg, IN/DE), Slava Jankin (Professor of Data Science and Public Policy at the Hertie School of Governance, UK/DE). Moderated by Nicole Shephard (Researcher on Gender, Technology and Politics of Data, UK/DE). This panel wants to investigate possible solutions to the known challenges related to AI bias, and to discuss the opportunities AI might bring to the public. What can the role of companies, institutions and universities be on how to deal with AI responsibly for the common good? How are public institutions dealing with the ethical usage of AI and what is actually happening on the ground? Maya Indira Ganesh will focus on the seductive idea that we can standardise and manage well-being, goodness, and ethical behaviour in this algorithmically mediated moment. Her talk will examine typologies of policy, computational, industrial, legal, and creative approaches to shaping ‘AI ethics' and bias-free algorithms; and critically reflect on the breathless enthusiasm for principles, boards and committees to ensure that AI is ethical. Slava Jankin will reflect on how machine learning can be used for common good in the public sector, focusing on Artificial Intelligence and data science in public services and reflecting on possible products and design implementations. https://www.disruptionlab.org/ai-traps Photo Credit: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

AI TRAPS: Automating Discrimination The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 2 The 16th conference of the Disruption Network Lab Adam Harvey (Artist and Researcher, US/DE), Sophie Searcy (Senior Data Scientist at Metis, US). Moderated by Adriana Groh (Head of Program Management, Prototype Fund, DE). Examples abound of AI creating harmful effects and it is good to track and understand these examples. But the next step is harder: how do the practitioners of AI improve what comes next and avoid ever worse and ever bigger “AI catastrophes”? Adam Harvey will present a very concrete art and research project, investigating the ethics, origins, and individual privacy implications of face recognition image datasets and their role in the expansion of biometric surveillance technologies. He will present the latest developments of his project megapixels.cc, showcasing new research on how images posted to Flickr have been used by academic, commercial, and even defense and intelligence agencies around the world for research and development of facial recognition technologies. Drawing on her teaching work on AI ethics and cultural diversity, Sophie Searcy will discuss the fundamental problems underlying the design and implementation of AI and consider how those problems impact to real-world case studies. She will stress out the importance to foster an equal and representative data science community filled with individuals of all technical, educational, and personal backgrounds, understanding the implications of the effect of data science on society at large. https://www.disruptionlab.org/ai-traps Photo Credit: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

CITIZENS OF EVIDENCE: Independent Investigations for Change The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 3 The 17th conference of the Disruption Network Lab FORENSIC ARCHITECTURE: Horizontal Verification and the Socialised Production of Evidence Robert Trafford / Forensic Architecture (Researcher, Open Source Investigations, UK). Moderated by Laurie Treffers (Freelance Journalist & Conflict Researcher, Airwars, NL). The institutions on which we have long relied, as producers of truth and to underscore our human rights, are weakened, and our faith in them is declining. New actors, most successfully from the populist right, are inhabiting the space that has opened up. Concepts like ”news”, “evidence”, and “fact” have become weaponised. In this climate, it becomes vital to articulate concepts of truth and truth-making that succeed where present concepts are losing the battle. But the technological and social circumstances that have driven this 'decentralisation' of truth also carry great promise, and propose new possibilities for civil society to expose and interrogate power and its misuse: modern theatres of conflict are densely media-rich environments, information is poorly guarded, and open sources have collapsed the distance between violence and analyst. At the heart of Forensic Architecture's 'counter-forensic' practice is an understanding of the production of evidence as a collaborative enterprise by civil society, in which situated knowledge speaks in coalition with technical, legal, and journalistic expertise. Through the lens of a selection of Forensic Architecture's recent cases, Robert Trafford will discuss how this approach works in practice, its promise, and some of its problems. What are the challenges to traditional forms of truth-production that this 'socialisation' overcomes? What are the avenues through which civil society can expose and prosecute violence, when the state is responsible for that violence? How must this kind of truth be reconstituted when it interacts with legal and political forums? https://www.disruptionlab.org/citizens-of-evidence Photo credit: Elena Veronese Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

