Disruptive Fridays - Live Streaming Series

Feel free to tweet about #DisruptiveFridays by @disruptberlin - streaming weekly on disruptionlab.org/fridays! Invite friends to watch & participate!

When we named our organisation "Disruption Network Lab" we would never have imagined that disruption would turn out the way we are experiencing it. In the course of the past years we have invited people that disrupt and challenge closed systems from within. In a moment in which we are all experiencing a deep closure, Disruptive Fridays becomes an opportunity to foster even more critical thinking. During these conversations we will address topics related to art, hacktivism, whistleblowing, social justice and collective care in times of corona.

Supported by the European Cultural Foundation - Culture of Solidarity fund.
Part of Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Next edition:

Disruptive Fridays will be back in January 2021 - stay tuned!

Previous editions

Colonial Borders & Counter Archives · Disruptive Fridays #15

December 4, 2020: Lauren Alexander, Ghalia Elsrakbi, Daniela Ortiz,moderated by Nada Bakr

With: Lauren Alexander, Ghalia Elsrakbi, Daniela Ortiz,moderated by Nada Bakr

On the 15th and last Disruptive Fridays episode of this year, we invited Lauren Alexander & Ghalia Elsrakbi of Foundland Collective and Daniela Ortiz in a follow up converstation for Disruption Network Lab's 21st conference BORDERS OF FEAR: Migration, Security and Control (on November 27-29).

In the conversation, Foundland collective will speak about their artistic practice in creating personal “Counter-archives” by means of alternative storytelling and documenting underrepresented narratives of migration, conflict, loss and memory. Daniela Ortiz will address her work with visual narratives on borders as a colonial discourse and crtically reflect on migration control systems and its legal structure.

With:

• Lauren Alexander (Foundland Collective, SA, NL)

• Ghalia Elsrakbi (Foundland Collective, SY/NL)

• Daniela Ortiz (Artist, PE)

• Nada Bakr (Disruption Network Lab, EG/DE)

Speakers

Lauren Alexander & Ghalia Elsrakbi
Foundland Collective was formed in 2009 by South African Lauren Alexander and Syrian Ghalia Elsrakbi and since 2014 the collective is based between Amsterdam and Cairo. The duo collaboration explores underrepresented political and historical narratives by working with archives via art, design, writing, educational formats, video making and storytelling. Throughout their development, the duo has critically reflected upon what it means to produce politically engaged work from their position as non-Western artists working between Europe and the Middle East.  From their artist statement: “Increasingly, we find it important to continue highlighting marginalized perspectives and keep experimenting with slower, inclusive formats for collection, translation and interpretation. By generating and caring for ‘counter-archives’ as a mode of working, we aim to resist and stay critical towards hasty and manipulative modes of communication. In a world where media sadly functions as a way to provoke hate and xenophobia, we believe in making visible an understanding of our interconnected geopolitical responsibilities.”

Foundland Collective was awarded the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship for research in the largest Arab American archive in 2015, the outcome of which was presented as video installation at Centre Pompidou in Paris (2017) and their short video, “The New World, Episode One” premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival (2018). The duo have lectured and exhibited internationally including at ISPC, New York, Ars Electronica, Linz, Impakt Festival, BAK, Utrecht, London Art Fair, Beursschouwburg, Brussels, Fikra Biennial, Sharjah and Tashweesh Feminist Festival, Cairo and Brussels. They have been shortlisted for the Dutch Prix de Rome prize in 2015 and Dutch Design Awards in 2016. Foundland’s short video works are preserved and distributed by Dutch media art archive LIMA in Amsterdam.

Daniela Ortiz
Through her work, she aims to generate visual narratives in which the concepts of nationality, racialization, social class and genre are explored so as to critically understand structures of colonial, patriarchal and capitalist power. Her recent projects and research deal with the European migratory control system, its links to colonialism and the legal structure created by European institutions in order to inflict violence on racialized and migrant communities. She has also developed projects about the Peruvian upper class and its exploitative relationship with domestic workers. Recently, her artistic practice has reverted to visual and manual work, developing artworks in ceramic, collage and formats such as children’s books in order to shift away from the aesthetics of Eurocentric conceptual art. 

Apart from her artistic practice, she is the mother of a three-year-old, she gives talks, holds workshops, carries out investigations and participates in discussions on Europe’s migratory control system and its ties to coloniality in various contexts. 

Nada Bakr is an independent curator, researcher, and cultural manager. Her research-driven projects straddle the fields of visual arts, digital culture and networked activism, and unfold between Berlin and Cairo. Nada is Community and Project Manager at Disruption Network Lab, Berlin, and Managing Director and Co-Curator of Cairotronica.

Supported by the European Cultural Foundation - Culture of Solidarity fund.
Part of Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Follow the Data: Corruption, Leaks & People vs. Power Disruptive Fridays #14

November 20, 2020: Natalie Sedletska, Denis “Jaromil” Roio, Friedrich Lindenberg, moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli

This Disruptive Fridays edition is a broadcast of the event held at the 4th CIJ Logan Symposium Collective Intelligence (16-19 November 2020)

In this special edition for the 4th CIJ Logan Symposium Collective Intelligence, we hold a panel discussion on how open-source intelligence tools and collective strategies reconfigure investigations. Moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli, this talk brings together investigative television journalist Natalie Sedletska, software artisan and ethical hacker Denis “Jaromil” Roio, and data team lead at OCCRP Friedrich Lindenberg. This panel focuses on the one hand on methods of making leaks and large datasets accessible to a wider public, on the other hand on models to avoid the exploitation of sensitive data by authorities or organised crime.

Natalie Sedletska will share the experience of the YanukovychLeaks National Project, concerning the nearly 200 folders of documents found in the lake at the residence of former president of Ukraine, thrown to destroy them as people were escaping the luxury residence. The documents were rescued by volunteer divers and systematised, investigated and published by a group of journalists and activists to make them available to citizens around the world.

Denis “Jaromil” Roio will speak about the importance of social movements challenging city policy on money speculation and hidden illicit cash flows, finding ways to have agency through collectivising big data controlled by financial and institutional powers.

Friedrich Lindenberg will present some of the recent work OCCRP’s data team has done analysing a large-scale dataset related to the murder investigation of Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak. He’ll also summarise some lessons learned about the use of data in investigative reporting, and the limitations of transparency as a method and an ideal, contributing another perspective coming from the context of investigating organised crime and corruption.

Natalie Sedletska
Investigative Reporter & TV Host, UA
Natalie Sedletska is a Ukrainian investigative television journalist and editor who works in the anticorruption field. At present, Natalie works as the chief editor and host of the investigative program “Schemes” – a television project that she founded in 2014 with the support of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “Schemes” project is broadcasted by the Ukrainian public TV on a weekly basis.

