SIGNALS – an Exhibition of the Snowden Files in Art, Media and Archives
September 12-26, 2017 | DIAMONDPAPER Studio | Köpenicker Straße 96 | Berlin
For more information see www.berlinergazette.de/signals
SIGNALS is the first project to critically engage with artists responding to the NSA-files leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden. Considering the most relevant contexts in which the files have ‘surfaced’ (including media and archives), it reflects on how artists are deploying the files as raw material.
With contributions by Zeljko Blace (CRO), Andrew Clement (CAN), Naomi Colvin (GBR), Simon Denny (NZL), Christoph Hochhäusler (GER), Evan Light (CAN), Geert Lovink (NED), M.C. McGrath (USA), Henrik Moltke (DEN), Deborah Natsios (USA), Julian Oliver (NZL), Trevor Paglen (USA), Laura Poitras (USA), Norman Posselt (GER), SAZAE bot (JPN), Stefan Tiron (ROU), University of the Phoenix (CAN), Andi Weiland (GER), Maria Xynou (ESP), John Young (USA) and more.
The title of the project takes its cue from the special language used by intelligence agencies: they refer to any communication that takes place within society as a ‘signal’, and they collect and analyze these ‘signals’ on a massive scale. The exhibition translates this special language into the language of culture, where the world is coded and decoded in the form of ‘signals’ shaped by political and economic contexts.
Exhibition
The exhibition is partitioned into two sections: frontend and backend. These terms designate on the one hand computerized user interfaces, on the other data bases which reside behind the interfaces. The latter, the backend, structures the possibilities of the frontend, e.g. by monitoring all interactions and by using that data to optimize and predict future uses. All of this remains unaccessible and opaque to users. The exhibition turns the tables on these conditions and complicates them.
The exhibition program is complemented with talks, performances and workshops as well as two publications that extend the dialectical frontend/backend narrative of the exhibition.
Events and books
The exhibition program is complemented with talks, performances and workshops (see dates below) as well as two publications that extend the dialectical frontend/backend narrative of the exhibition.
A Field Guide to the Snowden Files. Media, Art, Archives. 2013-2017, edited by the exhibition curators Magdalena Taube and Krystian Woznicki, gathers for the first time a representative selection of artists working with the Snowden files and places them in context with appropriations by media folks and archivists.
Fugitive Belonging is a monographic publication by Krystian Woznicki. Containing an extensive essay and more than 100 photographs, it reflects the broader socio-political context behind the Snowden disclosures, focusing on the politics of citizenship in the networked state.
Both books are published by DIAMONDPAPER: https://diamondpaper.net/