CITIZENS OF EVIDENCE: Independent Investigations for Change The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 3 The 17th conference of the Disruption Network Lab TRACKING DICTATORS, DIVING FOR LEAKS & OPENING UP SENSITIVE DATA Emmanuel Freudenthal (Freelance Investigative Journalist, Dictator Alert, FR/KY), Natalie Sedletska (Investigative Reporter & TV Host, UA), Brennan Novak & M C McGrath (Transparency Toolkit, US/DE). Moderated by Shannon Cunningham (Freelance Investigative Journalist, US/DE). This panel focuses on the connection between grassroots investigations and data analysis, and how it is possible to make sensitive data accessible without restriction and open them to the public, facilitating the publication of large datasets. Referring to the collaboration between investigative journalists, "citizen journalists", and the "open-source intelligence" community, Emmanuel Freudenthal will present the methodology of acquiring information behind Dictator Alert – a Twitter bot that tracks the planes of authoritarian regimes installing ADS-B antennas – reflecting on the pros and cons of experimenting with a more "objective" type of information.M C McGrath and Brennan Novak (Transparency Toolkit) will focus on how the tools they are building enable anyone to publish data in searchable archives and sort through large datasets, even without many resources or technical skills, making the publishing of a large sets of documents more accessible to activists and citizen journalists – where previously only large coalitions of media organizations with particularly good technical resources could setup something like this. Furthermore, the panel reflects on the use and impact of open information, and the possibilities for people to contribute a greater variety of insights over time, and the difficultues of relying only on media outlets or single journalists to write the first story, which is often a very hard and complex activity in the case of large datasets. https://www.disruptionlab.org/citizens-of-evidence Photo credit: Elena Veronese Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

CITIZENS OF EVIDENCE: Independent Investigations for Change The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 3 The 17th conference of the Disruption Network Lab GHOSTS IN THE WOODS AND UNCANNY ENTITIES: On How to Cover the Italian «NO TAV» Movement Wu Ming 1 (Author & Writer, Wu Ming Foundation, IT). Moderated by Alexandra Weltz-Rombach (Author & Filmmaker, DE). The Wu Ming collective is more known abroad as a «band of writers» authoring a particular strand of «metahistorical fiction», i.e. books like Q, Altai, Manituana and The Army of Sleepwalkers; however, in the course of the 2010s they've been exploring different territories. Very often, they've been literally exploring territories on foot. By writing the books they called UNOs [Unidentified Narrative Objects] they've been trying to map – as an act of re-imagination – the elusive lands where «creative non-fiction» becomes ever more hybrid. Even when they are "solo" projects, i.e. they are signed by an individual member of the Wu Ming collective, these books are always collaborative efforts, the process is very open and participatory, and it remains so after publication. A case in point is provided by the work Wu Ming 1 did to cover the so-called No Tav movement, opposing the construction of a high-speed railway in the Susa Valley, in the Western Alps. On a continental scale No Tav [No Treno ad Alta Velocità] are the most long-lasting, enduring movement opposing a mega-project, a public infrastructure which they consider not only useless and unbelievably expensive, but also dangerous for the environment and their lives. The struggle started in 1991. 28 years later, the movement is still effectively slowing down the project, which was modified and downsized many times by the government. However, there's much more than that: the movement has the cultural hegemony in the Susa Valley, influences the whole political life of the region and keeps making successful experiments in participation, self-management and even collective property. Police violence, judiciary repression, arrests, defamation, demonization… Nothing could defeat them; they're still there. How could that happen? https://www.disruptionlab.org/citizens-of-evidence Photo credit: Wu Ming 1 Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

CITIZENS OF EVIDENCE: Independent Investigations for Change The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 3 The 17th conference of the Disruption Network Lab WHAT INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATORS DON'T USUALLY DISCLOSE Matthew Caruana Galizia (Investigative Journalist & Software Engineer, MLT). Moderated by Crina Boros (Investigative Reporter, UK). This keynote speech will address issues freelancers who investigate high-level corruption face in silence and isolation, often with tragic consequences. Calling all journalists, due diligence investigators, whistleblowers and human rights professionals, Matthew Caruana Galizia, in conversation with Crina Boros, will look at what impacted murdered Maltese blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia personally and professionally during her dangerous work, and will discuss a freelancer's personal responsibility, as well as the shield owed by employers, cross-border networks, as well as state regulators and legislators. Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb in Malta on 16 October 2017. The investigation into her killing is ongoing, but “there is little doubt that she was murdered because of her work. With a brazen, unapologetic and uncompromising style, she denounced corruption, nepotism, clientelism, and all kinds of criminal behaviors in her tiny EU member state”, as stated on the website of The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) https://www.occrp.org/en/thedaphneproject/. Read more about The Daphne Project: https://forbiddenstories.org/case/the-daphne-project/ (investigation coordinated and led by Forbidden Stories). https://www.disruptionlab.org/citizens-of-evidence Photo credit: Elena Veronese Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