Denis "Jaromil" Roio
Digital Social Innovation Expert, Software Artisan & Ethical Hacker, IT
Denis Roio, better known by his hacker nickname Jaromil, is CTO of the DECODE EU flagship project on blockchain technologies and data ownership, involving pilots in cooperation with the municipalities of Barcelona and Amsterdam. Jaromil published his PhD on “Algorithmic Sovereignty” (AlgoSov.org) and received the Vilém Flusser Award at transmediale (Berlin, 2009) while leading for six years the R&D department of the Netherlands Media Art Institute (Montevideo/TBA). He has been a fellow of the “40 under 40” European Young Leaders programme since 2012 and was listed in the “Purpose Economy” list of the top 100 social entrepreneurs in the EU in 2014.

Friedrich Lindenberg
Data Team Lead, OCCRP, Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, DE
Friedrich Lindenberg leads the data team at OCCRP. He is responsible for the development of OCCRP Aleph and supports ongoing investigations where data analysis is needed. In 2014/2015, Friedrich was a Knight International journalism fellow with the International Center for Journalists, working with the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), and in 2013 he was a Knight-Mozilla Open News fellow at Spiegel Online in Hamburg. Prior to that, Friedrich was an open data activist, and worked to promote the release of government information about public finance, lobbying, procurement and law making across the world.

Tatiana Bazzichelli
Founder and Programme Director, Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE
Tatiana Bazzichelli is founder and programme director at Disruption Network Lab, an organisation in Berlin examining the intersection of politics, technology, and society, and exposing the misconduct and wrongdoing of the powerful (disruptionlab.org). Her focus of work is hacktivism, network culture, art and whistleblowing. In 2011-2014 she was programme curator at transmediale art & digital culture festival, where she developed the year-round initiative reSource transmedial culture Berlin, and curated several conference events, workshops and installations. She is member of the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Award Committee 2020. In 2019 she has been appointed jury member for the Hauptstadtkulturfonds (Capital Cultural Fund) by the German federal government and Berlin, and in 2020 jury member for the Kulturlichter prize, a new award for digital cultural education by the German federal government.

Supported by the European Cultural Foundation - Culture of Solidarity fund.
Part of Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

ReImagine Culture
Learnings from Culture during COVID-19
Disruptive Fridays #13

October 16, 2020: Davorka Begović, Anna Ramos, Slavo Krekovic, moderated by Lieke Ploeger

We started our Disruptive Fridays series in April 2020 by asking: what are our strategies to keep working with art and culture when our contexts of sharing are so limited? Six months later, we re-visit this question with three speakers that have been trying out creative solutions for resistance to the isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and hear from them how they have worked on reimagining culture in times of corona.

With:
- Davorka Begović (KONTEJNER, HR)
- Anna Ramos (Radio Web MACBA, ES)
- Slavo Krekovic (A4 - Space for Contemporary Culture, SK).
Moderated by Lieke Ploeger (Disruption Network Lab, NL/DE).

Today’s speakers form part of a group of 10 cultural organisation from across Europe that work together in the Re-Imagine Europe project, addressing the social and political challenges we face today. They will share how they have found new ways to continue their cultural work over the past months, and we’ll discuss together how can we reimagine formats for cultural production.

Davorka Begović of KONTEJNER, an NGO engaged in curatorial work, the organization of art festivals and other public events, education and social theory, will speak about the challenges of festival production in times of corona. Despite the adjusted reality and programme changes because of different situations in different countries, they recently completed a successful edition of the Touch Me festival, dedicated to relations between technology, science and art.

Anna Ramos joins from Radio Web MACBA, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona's online radio. RWM is a radio-beyond-radio, operating at the intersection of art, philosophy, critical thinking, radiophonic practices, experimental music and orality; an online project that has amassed 14 years of collective learning and more than 800 files. She will share the paradox of gaining exposure and new attention, thanks to the digital nature of the project -ie. podcasts- during the lockdown, while experiencing a temporary paralysis, both in their methodology and in the small community of affects behind the RWM Working Group.

Slavo Krekovic will bring in the perspective of A4 - Space for Contemporary Culture, an independent cultural centre in Bratislava with daily public events (experimental music, new media art, contemporary dance, theatre, cinema, new media art) that has been facing challenges – as many others – since the first pandemic days in March 2020. The current governmental restrictions on public events in Slovakia are again going to be very radical and are forcing the independent cultural operators to rethink their approach, including setting up new kinds of educational and performance-oriented online events. He will also talk about the upcoming NEXT Festival of experimental music which is supposed to take place early December with the theme "Subject to change".

Speakers

Davorka Begović graduated in Musicology at the Academy of Music, University of Zagreb. For the last 15 years, she has been working in the field of culture and art as a selector and a producer, primarily of music, but also theatre, contemporary dance, multimedia and film projects. She was an associate from the very beginning of the Culture of Change Programme at the Student Centre Zagreb, where afterwards she held the position of the Music Programme Artistic Director. Currently, she works as a freelance musicologist and independent curator, specializing in the field of contemporary (experimental) music and related art forms and as a collaborator of KONTEJNER she runs the international project Re-Imagine Europe.

Anna Ramos runs the online radio project Radio Web MACBA and is the co-director of the label Alku, a multidisciplinary platform operating since 1997. She has background in journalism and develops projects, installations and programmes of different sorts, quite often related to sound and critical thinking. She lives and works in Barcelona.

Slavo Krekovic is a musician and sound artist, musicologist, contemporary music and new media art curator and cultural organizer/nonprofit activist. He is the organizer and curator of series of experimental music and multimedia events, including the annual NEXT Festival of Advanced Music (since 2000) and Multiplace new media culture network festival (since 2002). In 2004 co-founded independent cultural centre A4 – Space of Contemporary Culture in Bratislava, where he holds the position of Deputy Director and Music Curator.

Lieke Ploeger is the community director and administration officer of the Disruption Network Lab. She is the co-founder of the independent project space SPEKTRUM art science community, where she worked as community builder from 2014 to 2018. Her core interest lies in building and developing both online and offline communities of interest, with a focus on sharing knowledge and expertise in an open way. She previously worked for the Open Knowledge Foundation and for the National Library of the Netherlands, where she was involved in various European research projects in the areas of open cultural data, open access and open science.


Supported by the European Cultural Foundation - Culture of Solidarity fund.
Part of Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Global Surveillance in the Data Society
Disruptive Fridays #12

September 11 2020: Sonia Kennebeck, Assia Boundaoui, Jer Thorp. Moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli, Mauro Mondello

On September 11, Disruption Network Lab is organising Disruptive Fridays 12#: Global Surveillance in the Data Society, a preview of the conference DATA CITIES: Smart Technologies, Tracking & Human Rights - which Tatiana Bazzichelli is curating together with investigative journalist Mauro Mondello (September 25-27, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin).

The conversation will reflect on the discourse of surveillance and human rights during the coronavirus crisis, and will reconnect it to another event that reshaped our society: 9/11. We decided to host it on 9/11 as a symbolic date, which signed unprecedented measures on the level of security and surveillance, compromising our privacy and freedom, and changing the way we perceived our society. To unfold the discussion we invited three speakers that have been dealing with the issues of data, tracking and human rights since long time.

