Introductory Statement
Pre-Symposium Event, 13 -15 May, venue: Hong Kong Polytechnic University
WIKITOPIA 2016: Surveillance & Privacy in the Post-Snowden Era will be a three-day mini-festival hosted by Videotage and co-presented by Goethe-Institute Hongkong on 13-15 May 2016, followed by ISEA2016 (International Symposium on Electronic Art), a world-renowned art and technology centred event on 18— 22 May, 2016.
WIKITOPIA 2016 is comprised of several activities, including keynote speeches, panel discussions, film screening, city tour and hands-on workshops, all of which are open to the public for free.
The main goal and direction for organising such a festival is to increase the awareness of the general public who might have no knowledge or awareness of the existing surveillance schemes or privacy issues prior to participating WIKITOPIA 2016. By inviting artists, ICT (information and communications technology)/media activists, thinkers, curators, technologists, etc, from Hong Kong and Germany, as well as other regions of the world, we encourage an all-around and in-depth discusion with local audience, as well as the attendants of ISEA2016 from other countries, on the topic of surveillance and privacy, from the artistic, ethnic, social, political, technical, cultural perspectives, etc.
The Goethe Institut has invited Linus Neumann, a German hacker and one of the spokespersons of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) to be one of the keynote speakers on May 14 (Sat) at WIKITOPIA 2016. The Chaos Computer Club is Europe’s largest association of hackers and for more than thirty years it has been providing information about technical and societal issues, such as surveillance, privacy, freedom of information, hacktivism, data security and many other interesting things around technology and hacking issues. Neumann is known for his many years of authorship to the digital investigative journalist outlet netzpolitik.org as well as the podcast Logbuch:Netzpolitik. As an expert in IT security, he has advised committees of the German Parliament as a representative of the CCC. His keynote topic is “Digital Self-defense, the Chaos Computer Club between Hacking, Activism and Courts”.
Another German specialist that the Institut has invited to participate at WIKITOPIA 2016 is Lasse Scherffig, who will give a workshop titled “[Digitally] Invisible”. Scherffig is an assistant professor of Art and Technology at San Francisco Art Institute. His work explores the relationship of humans, machines and society, technological infrastructures of communication and control, and the cultures of communication and control, and the cultures and aesthetics of computation and interaction. Based on his most recent technological endeavour to develop a tracking software for mobile devices, workshop participants will experience a hands-on demonstration of such software and its impact. To provide a ‘counteract strategy’, Scherffig will teach participants to craft smartphone pouches, which shield off external tracking attempts making devices appear invisible. goethe.de/ins/cn/en/m/sta/hon/ver.cfm?fuseaction=events.detail&event_id=20750154 tsaoyidi.com/proj/wikitopia2016.html
Organised by:
- Videotage videotage.org.hk
- Goethe-Institut Hongkong goethe.de/ins/cn/en/sta/hon.html