This panel highlights how citizens are contributing on facilitating evidence, as well as how journalists, policy makers or activists are empowering voices against corruption and abuses. Reporting about three different local contexts, the speakers will reflect on how their work was effective in raising awareness, exposing human rights abuses, and building cases on neglected issues. Melissa Segura (Investigative Reporter, BuzzFeed News, US), Samuel Sinyangwe (Data Scientist & Policy Analyst, Campaign Zero & Police Scorecard, US), Gareth Benest (Participatory Video Facilitator, UK).  Moderated by Michael Hornsby (Communication Officer, Transparency International, UK/DE). From CITIZENS OF EVIDENCE: Independent Investigations for Change https://www.disruptionlab.org/citizens-of-evidence Photo credit: Elena Veronese

PRISONERS-OF-DISSENT: Locked Up for Exposing Crimes. The 11th Event of the Disruption Network Lab Panel with Annie Machon (former MI5 intelligence officer, UK/BE), Silvanos Mudzvova (Artist Protection Fund fellow in residency at The University of Manchester, ZWE/UK), Magnus Ag (senior program officer, Freemuse, DK/DE). Moderated by Annegret Falter (chair Whistleblower Netzwerk e.V., DE). Final Q&A with the speakers and CIA anti-torture whistleblower John Kiriakou. Presented in collaboration with the Whistleblower Netzwerk e.V., this panel reflects on the political, legal, social and personal consequences of whistleblowing and truth-telling. Speakers are Annie Machon, a former intelligence officer for the UK's Security Service MI5 who helped blow the whistle on the crimes and incompetence of the British spy agencies; Silvanos Mudzvova, artist and truth-teller persecuted for staging his one-man play 'Missing Diamonds, I Need My Share', criticising Zimbabwe's cash crisis and $15 billion USD raised from diamond sales that has gone missing; and international human rights advocate Magnus Ag, who works as senior programme officer at Freemuse, an international civil society organisation advocating and defending the right to artistic freedom worldwide. Moderated by Annegret Falter, chair of the Whistleblower Network of Germany, the panel presents personal experiences of repression and detention, and analyses the meaning of 'social agreement' in the information society, debating the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual, as well as discussing new forms of distributed social justice. CIA anti-torture whistleblower John Kiriakou will join the debate after the presentations. www.disruptionlab.org/prisoners-of-dissent (http://www.disruptionlab.org/prisoners-of-dissent) Photo: Thomas Schmidt Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

PRISONERS-OF-DISSENT: Locked Up for Exposing Crimes. The 11th Event of the Disruption Network Lab Keynote: Doing Time Like a Spy. On Prison Survival and the CIA's War on Terror. With John Kiriakou(CIA anti-torture whistleblower, USA). Moderated by Magnus Ag (Senior Programm Officer, Freemuse, DK/DE) CIA anti-torture whistleblower John Kiriakou is considered the first US intelligence officer to reveal information about the US intelligence community's use of torture techniques. A long-time former CIA official and case officer, John Kiriakou became an anti-torture whistleblower and activist when he told ABC News in December 2007 that the CIA was torturing Al Qaeda prisoners. Immediately after John's interview, the Justice Department initiated a years-long investigation, determined to find something–anything–to charge him with. John eventually was charged with three counts of espionage, one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and one count of making a false statement as a result of the 2007 ABC News interview. On February 28, 2013, after pleading guilty to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Kiriakou began serving his prison sentence. During this keynote presentation, Kiriakou will talk about the effects and costs of national security whistleblowing in the United States, as well as his book, Doing Time Like a Spy: How the CIA Taught Me to Survive and Thrive in Prison, to be released May 3, 2017 (published by Rare Bird Books, pre-order here (http://www.rarebirdbooks.com/new-products/doing-time-like-a-spy-by-john-kiriakou)). The book is Kiriakou's memoir of his twenty-three months in prison. Using twenty life skills he learned in CIA operational training, he was able to keep himself safe and at the top of the prison social heap. What were improper and inappropriate manipulations of Kiriakou, through maneuvers that were designed to break him, came an end result that only made him stronger. www.disruptionlab.org/prisoners-of-dissent (http://www.disruptionlab.org/prisoners-of-dissent) Photo: Thomas Schmidt Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

TRUTH-TELLERS: The Impact of Speaking Out. The 10th event of the Disruption Network Lab. Panel: Beyond Evidence. Finding Sources, Questioning Truth with Jack Werner (investigative journalist, SE), Hans Bernhard / UBERMORGEN (artist, CH/USA/AT) Carmen Weisskopf and Domagoj Smoljo / !Mediengruppe Bitnik (artists, CH/DE). Moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli (Director of the Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE). If we consider truth-telling as the act of providing clear facts and evidence, which is a keen discourse within whistleblowing, what happens if we question the concept of truth itself, by analysing how Internet culture works? The challenge becomes to investigate those obscure parts of the Internet that are fed by "fakelore" (as a combination of fake, and folklore), as well as artistic projects that question a single perspective of understanding and bring along multiple truths. Hans Bernhard, co-founder of the artist project UBERMORGEN together with lizvlx, will tell us about the (true or false?) stories of discovering whistle-blower Edward Snowden at the Vienna International Airport escaping from Hong Kong, as well as Facts, Truth, Fake, and consensual hallucinations; Carmen Weisskopf and Domagoj Smoljo /!Mediengruppe Bitnik will present, among others, their project “Delivery for Mr. Assange” as a SYSTEM_TEST and a Live Mail Art Piece broadcasted in the Internet through a camera, as well as other projects about the hidden side of the Internet. Finally, investigative journalist Jack Werner, author of the book Creepypasta: Ghost stories from the Internet (2014), will open up the discourse to “fakelore”, by discussing the impact of viral storytelling and source trust in online journalism and culture. www.disruptionlab.org/truth-tellers (http://www.disruptionlab.org/truth-tellers) Photo: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

TRUTH-TELLERS: The Impact of Speaking Out. The 10th event of the Disruption Network Lab. Keynote: 50 Days of Lulz with Mustafa Al-Bassam (alias Tflow, former core member, LulzSec, UK). Moderated by Gabriella Coleman (Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University, Quebec, CA). This keynote presentation wants to trace back the so-called "50 Days of Lulz" (“lulz” as a derivation of lol, laugh out loud), 50 days of high profile attacks by the hacker group named “LulzSec” in the spring of 2011. This story, which is about truth-telling activity beyond moral conformism and political correctness, as well as fighting for freedom and social rights, facing corporations, oppression and corruption, is told by one of its protagonists, Mustafa Al-Bassam alias Tflow, who was one of the six core members of LulzSec, and at the time only 16 years old. The activity of LulzSec is well documented in the book Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous (2014) by Gabriella Coleman (who will introduce this Keynote), as a unique example of a collective that was able to find vulnerabilities in high level computer systems, revealing hidden information, as well as straightforward attacks on private corporations (from HBGaryFederal to Sony Pictures), using the strategy of leaking for exposing wrongdoing and sensitive data. LulzSec is shrouded in some degree of deliberate mystery, combining the activity of whistleblowing with the one of opacity, deceit, and play, as the broader entity of Anonymous to whom LulzSec was affiliated. Here the fun of trolling and political activism are bound together, having a large impact on public opinion and media culture. Mustafa Al-Bassam, who also managed the LulzSecurity.com website, is currently a Computer Science PhD student at University College London, and back on the Internet after a nearly two year Internet ban imposed by police. www.disruptionlab.org/truth-tellers (http://www.disruptionlab.org/truth-tellers) Photo: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

IGNORANCE: The Power of Non-Knowledge. The 9th event of the Disruption Network Lab. Panel: Manipulation Incorporated: On Social Media Targeting, Self-Branding, and Emotional Pornification with Ippolita (activists and writers, IT), Hannah Jane Parkinson (digital culture journalist and writer, UK), and Vladan Joler (SHARE Foundation director, chair of New Media Department, University of Novi Sad, RS). Moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli (artistic director, Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE). Which strategies of manipulation are hidden behind the use of social media? What are the targeting methods used by Facebook during political campaigns? How does an algorithm quantify and influence our intimate lives? Who is controlling our data and for what are they used? Social media corporations have been basing their economy on trade of personal connections, targeting of users, and the commercial use of our sensitive data. This is a trade that most of the time we accept almost automatically, exchanging data for free services. But while we experiment the pleasure of being always connected and the playful dependence of exposing our intimate digital self, somebody else is profiting, and even trying to orient our political vote. As pointed out by the Ippolita collective, we are electrical souls permanently in ecstasy, practicing the discipline of emotional pornography in the media spotlight - without realising we are at the mercy of a doping and manipulative power. A power that knows how to use social media, as well as operate across them, as we read on The Guardian piece by Hannah Jane Parkinson, who will describe Trump's social media strategy, as well as the post-fact problematic posed by the “Vote Leave” campaign by Boris Johnson in the UK. With Vladan Joler we will investigate what is at the core of the Facebook Algorithmic Factory, to map and visualise a complex and invisible exploitation process hidden behind a black box of the World's largest social network. www.disruptionlab.org/ignorance (http://www.disruptionlab.org/ignorance/) Photo: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