With:
- Sonia Kennebeck (Film Director, MY/DE/US)
- Assia Boundaoui (Journalist, Filmmaker, Artists, DZA/US)
- Jer Thorp (Artist, Writer and Teacher, CA/US).
Moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli (Artistic Director, Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE), Mauro Mondello (Investigative Journalist, Filmmaker, IT).

Sonia Kennebeck will introduce her last film UNITED STATES VS. REALITY WINNER, currently in post-production. The film is the story of 25-year-old NSA contractor Reality Winner who disclosed a document about Russian election interference to the media and became the number one leak target of the Trump administration. In the framework of the discussion on post-9/11 surveillance and whistleblowing, she will trace a line that connects her three films: National Bird (the story of three whistleblowers who blow the whistle on the US drone war), Enemies of the State (about the case of hacker Matt DeHart), and United States vs. Reality Winner.

Assia Boundaoui will present her work combining community storytelling, visual arts, and artificial intelligence. Her work, The Inverse Surveillance Project, is an AI program analysing hundreds of thousands of documents collated by the FBI on people of colour over the past 100 years, revealing historic patterns on tactics it used during operations. An Algerian-American journalist and filmmaker based in Chicago, she directed the film The Feeling of Being Watched, a documentary investigating a decade of FBI surveillance in Boundaoui's Muslim-American community, which had its world premiere at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.

Jer Thorp, a data artist that designed (with Jake Barton) an algorithm and a software tool to aid in the placement of the names on the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan, will discuss his data artistic practice. His 9/11 Memorial Project allowed to arrange the names of those killed in the 9/11 attacks, respecting their familial, personal and business relationships with each other. He also collaborated with Mark Hansen, Ben Rubin, and Local Projects to create an interactive timeline of the attacks. Author of many data-inspired artworks, his forthcoming book Living in Data will be published in 2021.

We will discuss the issue of surveillance and human rights, reflecting on the transformation of our lives when security measures have been extensively implemented in the US and worldwide.
Tatiana Bazzichelli and Mauro Mondello will moderate the talk.

Sonia Kennebeck, Film Director, MY/DE/US
Sonia Kennebeck is an independent documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist with more than 15 years of directing and producing experience. She has directed eight television documentaries and more than 50 investigative reports. National Bird, her first feature-length film, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival 2016 and was also selected for Tribeca, Sheffield, and IDFA. In March 2017, National Bird received the prestigious Ridenhour Documentary Film Prize that is awarded to one documentary a year “that defends the public interest, advances or promotes social justice, or illuminates a more just vision of society.” Kennebeck received a master’s degree in international affairs from American University in Washington, D.C. She was born in Malacca, Malaysia, and lives in New York.

Assia Boundaoui, Journalist, Filmmaker, Artists, DZA/US
Assia Boundaoui is an Algerian-American journalist and filmmaker based in Chicago. She has reported for the BBC, NPR, PRI, Al Jazeera, VICE, and CNN. Her debut short film about hijabi hair salons for the HBO LENNY documentary series premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Her feature length debut THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED, a documentary investigating a decade of FBI surveillance in Assia's Muslim-American community, had its world premiere at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival. She is currently a fellow with the Co-Creation Studio at the MIT Open Documentary Lab, where she is iterating her most recent work, the Inverse Surveillance Project. Assia has a Masters degree in journalism from New York University and is fluent in Arabic.

Jer Thorp, Artist, Writer and Teacher, CA/US
Jer Thorp is best known for designing the algorithm to place the nearly 3,000 names on the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan. Jer was the New York Times' first Data Artist in Residence, is a National Geographic Explorer, and in 2017 and 2018 served as the Innovator in Residence at the Library of Congress. Jer is a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, and an alumnus of the World Economic Foundation’s Global Agenda Council on Design and Innovation. He is an adjunct Professor in New York University’s renowned Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), and is the Co-Founder of The Office for Creative Research. In 2015, Canadian Geographic named Jer one of Canada’s Greatest Explorers. Jer’s book 'Living in Data’ will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the spring of 2021.

Play or Get Played
Disruptive Fridays #11

August 28, 2020: Marloes de Valk, Chloê Langford, Gabriel Helfenstein, moderated by Jonas Frankki

In Play or Get Played we explored video game utopias and playable political satires with:

Marloes de Valk (Software Artist & Writer, NL)
Chloê Langford (Artist & Programmer, AAA Software Collective, AU/DE)
Gabriel Helfenstein (Transmedia Artist & Writer, AAA Software Collective, FR/DE)
Moderated by Jonas Frankki (Disruption Network Lab, SE/DE)

Games we referred to:

• What Remains & Villains & Heroes by Marloes de Valk

• Utopias - Navigating without Coordinates by AAA Software Collective

Marloes de Valk (NL) is a software artist and writer in the post-despair stage of coping with the threat of global warming and being spied on by the devices surrounding her. Surprised by the obsessive dedication with which we, even post-Snowden, share intimate details about ourselves to an often not too clearly defined group of others, astounded by the deafening noise we generate while socializing with the technology around us, she is looking to better understand why. She studied Sound and Image at the Royal Conservatory in the The Hague, specialising in abstract compositional computer games, HCI and crashing computers. She has participated in exhibitions internationally, teaches workshops, gives lectures (among others at Transmediale and Chaos Communication Congress) and has published articles on Free/Libre/Open Source Software, free culture, art and technology. She is a thesis supervisor in the Master’s Program in Experimental Publishing at Piet Zwart Institute and a fellow at V2_Lab for the Unstable Media.

Her latest projects include Naked on Pluto (VIDA award), with Aymeric Mansoux and Dave Griffiths, a playful yet disturbing online game world, developed with Free/Libre Open Source Software, which parodies the insidiously invasive traits of much “social software”. The SKOR Codex (Japan Media Arts Festival award), with La Société Anonyme, a limited edition of eight hand bound books inspired by NASA’s Golden Record, aiming at preserving the memory of Dutch art institution SKOR for the distant future after it was closed down in 2012 due to massive funding cuts in the arts. What Remains, with Iodyne Dynamics, a darkly humorous, authentic Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) 8-bit game based on how public opinion was, and still is, shaped to prevent the creation of government regulations needed to protect us from man-made environmental disasters. (2019)

AAA is a software art collective based in Berlin, with members from countries including Australia, Argentina, Russia, Germany, USA and France. We make video games, give lectures and performances, maintain a blog and run a public community event called aaartgames. Our collective cooperation has formed in response to the frustration we feel with the fine art and video game production industries. We use game engines to make art in the wilderness between these spaces and we hope that allows us to make work that does not have the same constraints. Rather than adopt traditional game studio models or work individually, we are attempting to produce games in a non-hierarchical environment where no one person’s creative or technical vision is more important than another’s. Working collectively and trying to create a space for divergent but co-existing ideas and ways of working is important to us - this tension is a huge source of creative energy that drives our work.

