Sensitive Data - The Art of Surveillance

Opinions vary widely as to the influence of bots, fake news and big data on elections, public opinion, and democracy. Yvonne Hofstetter owns a big data company and is concerned about both external influences and surveillance.

To some, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is a hero. WikiLeaks has been criticized, however, for the role it played during the US presidential election. What is more important - the truth of the documents or the interests of the sources?

Frederick Obermaier is one of the journalists behind the publication of the Panama Papers. He and other international journalists evaluated countless documents from an anonymous source. We wanted to know how a journalist handles such a situation.

Capturing police abuses per cell phone plays a big role in challenging institutionalized racism in the US. Adam Elliott-Cooper studies the relationship between police and society - and warns that technical solutions aren't impervious to racist cliches.

In March 2014 the German government established a committee to investigate the so-called NSA Affair. The main question: How can intelligence services be democratically regulated? And which threat is more serious: the NSA or cyber attacks? 

William Binney is one of the first and most famous of the whistleblowers who turned their backs on the NSA. Binney departed the NSA shortly after 9/11, and has been cautioning society since then about the dangers inherent in borderless, uncontrolled surveillance.

Who will regulate the city of the future: when we rent out our living quarters online to maintain our standard of living, when an app replaces public transit in small cities, when the traffic of our digital transactions is used by private companies that take over governmental responsibilities?

In the early days of the Internet, many dreamed of a society without boundaries. Today, the so-called gatekeepers, the guards regulating the access to and sorting of the information, haven't disappeared. Instead, they are more powerful than before. Google and Facebook play a role in determining what we see.

Surveillance is a highly technical topic. The Tactical Technology Collective, known as Tactical Tech, wants to change that with its interdisciplinary approach. Using artists, hackers and activitis, the collective aims to make the issue more approachable.

Eavesdropping doesn't just occur in private. What role do cameras play in protesting police brutality? Does an individual have any say when his sovereignty is taken away?

When art responds politically, does it become a focus of secret service attention? Theater director Angela Richter has spoken with whistleblowers around the world.

Can art do anything against surveillance? How political can and should art be? When is art activitism, and activism art? Florian Malzacher is a dramaturge and curator with a special focus on the interface between art and activism.

Nishant Shah and Renata Avila let the weekend run its course before they finally confronted curators Sarah Harrison and Tobi Müller - and the audience - with the big question: What can we do?