WAMS program within Noorderlicht is taking shape

Noorderlicht is organising the 2015 edition of its international photofestival in Groningen, from August to October 2015. The theme of the festival is “Data Rush”, exploring the tension between freedom and control, privacy and surveillance, in the virtual world.

We are organising several events during this festival.

First of all, we are curating an exhibition of roughly ten installations and objects related to the festival theme. A first selection of artists has been made by the selection committee (Wim Melis of Noorderlicht, Frederiek Bennema of Minerva Academy and Adri Schokker, independent artist). Preliminary list of confirmed participants: Joyce Overheul, Jennifer Lyn Morone, Rutger Prins and Wendy McMurdo.

Secondly, we are organising a debate with artists and scientist on Sunday August 23 (a day after the opening), covering the theme of the festival. With this debate we want to explore the theme from both the artistic and scientific perspective. We hope this will deliver new insights and approaches. In fact this debate is meant to be the spark for a more ambitious project where we want artists and scientists to work together to produce both scientific and artistic output related to the theme. Confirmed participants to the debate are Mireille Hildebrandt (Radboud University Nijmegen), Rocco Bellanova (Peace Research Institute Oslo) and Seda Gurses (NYU), as well as Mari Bastashevski (Switzerland), Mark Curran (Ireland), Sterling Crispin (Hawaii) and Adri Schokker (Groningen)

Thirdly, we are organising a series of lectures by computer scientists, legal scholars and social scientists on the festival theme. The lectures will be held on Sunday afternoon on September 6, September 20 and October 4. Confirmed speakers: prof. Jeroen van den Hoven (Delft University of Technology), Eleni Kosta (Tilburg University), and Jaap-Henk Hoepman (scientific director of the Privacy & Identity Lab).

The open-air movie showing together with Zienemaan & Sterren on September 11 has been shifted to September 12.

The program is supported by: the Privacy & Identity Lab, (other support pending).