Jonas Frankki (Disruption Network Lab, SE/DE)
Since 2014 Jonas Frankki designs and animates the visual identity of the Disruption Network Lab and each conference, and additionally researches speakers, networks and topics for future events. Jonas was born in Sweden, studied Marketing, International Relations, Political Science and Cultural Management in Gothenburg. Since 2012 he is also an Art Director at sinnwerkstatt, a Berlin media agency for sustainability. He is a member of the Disruption Network Lab e. V..

Shadows of Control
Disruptive Fridays #10

August 21, 2020: Elena B. Stavrevska, Artan Sadiku, Filip Balunovic moderated by Elena Veljanovska

The way we experience politics has changed rapidly since the beginning of the pandemic. Globally, the pandemic has uncovered many weak spots in our societies, such as our health care systems, care facilities and solidarity practices. While governments are purportedly ‘doing everything’ to protect the population, in public life  we also witness growing state intervention, exercise of control and use of combative language. 

With:
Elena B. Stavrevska (political scientist, London School for Economics and Political Science, MK/UK),
Artan Sadiku (Philosopher and activist, MK),
Filip Balunovic (Political scientist, SRB)
moderated by Elena Veljanovska (Disruption Network Lab, MK/DE).

What are the effects of this on democracy? What measures are states taking to combat the pandemic and how do they affect citizens? How is the crisis communicated to citizens and how is this reflecting the culture of governing? What does growing state intervention mean for politics, conflict studies, human rights, solidarity and activism? 

In this conversation we will focus on the response to the coronavirus outbreak in South Eastern European countries: North Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina. We will examine and question the execution of some political decisions in the region, the different political styles, misinformation and the lack of dialogue with the citizens. By taking a critical approach, we will also talk about citizens’ response to the measures, and how these measures reflected the current state of democracy in the respective societies.

Elena B. Stavrevska is a peace scholar whose work has explored issues of gender, intersectionality, and political economy in post-war societies. She is currently a research officer at the Centre for Women, Peace and Security and an academic associate at the Latin America and Caribbean Centre at the London School for Economics and Political Science. During the 2018-2019 academic year she was a visiting research fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, where she worked on her book manuscript with focus on gender provisions in peace agreements and the ways in which they are translated into laws and policies in an effort to address past injustices and violences. Drawing on ethnographic research and interviews with Roma women in Bosnia and Herzegovina and indigenous women in Colombia, the book highlights the intersectional impact of those ‘translations’ and advances the concept of intersectional justice in peace processes. She holds a PhD in Political Science (2017) and an MA in International Relations and European Studies (2008) from Central European University (CEU). Beyond her academic work, she has been working closely with different civil society organisations and think tanks in the Balkans. As of 2017, she is a co-founder of Stella, which inter alia initiated the first mentorship programme for women and girls in higher education in Macedonia, aiming to build solidarity networks while taking into consideration concerns of first generation and minority female students in particular. She is also the initiator of the #WomenAlsoKnowBalkans list, in an effort to facilitate the inclusion of women in policy and media discussions in and about the region.

Filip Balunovic received a PhD from the department of Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence. His research interest includes political economy, social movements, Marxism, political philosophy and political theory. He graduated from the Faculty of Political Science in Belgrade and received his MA degree in International Relations and European Studies from the European Institute in Nice. He received his second MA degree in Human Rights and Democracy from Universities of Sarajevo and Bologna. Balunovic is the executive editor of the Serbian edition of Le Monde Diplomatique and author of the book “Freedom Notebooks” (Mediteran, 2014) (Serbian “Beleske sa slobode”). He is lecturing at the Department of Politics, at the Faculty of Media and Communication in Belgrade. He is a research fellow at the CAS SEE in Rijeka.

Artan Sadiku is a researcher, theorist and activist and holds a PhD in philosophy. He has studied and researched at the universities in Amsterdam, Oslo, Munich and Baltimore. His primary theoretical interests are theories of the subject, feminism and radical practices in politics and arts. He has worked as a researcher in Skopje at the Institute for social studies and humanities where he led the School for politics and critique and is the founder of the Culture Club Syndicate and the activist movement Solidarnost. He was a prominent actor in protest movements such as Aman!, #protestiram and the Academic Plenum and currently is a member of the organizing board of the KRIK festival for critical culture. He is a regular contributor in regional and international journals such as Le Monde Dilomatique, Journal Identities and Bilten. His latest writings deal with the question of the space of art in the society and the aesthetic form of the workers.

Elena Veljanovska (Senior project manager, Disruption Network Lab, MK/DE)
Elena Veljanovska is a senior project manager at the Disruption Network Lab. From 2012 to 2019 she was the executive director and programme curator at Kontrapunkt Skopje, where among other projects, with Iskra Geshoska she co-developed the Festival for Critical Culture - CRIC (founded in 2016). In 2006 she co-founded Line I+M Platform for New Media Art and Technology, where she was the artistic director until 2010. Veljanovska has worked as a curator and cultural manager with numerous organisations and artists.

Crossing Borders: Sub-Saharan Communities of Care & Resistance
Disruptive Fridays #9

June 19 2020: Sharlotte Kigezo, Peter Nkanga, Jedi Ramalapa, moderated by Magnus Ag & Lieke Ploeger

Global. That is the definition and the reality of a pandemic. Yet, most attention and resources are confined by human made borders. Hosted in collaboration with Bridge Figures, Disruptive Fridays #9 connects with creative and activist communities in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa to learn and share about responses relevant to local and global communities.

With:
• Sharlotte Kigezo (Psychologist, KY/UG)
• Peter Nkanga (Journalist & campaigner, NG)
• Jedi Ramalapa (Broadcast journalist, ZA)
• Moderated by Magnus Ag (Bridge Figures, DK) and Lieke Ploeger (Disruption Network Lab, NL/DE).

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, an overwhelming amount of news and data has been flooding us. The media coverage seems to focus on the national and hyperlocal situation – while we are dealing with a global pandemic. In this conversation we focus on the response of Sub-Saharan Africa to the coronavirus outbreak, and hear from some of the people that work on creating a conversation around COVID-19 – one that can contribute to a more global understanding of what we are all facing.

Jedi Ramalapa is a South African broadcast journalist. She is the current Editor-In-Chief of a non-profit podcasting organisation, Sound Africa; which aims to produce original narrative (audio) journalism which upends the stereotypes and cliches about Africa and Africans. She also hosts Sound Africa's newest weekly podcast series Covid-In-Africa, looking at the African response to COVID-19 and how it’s affecting people on the ground. She will address the impact of the pandemic on human rights.

