Unsettling The Algorithm ↑

Increasingly our lives are lived within digital systems and infrastructures. Our online clicks and browsing habits are a key component of technical systems designed and optimised for profit through surveillance and tracking. Whether online shopping or browsing dating apps , these algorithmic systems not only track and predict but determine what information we see and what realities we make from it. Platform boosted disinformation has the capacity to influence elections and instigate riots, while AI generated images spread propaganda and anti-science clickbait turns profits. As software syncs across networks and platforms, and the economics of platforms become intrinsic to everyday life, our behaviour online increasingly conforms to data profiles and model user behaviour.

Unsettling the Algorithm: Seeds of Resistance questions this growing encapsulation of life, and asks how we can reclaim our agency within the systems that seek to control and influence us. Highlighting not only the mechanisms of control but also the subversive strategies that push against them, the works in the exhibition demonstrate the unfolding politics of extractive platforms and networks, and the possibilities for resistance and dissent within them. Imposing acts of defiance with and through technology, the artists show how subversive coding practices can challenge state surveillance, how virtual environments can reclaim marginalised cultural memory, or how wasting the time of CEOs and executives can make material gains against climate collapse. Moving beyond resistance and acting with new forms of agency, Unsettling the Algorithm subverts, resists and defies — demonstrating how opportunities for transformation still exist.

Featuring works by: !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Basil Al-Rawi, Robert Collins, Firas Shehadeh, Jennifer Gradecki and Derek Curry, Nora Al-Badri, Patricia Domínguez and Suzanne Treister, Sebastian Schmieg, Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne, and TzuTung Lee and Winnie Soon. Curated by Nora O’ Murchú and Aisling Murray.

Local Artists Network ↑

Local Artists Network spotlights exciting Irish voices with emergent practices. This strand of the programme is dedicated to new work by some of Ireland’s most exciting artists experimenting with art and technology featuring new work from Pallas Projects artist Conan McIvor and new commissions from Aisling Phelan, Cailean Finn and Screen Service artists Aindriú Ó’Deasún and Mel Galley.

Ethics Studio ↑

The Ethics Studio is an interactive space dedicated to exploring our attitudes, values, ideas and expectations of technologies past, present, and those yet to come.

You are invited to join us in this living research studio to learn, discuss, create and play. In the space, there are multiple interactive research exhibits that come to life with your input. Get involved, explore, experiment and be a part of the discussion.

You may be asked to join a conversation with our researchers or artists, take part in an interview or a number of fun activities. These interactions are completely voluntary and no personal information is sought or required. Please be aware that there will be note-taking, photography, audio and/or video recording taking place – but no identifiable personal data will be captured or shared.

Thank you for joining us and helping to shape the future of research.

The Ethics Studio is designed as a collaboration between Beta Festival and ADAPT SFI Research Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology.