a bridge between art and privacy…

Why Privacytopia?

Every day we generate data on our electronic devices, whether it is by connecting with our friends and family, finding our way in the city, expressing our ideas, buying a new pair of shoes, finding a new date, or switching on a smart light in our home. What happens with that data? Who owns them? How are they shared? How do we protect this data? And how does it affect our lives and daily activities?  

In our rapidly evolving technological societies, these questions are more crucial than ever. Technological innovations are often met with ambiguous reactions. From dystopian responses and the ‘unheimlich’ (creepy) impression of potential outcomes (often pictured in science-fiction) to utopian future-positive embracement of such novelties.  

Privacytopia wants to encourage open and public conversations about them through art exhibitions, symposia, workshops, performances and more. It is a celebration of privacy in the age of connectivity, datafication, artificial intelligence and surveillance.

As a nomadic arts festival, Privacytopia travels each year to a different European city. Each edition is rooted in and intertwined with the local eco-system and evolves from the active participation of it.

An Initiative by Privacy Salon

Privacytopia is an initiative of the Belgian NGO, Privacy Salon. Privacy Salon is affiliated to the Free University of Brussels (VUB) and has been organising conferences around privacy and data protection since 2007. Its main event is the ‘Computer, Privacy and Data Protection’ (CPDP) conference in Brussels that hosts every year key-players of the field and has gained international prestige throughout the years., 

Since 2013, Privacy Salon has been organising exhibitions in collaboration with international artists and arts organisations. These events fuse academic and artistic work within the realm of privacy and data protection. It brings state-of-the-arts researchers from law, science, technology and human sciences in contact with the practice of artists and curators. 

These events form the basis for the creation of Privacytopia, a nomadic arts festival around privacy, data protection and AI that decodes the social and ethical consequences of technological innovations and fosters new perspectives to a broad audience. 

Previous exhibitions

Every day, more and more artists approach topics like privacy, surveillance and data protection. We try not only to present the results of these artistic processes in exhibitions or artist talks, we also stimulate artists to create new works within the context of our projects. For this, Privacy Salon is functioning as an incubator and intermediary between artists and partners from our conference activities.

We had the honor to organise exhibitions such as Mensch Maschine (Botanique), Watching You, Watching Me (Bozar), Faceless (De Markten) etc. There were collaborations with The Word Radio, Crosstalks, Constant, DeBuren ... Our dream for Brussels is to have an annual city festival to develop around the themes of privacy and data use. The festival will be called Privacytopia. Subscribe to our newsletter via the Privacytopia webpage.

Adina Camhy - film still ‘Mensch Maschine Or Putting Parts Together - as part of the exhibition Mensch Maschine, Botanique 2020

Privacytopia is generously supported by:

Privacytopia Advisory Board

  • Prof. Dr. Mette Birkedal Bruun

    Center for Privacy Studies/Kopenhagen Uni

  • Prof. Dr. Maarten Delbeke

    History and Theory of Architecture at the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich

  • Liv Vaisberg

    Liv Vaisberg Office for Art & Design

  • Jan Kempenaers

    Artist

  • Marleen Wynants

    Founder and advisor Crosstalks

  • Harry Halpin

    CEO at Nym Technologies SA

  • Zeynep Kubat

    Art historian, curator and writer

  • Els Wuyts

    Curator for Beaufort2024

  • Eduard Fosch Villaronga

    Associate Professor on Law, Robots, and AI. eLaw Center for Law and Digital Technologies Leiden University, the Netherlands