Peter Nkanga is an independent multilingual investigative journalist based in Abuja, Nigeria . He is the former West Africa Representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and specializes in human rights and advocacy reporting. A fierce advocate for press freedom, Peter Nkanga has been at the forefront of the campaign for the rights of journalists in Nigeria and across sub-Saharan Africa. In 2019, he was awarded the “Jamal Khashoggi Award for Courageous Journalism” for his work. He will share more on how the virus outbreak has affected public procurement, the process of governments and state-owned corporations deciding which goods, services and works to spend public funds on.

Sharlotte Ainebyoona Kigezo is a psychologist, mental health advocate and spoken word artist based between Kenya and Uganda. She is passionate about mental health and community-based programs that build for a strong mental and physical foundation for the society. Sharlotte has been instrumental in facilitating trauma healing programs for refugee communities and art therapy programs for the creative and arts community. This being on the basis of mental health and factors that act as triggers to mental health like experiencing traumatic events (civil or cross-border wars, sexual assault, cyber bullying). She will discuss how we can best address mental health issues in these times, following her recent work with both refugee and artist communities on mental health awareness and forms of online therapy.

Magnus Ag is a human rights advocate, journalist, and researcher. He is the founder & director of Bridge Figures – a human rights organization that scales the potential of artists, activists, journalists & other agents of social change to build bridges and break walls in a data-driven world. Based between Hong Kong and Berlin, he previously worked with Copenhagen-based Freemuse — which defends the right to artistic freedom worldwide — and in New York as the Assistant Advocacy Director for the Committee to Protect Journalists. Magnus serves on Columbia University’s Committee on Global Thought’s advisory committee for the project The Politics of Visual Art in a Changing World, is an advisor to Avant-Garde Lawyers, and a proud member of PEN Hong Kong.

Lieke Ploeger is the community director and administration officer of the Disruption Network Lab. She is the co-founder of the independent project space SPEKTRUM art science community, where she worked as community builder from 2014 to 2018. Her core interest lies in building and developing both online and offline communities of interest, with a focus on sharing knowledge and expertise in an open way. She previously worked for the Open Knowledge Foundation and for the National Library of the Netherlands. She has a double master of arts from the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands and has been involved in various European research projects in the areas of open cultural data, open access and open science.

Empowerment vs Power - Strategies for Justice & Equality · Disruptive Fridays #8

June 12 2020: Mutale Nkonde, Melissa Segura, Marshall Trammell, moderated by Jonas Frankki

This week’s speakers all have specific experiences from the fight for justice & equality, against racism, poverty, marginalization, homelessness, criminalization and police brutality. What can we learn from their struggles & achievements, to inform our own fights around the world?

Mutale Nkonde (Expert in Tech & Race, CEO of AI For The People, Fellow, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University, US)
Twitter: @mutalenkonde
• Watch her talk from AI TRAPS - Racial Discrimination in the Age of AI.

Mutale Nkonde is a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center of Internet and Society at Harvard University where she is conducting an ethnographic study on how congressional staffers learn about the impact of technology on society. Nkonde works at the intersection of race, technology and policy and has been working as a Senior Tech Policy Advisory and Fellow at Data & Society Research Institute in New York City since 2016. Nkonde was part of the team that helped introduce the Algorithmic Accountability Act into the House of Representatives in April 2019, She is considering how facial recognition technologies and other surveillance technologies harm black and minoritized communities.

Melissa Segura (Investigative Reporter, BuzzFeed News, US)
Twitter: @MelissaDSegura
· Watch her talk from Citizens of Evidence - Latina Women uncovering police abuse in Chicago

Melissa Segura is an investigative reporter with BuzzFeed News and an Emerson fellow at the think tank New America. Her reporting focuses on the intersection of justice, class and race. In 2017 she authored a landmark investigation detailing how a group of predominantly working class, Latina women from Chicago uncovered evidence suggesting a police detective framed at least 51 of their sons, brothers, or husbands. Her series, “Broken Justice in Chicago,” has led to the exoneration of 10 men who had each spent decades behind bars. In 2018, the series earned her the George Polk Award in Journalism for local reporting and recognition as a finalist for Harvard's Goldsmith Award. She is at work on a book building on her Chicago story that examines the cracks in the criminal justice system and the hidden role that women play in correcting injustices. Before BuzzFeed News, Segura was a staff writer for Sports Illustrated. She received her B.A. in Spanish studies and communication from Santa Clara University.

Marshall Trammell (Music Research Strategist, US)
Marshall Trammell is a self-styled, Music Research Strategist and Common Knowledge Platform fellow at ProArts Commons based in Oakland, California. Deploying interculturally-situated technologies from the Underground Railroad, Trammell has created "Conduction (cc)", a Creative Commons and Critical Creative Music conduction system from  reimagining fugitivity, "accompliceship" and self-determination from the era of chattel slavery the World. ProArts is committed to supporting the 22 unhoused artists arrested in front of City Hall for protest against gentrification and the displacement of Black and traditional working class residents.

Jonas Frankki (Disruption Network Lab, SE/DE)
Since 2014 Jonas Frankki designs and animates the visual identity of the Disruption Network Lab and each conference, and additionally researches speakers, networks and topics for future events. Jonas was born in Sweden, studied Marketing, International Relations, Political Science and Cultural Management in Gothenburg. Since 2012 he is also an Art Director at sinnwerkstatt, a Berlin media agency for sustainability. He is a member of the Disruption Network Lab e. V..

Whistleblowing During COVID-19 · Disruptive Fridays #7

May 15 2020: Renata Avila, Joseph Farrell, Rima Sghaier, Tatiana Bazzichelli.

Disruptive Fridays #7 - Whistleblowing During COVID-19 focuses on the role of whistleblowers during COVID-19 and discusses the importance of exposing the truth during the pandemic.

With: Renata Avila (Executive Director of Ciudadanía Inteligente, GTM), Joseph Farrell (WikiLeaks Ambassador, UK), Rima Sghaier (Outreach & Research Fellow, Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights, TUN/IT), Tatiana Bazzichelli (Founder & Director, Disruption Network Lab, e. V., IT/DE).

Some weeks ago, a coalition of 95 public authorities, NGOs, and institutions has signed a letter proposed by The Good Lobby & Fibgar to protect those who report or expose the harms, abuses and wrongdoing that arise during the COVID-19 crisis.

"The COVID-19 pandemic brings into stark relief the importance of accountability and the need for regular and reliable information from our public institutions and our leaders. The people of every affected country need to know the truth about the spread of the disease both locally and internationally in order to respond effectively and help protect their communities. Fairness, transparency and cooperation are vital and never more so than during a pandemic."

The role of whistleblowers is crucial in times of crisis to expose wrongdoing and misconducts in private and public institutions, health systems, working environments, commercial and delivery markets, and to denounce abuses of personal privacy, both on the digital sphere and the everyday life. 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.

In a moment in which governments are entitle to use extraordinary powers without proper public oversight and transparency, we need to protect whistleblowers and discuss forms of collective participation to guarantee global safety and accountability, as well as to defend the human rights and freedoms of all people.