IGNORANCE: The Power of Non-Knowledge. The 9th event of the Disruption Network Lab. Panel: The Forbidden, the Doubtful and the Moral. What Could Be Known But Isn't with Joanna Kempner (sociologist, US), Jamie Allen (artist and researcher, CA/CH), Jan Willem Wieland (philosopher and researcher, NL). Moderated by Teresa Dillon (artist and researcher, IE/DE/UK). While it is difficult enough to develop what has been termed “negative knowledge”, that is, knowledge about the limits of knowledge (Karin Knorr-Cetina), also later in the process it continues to be a challenge to understand how to deal with these identified fields of non-knowledge. This panel will deal with such known unknowns, and present experimental methods of investigation as well as the resulting question related to the responsibility for not-knowing in moral and ethical terms: While Joanna Kempner will present her exploration and work within the territories of “forbidden knowledge” in medical science research, Jamie Allen will give insight into his artistic work and research related to “apocryphal technologies” as examples for ignorance through the false believe of being knowledgable. The ethical questions related to these and other forms of willful (that is, motivated, affected, or strategic) forms of ignorance, to what can and should have already been known, will be presented by Jan Willem Wieland. Taking new forms of slavery and our so-called slavery-footprint as an example, he will discuss the question of whether people who are willfully ignorant can be held responsible for it. www.disruptionlab.org/ignorance (http://www.disruptionlab.org/ignorance/) Photo: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

IGNORANCE: The Power of Non-Knowledge. The 9th event of the Disruption Network Lab. Keynote: Ignorance. How to Know about Not Knowing with Matthias Gross (sociologist and science studies scholar, DE). Moderated by Daniela Silvestrin (curator, Disruption Network Lab, DE). In his keynote, Matthias Gross will present the publication and overview of inquiries within the field of ignorance studies he co-edited together with Linsey McGoey: Once treated as the absence of knowledge, ignorance today has become a highly influential topic in its own right, commanding growing attention across the natural and social sciences where a wide range of scholars have begun to explore the social life and political issues involved in the distribution and strategic use of not knowing. The field is growing fast and this handbook reflects this interdisciplinary field of study by drawing contributions from economics, sociology, history, philosophy, cultural studies, anthropology, feminist studies, and related fields in order to serve as a seminal guide to the political, legal and social uses of ignorance in social and political life. www.disruptionlab.org/ignorance (http://www.disruptionlab.org/ignorance/) Photo: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

DEEP CABLES: Uncovering the Wiring of the World. The 8th event of the Disruption Network Lab. Panel: Cable Breaks. The Powers Below the Surface with Ingrid Burrington (artist and researcher, USA), Helga Tawil-Souri (associate professor Middle East and Islamic Studies NYU, Palestine/USA), Gabriele “Asbesto” Zaverio (sysadmin, co-founder, MusIF, FreakNet MediaLab, IT). Moderated by Jacob Lillemose (postdoctoral researcher and curator, Copenhagen Center for Disaster Research, DK). If the Internet is material at its core, based on an infrastructure of physical cables, it is in principle also victim to the same laws of physics as other material entities. Rather than understanding the Internet as a given thing, almost like a second air, the emphasis indirectly suggest that the Internet is a thing that like so many other things could one day break or disappear. While there is certainly reason to criticise the Internet when it works at its worst as a control mechanism there is just as much reason to be critically aware of the instances when it might not work at all, when it breaks down and our dependency on – and trust in – it is exposed, in some cases with catastrophic consequences. This panel is dealing with “cable breaks” as a metaphorical concept, showing that the Internet is a result of political and power alliances – andtherefore subjected to vulnerabilities and interruptions related notonly to its physical materiality, but also to cultural and political dynamics. It wants to investigate various blackout scenarios by inviting respectively an artist focusing on submarine cables and the confluence of local and global politics and history in specific US landingsites; a media scholar and documentary filmmaker expert on Internet breakdown and vulnerabilities during conflicts, analysing the digital occupation of Palestine; and a computer programmer working with "breaks", digital-divide and off zones in Italy and Sicily. www.disruptionlab.org/deep-cables (http://www.disruptionlab.org/deep-cables) Photo: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

