Open Codes

The ZKM presents a travel version of the exhibition »Open Codes« in the »Kunstraum der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg«. It shows works that deal with the social and cultural effects of omnipresent technology. What effects does it already have on the visual culture and what will the future bring?

We live in a world that is generated, controlled and governed by data. Digital codes shape our present and have a profound impact on all areas of our lives, economy and society, politics and justice. They deal with questions such as: Who is accountable for self-learning software? How can algorithms be defined and how can their intellectual abilities be legally evaluated? How should citizens and institutions deal with their data in the future? And how should algorithmic processing be regulated by law?

In a project seminar with students from Leuphana University, prepared and curated by Peter Weibel, the exhibition in Lüneburg is looking for possibilities of a lively spatial, discursive and textual linking of themes and motifs from the selected works. In Lüneburg, organized by Cheryce von Xylander and Clemens Krümmel in collaboration with students, it questions the rhetorical, representative and symbolic roles of different visualization and spatialization strategies of the digital. And does this decidedly against the background of the enlightening ideas of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, which were particularly emphasized in the context of the seminar.