On October 13, 2023, the Einstein Center Digital Future opened its doors for the opening of the art exhibition "Unblackboxing. Artistic investigations into digital realms of exploitation and control," which explores the conditions of digital societies and offers a space for critical reflection through aesthetic interventions.

Digital technologies are firmly embedded in our everyday lives and influence our lives in many ways, but often the effects on society, its power structures and imbalances remain hidden: "This is where the arts come in, by illuminating the "black boxes" of the digital world and making the social and ecological consequences visible. With the exhibition at the ECDF, we want to make these consequences accessible to a wider audience," explains Prof. Dr. Gesche Joost, Professor of Design Research at the Berlin University of the Arts and spokesperson for the Einstein Center Digital Future. 

Starting at 5 p.m., participating artists and activists, including Kim Albrecht, Sarah Grant, Adam Harvey, Joana Moll, Julian Oliver, Juan Pablo García Sossa, Danja Vasiliev, and Hana Yoo, presented their work in a panel discussion. All projects provide insights into the complex interrelationships of digital technologies and their often hidden impact on our lives. 

For example, artist Kim Albrecht explained his project '#MeToo Anti-Network', which visualizes a random selection from a million #MeToo tweets. Tweets with more than 100 retweets were considered for the exhibit. What stood out was: Only 8 of the 894 tweets are actually tweets about sexual assault or #MeToo experiences. Of the remaining tweets, the vast majority are news stories and political (troll) discussions, most of which neglect voices of those affected. This visualization thus makes gender-based violence visible and the social implications of digital technologies tangible.

The exhibition was curated by Daniel Irrgang (University of Copenhagen) and organized in collaboration with Friedrich Schmidgall and Gesche Joost (Einstein Center Digital Future). The book project "Weak Signals" by Lukas Freireiss and Florian Hadler, which explores the interface between art, science and technology as a source of paradigm shifts, was also presented at the opening.

The exhibition will be on view at ECDF until February 29, 2024. If interested, please contact Friedrich Schmidgall (friedrich.schmidgall@tu-berlin.de). Unfortunately, between November 13 and 24, 2023, visits are not possible.