Read more here about whistleblowers around the world that got silenced or suffered persecution during COVID-19.

Renata Avila (Executive Director of Ciudadanía Inteligente, GTM)
Renata Avila, International Human Rights Lawyer, Technology Expert. Co-convener of the Progressive International, a global initiative launching in May 2020 with a mission to unite, organise, and mobilise progressive forces around the world. She has been a part of the legal and advocacy team of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for over a decade. She writes regularly for El Diario (Spain) and Open Democracy.

Joseph Farrell (WikiLeaks Ambassador, UK)
Joseph A. Farrell is a WikiLeaks ambassador and a Centre for Investigative Journalism board member. He has been a section editor for many important WikiLeaks' publications including the Iraq and Afghan War Logs and Cablegate to name but a few. He was a member of the Civil Society Coalition at the WIPO diplomatic conference on a treaty for copyright exceptions for persons with disabilities in Marrakesh, Morocco. Farrell regularly appears on TV networks analysing the week's news headlines.

Rima Sghaier (Outreach & Research Fellow, Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights, TUN/IT)
Rima Sghaier is an international citizen born in Tunisia and currently based in Milan, where she leads outreach and localisation efforts at the Hermes Center, managing and contributing to projects to support NGOs, media, and investigative journalists to create secure whistleblowing platforms. She is the program manager of Digital Whistleblowing Fund, a small-grant project by the Hermes Center and Renewable Freedom Foundation that enables investigative journalism groups and human rights grassroots organisations to apply to receive financial, operational and strategic support in starting a secure digital whistleblowing initiative.

Tatiana Bazzichelli (Founder & Director, Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE)
Tatiana Bazzichelli is founder and artistic director of the Disruption Network Lab, an organisation in Berlin working on information technology, network culture, hacktivism and whistleblowing. In 2011-2014 she was programme curator at transmediale festival, where she developed the year-round initiative reSource transmedial culture berlin and curated several conference events, workshops and installations. She has been appointed jury member for the Hauptstadtkulturfonds (Capital Cultural Fund) by the German Federal Government and Berlin for the funding years 2019-2020).

Harm Reduction and Queer Care · Disruptive Fridays #6

May 8 2020: Pedro Marum, Mariana Cunha, Mariana Nobre V., Rafi, Nada Bakr

The sixth edition of Disruptive Fridays features a conversation with Pedro Marum (XenoEntities Network, Mina, Suspension, PT/DE), Mariana Nobre V. (Performer, choreographer, queer rave instigator, Emotional CPR - eCPR, Rabbit Hole and Lecken collectives, PT/DE), Mariana Cunha (Kosmicare, PT) and Rafi (Artist, Organizer, TS Raver, DE), moderated by Nada Bakr (Disruption Network Lab EG/DE).

During this conversation we will discuss harm reduction within queerfeminist self-organized communities that welcome queers, trans, POC and neurodivergent people to discuss, test and learn about psychoactive substances. For long they have operated with structures that not only provide moments of revelry but also much-needed care and acceptance for many, who often find in these communities their peers, their kin, forms of coping and resistance. In the current times of pandemic and isolation they are debating how to continue this work.

As the clubs and parties close, where does all this energy go now? What happens to all the bottled-up anxieties and loneliness? What happens to the people that struggle with addiction and, instead of understanding, find prejudice and discrimination? Who looks after those whose needs have always been overlooked or oppressed? What happens now that governments have (yet again) failed to protect, and these communities have become de-fragmented and even more precarious under isolation? How can we foster collective digital support, debates, talks and guidelines about harm reduction and emotional support in self-isolation times?

With Pedro Marum, Mariana Cunha, Mariana Nobre V. and Rafi we will speak about their ongoing projects and about “RAVELENGTH”, an upcoming project in which they collaborate to generate accessible tools for harm reduction, relief and empowerment within the queerfeminist electronic music scene and raver communities. By organizing online discussions, workshops and support groups in collaboration with artists, healthcare professionals and local community organizers, they call for a culture of solidarity across and beyond European borders.

Pedro Marum ( XenoEntities Network, Mina, Suspension, PT/DE)
Marum is one of the instigators of the collective party mina (Lisbon), co-founder of the label and artist platform suspension, and founder member of XenoEntities Network. mina and suspension have started a collaboration with harm reduction NGO Kosmicare, organising talks and exchange groups with the queer community, raising awareness and providing access to tools and knowledge on harm reduction. In response to the pandemic crisis, together with other collectives they initiated Ravelength.

Mariana Nobre V. (Performer, choreographer, queer rave instigator, Emotional CPR (eCPR), Rabbit Hole and Lecken collectives, PT/DE)
Emotional CPR is a practice based on values of mutual support and interpersonal communication for addressing personal and community moments of crisis and distress. Having its origins on a public health education program developed in the field of mental health, eCPR is now being integrated with somatic practices and informed by queer principles of consent, inclusion, collective action, access and solidarity. This work is being developed by a team of eCPR practitioners and artists with extensive experience in queer activism, movement research, queer nightlife production and harm reduction.

Mariana Cunha (Kosmicare, PT)
Mariana works with Kosmicare, an NGO that envisions a world where drugs are used with liberty and wisdom. She studied pharmacological and neurosciences and has been working in harm reduction since 2017. Currently, she runs a permanent drug checking laboratory in Lisbon. Her interests include psychopharmacology, raves, science fiction and everything in between.

Rafi (Artist, Organizer, TS Raver, DE)
Rafi is an organiser and artist based in Berlin. He organises with TS Raver, a queer nightlife project that positions peer led harm reduction teams as anchors for critical care.

Nada Bakr (Disruption Network Lab, EG/DE)
Nada Bakr is a curator, researcher and cultural manager based in Berlin. She holds a Master of Arts (MA) in Media Arts Cultures from Aalborg University. She works on different projects in Berlin and Cairo related to visual arts, digital culture, art and activism, digital rights and media art. Her work in the field of media art is developed through research and practice on the intersection between art and technology. Nada is the Managing Director and co-curator of Cairotronica - Cairo Electronic and New Media Art festival, where she curates and manages the biennial festival program. She works as project manager for the conference and community programme and is a member of the Disruption Network Lab e. V..

Lockdown or Crackdown? · Disruptive Fridays #5

May 1 2020: Stellan Vinthagen, Mauro Mondello, Jonas Frankki

Disruptive Fridays #5 - Lockdown or Crackdown? - features Stellan Vinthagen (Professor of Sociology, Scholar-Activist, US/SE) and Mauro Mondello (Investigative Journalist, IT/DE). Moderated by Jonas Frankki (Disruption Network Lab, SE/DE).