DEEP CABLES: Uncovering the Wiring of the World. The 8th event of the Disruption Network Lab. Keynote: The Internet, Really. Behind the Scenes of Our Everyday Lives with Andrew Blum (writer & journalist, USA). Respondent: Bernd Fix (computer security expert, Wau Holland Stiftung, DE). In the book Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet (German title: Kabelsalat), journalist Andrew Blum goes inside the Internet's physical infrastructure, revealing an utterly fresh look at the online world we think we know. What is the Internet physically? And where is it really? The Internet, its material nuts and bolts, is an unexplored territory. Connecting a shockingly tactile realm of unmarked compounds, from the room in Los Angeles where the Internet first flickered to life to the caverns beneath Manhattan as new fiber-optic cable is buried; from the coast of Portugal, where a ten-thousand-mile undersea cable just two thumbs wide connects Europe and Africa, to the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, where Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have built monumental data centers, Andrew Blum chronicles the dramatic story of the Internet's development, explains how it all works, and takes the first ever in-depth look inside its hidden monuments. Is the Internet in fact “a series of tubes” as Ted Stevens, the late senator from Alaska, once famously described it? How can we know the Internet's possibilities if we don't know its parts? www.andrewblum.net (http://andrewblum.net/) www.disruptionlab.org/deep-cables (http://www.disruptionlab.org/deep-cables) Photo: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

DEEP CABLES: Uncovering the Wiring of the World. The 8th event of the Disruption Network Lab. Panel: Dirty Cables. The Technology & Politics of Network Infrastructures with Moritz Metz (radio journalist, DE), Marc Helmus (network operator and engineer, DE), Anne Roth (net activist, senior advisor for the German Parliamentary Inquiry on Mass Surveillance for the group Die Linke, DE). Moderated by Anna Biselli (journalist, Netzpolitik.org, DE). This panel investigates the materiality and hidden infrastructure of land and undersea network cables, tracing a path from the first submarine cables to today's worldwide fiber-optic network, and presents the real but hidden world of the Internet, where big data is linked to geopolitical surveillance. The participants will speak about the existence of secret data warehouses where our Internet selves are stored, the geographical architecture and functioning of land and undersea cables, the secrets of the network infrastructure, showing what the Internet actually is and its consequences for our online everyday life, both in its public and private aspects. Expert of the hidden Internet world Moritz Metz, network operator and engineer within the cable industry Marc Helmus, and member of the working team of the German Parliamentary Inquiry on Mass Surveillance Anne Roth, will enter into a dialogue to reflect around the materiality of the wired network and its historical and geopolitical dimensions. Starting with an analysis on the physical network infrastructure both on land and on sea (with Moritz Metz and Marc Helmus), the panel will culminate with an analysis of the discourse of data interception and surveillance on cable infrastructure, and what we know so far (with Anne Roth). http://www.disruptionlab.org/deep-cables (http://www.disruptionlab.org/deep-cables) Photo: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

DEEP CABLES: Uncovering the Wiring of the World. The 8th event of the Disruption Network Lab. Keynote: Network Exposed. Charting the Invisible with Henrik Moltke (investigative journalist, DK/USA), Trevor Paglen (artist and geographer, USA). Moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli (artistic director, Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE). Note: Trevor Paglen's presentation is not recorded. In August 2015 Henrik Moltke and a team of journalists from Pro Publica and the New York Times revealed intimate details of the National Security Agency's decades-long partnership with the telecom giant AT&T. A seemingly innocuous detail in a random document allowed the team to pin down the elusive collaboration, referred to by codename in the documents leaked by Edward Snowden. A cable severed by the 2011 earthquake in Japan caused an outage, after which NSAs ‘collection' - or tap - on the cable resumed. The date matched the repair on the northern leg of the Japan-US Cable, one of a handful of main arteries connecting Asia and the US. At the end of the cable is an anonymous looking industrial building, far off on the Mendocino coast of Northern California. The cable station is operated by AT&T. Under the motto “Follow the cables”, Henrik Moltke recounts how he retraces the physical footprint of deep state secrets. In this presentation, Henrik Moltke and Trevor Paglen will trace a link between the imaginary concept of “The Internet” and the present configuration of geopolitical wired structures, where big data, cloud computing, mass surveillance, and the monopolies of big corporations are intertwined. By disclosing through photography the development of transatlantic and undersea fibre-optic cables, and reconnecting the past with the present by charting the hidden infrastructure of information technology, this event will expose the inner functioning of the modern business of cable infrastructures, showing the global dimension, as well as the invisible sites of the physical Internet. http://www.disruptionlab.org/deep-cables (http://www.disruptionlab.org/deep-cables) Photo: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

