Netpolitical Evening

Since 2015, the Netpolitical Evening has been addressing currently relevant net policy topics, creating awareness for future technological and social developments and presenting them in an entertaining way. The audience can contribute with questions and comments and then discuss further with the speakers in a relaxed atmosphere.

Through the initiative of Spektral (https://spektral.at), epicenter.works (https://epicenter.works) and mur.at (https://mur.at), the netpolitical evening will take place in Graz for the second time as part of the ELEVATE.

Talks & Speakers:

Daniel Lohninger (epicenter.works) ›› "Digital self-defence - The vision of the educational project of the NGO epicenter.works"
The NGO epicenter.works, which campaigns for fundamental and civil rights, has launched an education project. Within a year, OER (Open Educational Resources) educational materials were created in the form of web-based e-learning, a train-the-trainers programme was set up, trainers were trained and a range of workshops were developed to reach target group students at vocational schools. How this is already usable for many and what the vision behind it is, is what will be presented here.

Johanna Pirker (TU Graz) ›› "Equitable and Fair Digitalisation"
New (or old) technologies such as virtual reality experiences, virtual worlds, Metaverse concepts and also video games offer many possibilities but also potential difficulties. In this talk, Johanna Pirker wants to encourage reflection on various topics.

Stefan Auer (ACIPSS) ›› "Disinformation Worlds - On the end of divided truths"
The complex interplay of technological developments, political decisions and social changes in recent decades has massively altered our perception of the world as conveyed by the media. Our media spaces are characterised by attention struggles, information overload, misinformation, disinformation campaigns, an increasingly emotionalised & moralised debate culture and buzzwords such as propaganda, fake news, "Lying press" and framing. We are currently experiencing the break-up of our common space of discourse, the existence of which is indispensable for the survival of liberal democracies.
How could it come to this? What are the fundamental technological, social and also evolutionary-biological causes behind this, some of which are often
overlooked? What are the uncomfortable truths we must face when analysing the status quo and the possible future? What can the politically mature individual do to strengthen his intellectual self-defence and thereby continue to be able to distinguish between facts, lies & opinions?

KairUs (Linda Kronman und Andreas Zingerle) ›› "Sorting Data – artistic approaches to datasets and archives"
In their talk artist duo KairUs present a selection of projects which involved working artistically with different datasets by: presenting critical insights on working with found footage recovered of hard drives from e-waste dumps in Ghana, addressing how an archive of fraudulent webpages became an artwork, and discussing artistic research which required a deep dive into the annotation practices of machine learning datasets. By shifting between approaches – recovering, visualizing, and annotating data – this talk reflects upon how creating artworks have informed their take on data and how they engage with datasets and archives

Moderation: Reni Hofmüller (esc medien kunst labor)
Reni Hofmüller focuses on art in technological contexts and looks into relations between art, technology and society. She will lead through this evening in her inimitable way.

broadcasted live on the free radio station: Radio Helsinki Graz