On this May Day 2020 the streets worldwide will largely be vacant. How can citizens fight for their rights during the pandemic? Both Vinthagen and Mondello have long experience on the ground and in the field, Vinthagen as a researcher and non-violent activist, Mondello as an investigative journalist covering the Middle East. During the ongoing COVID19 Pandemic, Mauro Mondello is covering the developments in Hungary and Poland, where civil liberties are under threat from leaders who are using the crisis to further extend their powers. Stellan Vinthagen has spent decades combining non-violent activism and civil disobediance with sociological research, to further the understanding and develop theories on how non-violent resistance movements function.

We will discuss what is happening at the moment in countries like Poland and Hungary, and discuss what effective activism and resistance might look like during lockdown.

Stellan Vinthagen (Professor of Sociology, Scholar-Activist, US/SE)
Stellan Vinthagen is inaugural endowed chair in the study of nonviolent direct action and civil resistance and professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is also a council member of War Resisters’ International, academic adviser to the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), co-founder of the Resistance Studies Network (www.resistancestudies.org) and editor of the Journal of Resistance Studies. Since 1980, he has been an educator, organiser and activist and has participated in more than thirty nonviolent civil disobedience actions, for which he has served in total more than one year in prison.

Mauro Mondello (Investigative Journalist, IT/DE)
Mauro Mondello is a freelance journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker based in Berlin. He works as a correspondent for la Repubblica, Avvenire, Radio Rai, Panorama, Rivista Studio, East, Zeit Magazine among others. In 2011 he followed the Arab Revolutions in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia and Egypt. His documentaries include Stateless (2012), in collaboration with videomaker Nunzio Gringeri, a study of Tunisia's Shousha refugee camp and Lampedusa in Berlin (2015), about the stories of the refugees’ protest camp in Berlin at Oranienplatz. He is the founder and editor in chief of Yanez Magazine.

Jonas Frankki (Disruption Network Lab, SE/DE)
Since 2014 Jonas Frankki designs and animates the visual identity of the Disruption Network Lab and each conference, and additionally researches speakers, networks and topics for future events. Jonas was born in Sweden, studied Marketing, International Relations, Political Science and Cultural Management in Gothenburg. Since 2012 he is also an Art Director at sinnwerkstatt, a Berlin media agency for sustainability. He is a member of the Disruption Network Lab e. V..

Virus Tracking & Surveillance · Disruptive Fridays #4

April 24 2020: Lauri Love, Joana Moll, Julian Finn, Tatiana Bazzichelli

The fourth edition of Disruptive Fridays features a conversation between: Lauri Love (Computer Scientist, UK), Joana Moll (Artist and Researcher, ES), Julian Finn (Hacker and Media Artist, DE) and Tatiana Bazzichelli (Director, Disruption Network Lab).

During "Virus Tracking & Surveillance" we'll discuss about the implications of tracking and data retention on everyday life, as well as the necessity to implement technology for collective care while respecting privacy and surveillance concerns.

A live conversation on the implication of citizen tracking during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Is tracking in public space becoming necessary to monitor individual health conditions, or do we need to protect our citizen rights to keep such data fully anonymous? In the last few weeks the necessity of developing Corona tracking apps has become part of a very crucial debate, but it is even more crucial to guarantee data protection.

As reported by Heise Online, one of more apps will be available in Germany from mid-April onwards, on the basis of the PEPP-PT (Pan European Privacy Protecting Proximity Tracing) project. This will enable users to use Bluetooth technology to determine whether they have been in contact with a Corona-infected person who also uses the system. But there are already some concerns related to IT security problems, connected to the use of Bluetooth technology, or about the possibility to provide such system without accessing the location information on the mobile phone. For example, Digitalcourage points out that under Android, the use of the Bluetooth interface is only permitted if the use of local services is enabled at the same time. On the other side, the more physical control we have over tracking devices, the more information these devices can extract. While tracking devices unfold as everyday objects, able to be run and operated by the average citizen, the information that they collect becomes increasingly undecipherable by the very same user that operates such device. Since the appearance of the Panopticon in the 18th century, tracking devices have gradually come closer to our bodies, yet COVID-19 crisis pushes social control one step further. It requires to control biological processes, and it requires to implement it fast.

Lauri Love (Computer Scientist, UK)
Lauri Love is a computer scientist from Stradishall in the UK who has a long history of involvement in political activism. He played a prominent role in the student and Occupy movements in Glasgow during 2011-12. Lauri faced potential extradition to the United States for his alleged involvement in #OpLastResort, the series of online protests that followed the persecution and untimely death of Aaron Swartz. Love is increasingly being recognised as an expert on hacking, surveillance and privacy issues in the UK and has made a principled stand against the country’s forced decryption laws.

Joana Moll (Artist and Researcher, ES)
Joana Moll is an artist and researcher from Barcelona. Her main research topics include Internet materiality, surveillance, social profiling and interfaces. She has lectured, performed and exhibited her work in different museums, art centers, universities, festivals and publications around the world. Furthermore she is the co-founder of the Critical Interface Politics Research Group at HANGAR [Barcelona] and co-founder of The Institute for the Advancement of Popular Automatisms. She is currently a visiting lecturer at Universität Potsdam (DE), Escola Elisava (ES) and Escola Superior d'Art de Vic (ES). (https://www.janavirgin.com)

Julian Finn (Hacker and Media Artist, DE)
Julian Finn is a hacker and media artist. He has been part of the German hacker scene for almost two decades. Founder of Mautinoa, a company building digital banking solutions for developing countries and humanitarian crises, he has been working in the field of disaster relief and humanitarian aid for a few years. His specialty is in working with and creating products for non-classical user groups, cognitive impaired, and other vulnerable people.

Pirate Care · Disruptive Fridays #3

April 17 2020: Valeria Graziano, Natasha Falkov, Elena Veljanovska

The third edition of Disruption Network Lab’s new programme stream - DISRUPTIVE FRIDAYS (live every Friday at 5pm Berlin time) features a conversation between Valeria Graziano (Researcher, pirate.care.syllabus), Natasha Falkov (Berlin Collective Action) and Elena Veljanovska (Disruption Network Lab).

We will speak about self-organized care initiatives in times of Corona in North Italy and Berlin. pirate.care researches, gathers & nourishes initiatives which are taking risks by operating in the narrow grey zones left open between different care knowledges, institutions and laws. Flatten the curve, grow the care: What are we learning from Covid-19 is their curriculum that evolved with the Covid crisis. Berlin Collective Action started a fundraising to provide emergency financial aid to at-risk nightlife workers in Berlin — those whose livelihoods have been severely impacted by COVID-19, and especially those who do not have access to other support systems. With Valeria Graziano and Natasha Falkov, we will speak about using piracy as a political tool for care and focus on the solidarity initiatives that are serving as active caretakers since the outbreak of the crisis. We will also talk about the current societal reorganization and how the crisis is affecting the health and livelihoods of women, BIPOC, queer, trans- and non-binary people, sex workers, non-EU migrants, and other marginalised groups who are all part of the at-risk communities in this crisis.