Mustafa Al-Bassam (https://twitter.com/musalbas) (alias Tflow, former core member of LulzSec, UK), Jean Peters (https://twitter.com/jeangleur) (co-founder Peng! collective, DE), M. C. McGrath (https://twitter.com/shidash?lang=de) (founder of Transparency Toolkit, USA/DE), Andrea Natella (http://www.andreanatella.it) (former Luther Blissett conspirator, creative director of guerrigliamarketing.it and KOOK Artgency, IT). Moderated by Ruth Catlow (http://furtherfield.org/user/ruth-catlow) (co-founder of Furtherfield, UK). Following the thread of creating unexpected consequences in economical, social and political systems, this panel reflects on the practice of political stunts and data dumps by provoking intelligence disruptions, virality interventions and corporate hijacking. The panel brings together Tflow, former core member of LulzSec (Lulz Security), the computer hacker group responsible for several high profile attacks in early 2011 to corporations and governments (i.e. CIA and Sony Pictures); Jean Peters, co-founder of Peng! (https://www.pen.gg), the German collective known for intruding into business conferences, producing corporate fakes and pranks, as well as for their recent campaign “Intelexit” , an initiative that helps people leave the secret service; M. C. McGrath, founder of Transparency Toolkit (https://transparencytoolkit.org), a project that uses open data to map the intelligence community and uncover secret surveillance programs as well as investigates human rights abuses and find perpetrators; and, last but not least, Andrea Natella, former mythmaker of the Italian Luther Blissett Project, founder of Guerrigliamarketing.it, and creative director of KOOK Artgency (http://www.andreanatella.it/kook/), an unconventional agency specialised in designing and manufacturing viral, street and digital marketing. The panel is moderated by Ruth Catlow, co-founder of Furtherfield, an online community and distributed network active since the 1990s in UK and on the net, focused on digital arts, experimental poetry, critical texts, and anarchic creativity. Source: http://www.disruptionlab.org/stunts/ (http://www.disruptionlab.org/stunts/) Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

John Law (original member of the Suicide Club and the Cacophony Society ((http://www.cacophony.org)); co-founder of the Billboard Liberation Front and of the Burning Man Festival, USA). Moderated by Marie Lechner (journalist and researcher, FR). How everything started in San Francisco Rumors of pie wielding assassins and a cryptic invitation to explore the miasmal underbelly of the urban landscape seen in a hippy free university calendar in 1977, was enough to enflame the curiosity of seventeen-year old John Law. A subsequent initiation into the secretive Suicide Club propelled Law into a thirty-eight year “career” amidst the hidden world of pranks, urban exploration, counter culture, ‘Culture Jamming' and creative mayhem. Fight Club, Burning Man, SantaCon, media hacking, urban exploration, street art, flash mobs and more - these are some of the cultural phenomena that were initiated or somehow influenced by the Suicide Club, and the subsequent sub-cultures that Law was fortunate to have fallen into as a teenaged juvenile delinquent. This presentation reveals some of the genesis & history of these groups including a brief survey of their precedents and influences on through the present day iterations, spin offs and ‘fellow travellers'. The idea we hope you take away from this presentation is simply this: this strange, obscure world is available to anyone who can appreciate the concept that “you may already be a member”. Source: http://www.disruptionlab.org/stunts/ (http://www.disruptionlab.org/stunts/) Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

PiggyBankGirls: Erotic Crowdfunding for Girls Short video with Sascha Schoonen (CEO, PiggyBankGirls, DE) This video shot specifically for our conference event presents and introduces to the public the new-born platform “PiggyBankGirls”, the first erotic crowdfunding platform for girls, where women get into the erotic business for a specific goal, trying to get their ideas and projects funded by supporters via their online porn performances. The CEO of the platform, Sascha Schoonen, introduces the main mission of the project, as well as brings some specific examples of projects that got funded. Furthermore she reflects on what it means to be a female CEO in the mostly male-dominated sex and porn business. Source: http://www.disruptionlab.org/porntubes/ (http://www.disruptionlab.org/porntubes/) PiggyBankGirls (http://www.piggybankgirls.com) Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

A keynote with Carmen Rivera (Mistress and Fetish-SM-performer, DE). Moderated by Gaia Novati (net activist and researcher on indie porn, IT/DE) In this special event, Carmen Rivera will share with the public the “secrets” of her carrier as a Mistress, being since many years involved in the field as erotic photographer and fetish model, dancer, and erotic show moderator. Founder of one of the first SM communities in Germany in the 1990s, she will share with the public her background in the show business and porn entertainment as TV show moderator (Beate-Uhse.TV and other productions) as well as Fetish-SM-performer (including an open-air show in Italy in front of 30.000 visitors). As independent manager of her own video-production series "Carmen Rivera Entertainment" which made a name in the international fetish scene she will also present one of her recent projects: “Wunschvideo” where her fans are offered the opportunity to make a video completely and individually based on their script. Furthermore, the event will discuss on the practice of working professionally with pornography, reflecting on the transformation of the porn & erotic industry in the last years. Source: http://www.disruptionlab.org/porntubes/ (http://www.disruptionlab.org/porntubes/) Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

Panel: XXXPLICIT. From Porn Tubes to Online Sex Working This panel investigates the evolution of the sex and porn business, from the early days of webcam work to the creation of porntubes and commercial contemporary online porn platforms (PornoTube, RedTube, YouPorn, etc.). From one side, this development will be analysed technologically by highlighting the transformation in the field of pornography of the major adult-only platforms, presenting new disruptive business models of sharing porn; from the other side, the panel will bring a critical perspective on how roles and conditions of sexworking are changing with the use of online technology for porn and beyond it, questioning if User-Generated-Content models are bringing more sustainability or less participation in terms of community building. Furthermore, this panel will reflect on the transformation of the erotic and porn imaginary with the emergence of new pervasive sharing business models, social media platforms, as well as new audience. Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

Strategies for Resistance Jørgen Johansen (https://twitter.com/jrgenjohansen) (researcher on resistance studies, civil disobedience and whistleblowing, NO), Jaromil (https://jaromil.dyne.org/) (hacktivist, IT/NL), Sophie Toupin (https://twitter.com/stoopt) (researcher and feminist techno/activist, QC/CA), moderated by Valie Djordjevic (https://twitter.com/validd) (net activist, DE). What does it mean today to speak about “resistance” on the net and beyond more than two years after the first of Edward Snowden's disclosures? In the past years the world at large has been shocked by revelations about state surveillance networks and their prevarication over citizen's rights. Such a scenario is not new to hackers, but more than ever today is extending a grim aura over our capacity to imagine a better society. By going beyond fear and paranoia of surveillance, this panel reflects on the impact of the Snowden case, and on the upcoming frontiers of action and awareness for hackers, activists and artists in the present context of geopolitical powers. Without undermining the need of encrypting our data, and protecting our physical and online existence, this discussion aims to go beyond the current state of paranoid-affairs and crypto-angst into the development of shared forms of post-digital resistance, in search of positive alternatives and horizons for the kind of consciousness cultivated by hackers and activists. Source: http://www.disruptionlab.org/samizdata/ (http://www.disruptionlab.org/samizdata/) Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com

This two-day event is in collaboration with SAMIZDATA: Evidence of Conspiracy (http://www.nomeproject.com/news/nome-presents-jacob-appelbaums-first-solo-show), Jacob Appelbaum's first solo show in Germany at NOME (http://nomeproject.com) Speakers: Jacob Appelbaum (https://twitter.com/ioerror?lang=de) (journalist, artist and researcher, USA/DE), Laura Poitras (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Poitras) (Academy Award-winning filmmaker and journalist, USA), Theresa Züger (https://twitter.com/therezaza) (researcher on civil disobedience, DE). Moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli (https://twitter.com/t_bazz) (Artistic Director of the Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE) A conversation about document leaking, strategies of transparency and the actual struggle for universal human rights and social justice through activist and artistic practices. Art becomes a means to expose misconducts and abuses of Government, organisations and corporations. This approach has a double effect: from one side it informs the general public about unspoken facts or behaviours, which need to be revealed, and from the other, it empowers people to adopt this methodology and keep the ball of exposure rolling. The goal is to make people aware of such mechanisms, opening up a critical perspective to generate evidence as an artistic strategy and to improve transparency and alternatives to fear and control. Even when inter-personal communication becomes a field for the expanding narrative of total war, the goal is to reflect on the importance of establishing networks of trust and collective forms of civil disobedience. Source: http://www.disruptionlab.org/samizdata/ (http://www.disruptionlab.org/samizdata/) Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com