Valeria Graziano (Researcher, pirate.care, IT/UK) Valeria Graziano is a research fellow at the Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Coventry University (UK). Her work focuses on organisational practices and tecnopolitical tools that foster the refusal of work, a creativere distribution of social reproduction and the politicization of pleasure. Together with Marcell Mars and Tomislav Medak, she is a convenor of Pirate Care (https://pirate.care), a research project focusing on forms of political activism at the intersection of “care” and “piracy”, which are trying to intervene in the current crisis of care in all its multiple and interconnected dimensions. The Pirate Care Syllabus is a tool for supporting and activating collective processes of learning from these practices (https://syllabus.pirate.care).

Natasha Falkov (Berlin Collective Action, NZ/DE)
Natasha Falkov is an organiser, writer and filmmaker from New Zealand. Natasha is currently organising with the Berlin Collective Action initiative, a Berlin based emergency fund providing financial aid to those whose livelihoods have been severely impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. (BCA emergency fund)

Elena Veljanovska (Senior project manager, Disruption Network Lab, MK/DE)
Elena Veljanovska is a senior project manager at the Disruption Network Lab. From 2012 to 2019 she was the executive director and programme curator at Kontrapunkt Skopje, where among other projects, with Iskra Geshoska she co-developed the Festival for Critical Culture - CRIC (founded in 2016). In 2006 she co-founded Line I+M Platform for New Media Art and Technology, where she was the artistic director until 2010. Veljanovska has worked as a curator and cultural manager with numerous organisations and artists.

Makers vs. Virus · Disruptive Fridays #2

April 10 2020: Michael Ang, Andreas Kopp, Lieke Ploeger

The second edition of Disruption Network Lab’s new programme stream - DISRUPTIVE FRIDAYS (live every Friday at 5pm Berlin time) features a conversation between Michael Ang (artist and engineer), Andreas Kopp (creative technologist, maker, post-it artist and teacher) and Lieke Ploeger (Disruption Network Lab).

We will speak about critical making in times of corona: how can we use digital fabrication techniques such as 3D printing and laser cutting in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic? Michael Ang & Andreas Kopp participated in the recent #wirvsvirus hackathon organised by the German government to find digital community actions against the corona virus and its effects. Together with Nicholas de Coster they developed a design for an open source/DIY protective face shield, which is currently being printed and distributed to help medical professionals stay safe from infection (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4239203).

Michael Ang (Artist and engineer, CA/DE).
Michael Ang is an artist and engineer who creates light objects, interactive installations, and technological tools that expand the possibilities of human expression and connection. Applying a hacker’s aesthetic, he often repurposes existing technology to create human-centered experiences in public space and the open field. Countering the trend for technology to dissociate us from ourselves and surroundings, Michael’s works connect us to each other and the experience of the present moment. He is the co-inventor of the Infl3ctor, the projection system for Digital Calligraffiti. He holds a Master’s Degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University, USA and a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada.

Andreas Kopp (Creative technologist, maker, post-it artist and teacher, DE)
Andreas Kopp loves to make things and learn new techniques of making, designing and coding. He is the founder of Erfindergarten, an open workshop for digital production, Fab Lab, youth club and DIY community and workshop space in Munich, where he gives kids the best start into making and inventing things by learning them 21st century skill and inspire them to start learning and inventing themselves. He is also the artist/artisan behind postitartcreators. Kopp has been commissioned to create portraits and installations for exhibitions, events, shop-windows, shopping centers and commercials all over the world. He often works with Post-it® Notes but has also done works with cups or origami paper and loves to make his works interactive.

Lieke Ploeger (Community director, Disruption Network Lab, NL/DE)
Lieke Ploeger is the community director and administration officer of the Disruption Network Lab. She is the co-founder of the independent project space SPEKTRUM art science community, where she worked as community builder from 2014 to 2018. Her core interest lies in building and developing both online and offline communities of interest, with a focus on sharing knowledge and expertise in an open way. She previously worked for the Open Knowledge Foundation and for the National Library of the Netherlands. She has a double master of arts from the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands and has been involved in various European research projects in the areas of open cultural data, open access and open science.

Disruptive Fridays #1

April 3 2020: Cassie Thornton, Marc Garrett, Ela Kagel, Tatiana Bazzichelli

Disruption Network Lab is launching a new programme stream - DISRUPTIVE FRIDAYS, live every Friday at 5pm Berlin time. The first conversation will involve Marc Garrett (Furtherfield), Cassie Thornton (Feminist Economics Department), Ela Kagel (Supermarkt Berlin) and Tatiana Bazzichelli (Disruption Network Lab).

We will share ideas for creative solutions and resistance to the isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. What are our strategies to keep working with art and culture when our contexts of sharing are so limited? What can we learn from this situation to generate new forms of collective care?

Ela Kagel (Digital Strategist and Founder of SUPERMARKT Berlin, DE).
Ela Kagel specialises in the intersection of society, technology and economy. Since the 1990s she has produced media art exhibitions, designed spaces for cultural exchange and helped establish digital platforms, networks and communities. From 2009 to 2011 she was program curator for the transmediale festival in Berlin. Central to Ela’s practice is supporting bottom-up initiatives deeply rooted in particular communities of practice. In 2010 Ela co-founded SUPERMARKT, an independent hub for digital culture and collaborative economy. Since 2018, Ela is also board member of RChain Europe, a technology cooperative based in Berlin.

Marc Garrett (Co-director & Co-founder, Furtherfield, London, UK).
Marc Garrett is codirector and cofounder, together with Ruth Catlow, of the arts online collective Furtherfield, with two physical venues, a gallery, and a commons lab, all situated in Finsbury Park, London. He curated the major exhibition "Monsters of the Machine: Frankenstein in the 21st Century", at Laboral, Spain in 2017. In 2017 he copublished "Artists Re:thinking the Blockchain" with Ruth Catlow, Nathan Jones, and Sam Skinner. He is in the process of completing his PhD at the University of London, Birkbeck College.

Cassie Thornton (Artist, Feminist Economics Department, UK)
Cassie Thornton is an artist working under the title of the Feminist Economics Department (the FED), in collusion with Strike Debt. Her work investigates and reveals the impact of governmental and economic systems on public affect, behavior, and unconscious, with a focus on debt and security. Cassie Thornton received a MFA from California College of the Arts and a BFA from University of Wisconsin-Madison. She recently launched The Hologram, an artwork about collective health care (https://www.furtherfield.org/cassie-thornton-presents-the-hologram/).

Tatiana Bazzichelli (Founder and Director, Disruption Network Lab)
Tatiana Bazzichelli is founder and artistic director of the Disruption Network Lab, an organisation in Berlin working on information technology, network culture, hacktivism and whistleblowing. In 2011-2014 she was programme curator at transmediale festival, where she developed the year-round initiative reSource transmedial culture berlin and curated several conference events, workshops and installations. She has been appointed jury member for the Hauptstadtkulturfonds (Capital Cultural Fund) by the German Federal Government and Berlin for the funding years 2019-2020.