iMAL presents 'Code and Algorithms', an exhibition on the importance and impact of algorithms in society

● In an increasingly parameterised world, where algorithms make decisions in countless aspects of our lives such as work, leisure or health, the exhibition 'Code and Algorithms. Wisdom in a Calculated World' seeks to make this phenomenon and its implications understandable, generating questions and knowledge that invite to reflection and debate.

● Through interactive installations by 12 artists, the exhibition traces a journey through different areas in which algorithms impact our society: the importance of their neutrality and efficiency, the risks of algorithmic bias, tools to protect data privacy, the link between humans and artificial intelligence, and their contribution to finding solutions that would otherwise take years to solve or decipher.

● The exhibition, on view from 17 November 2023 to 18 February 2024 at iMAL Art Center for Digital Cultures & Technology in Brussels, is produced by Fundación Telefónica and supported by the Embassy of Spain in Belgium.

● Organised on the occasion of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the exhibition is linked to “The Future of Living” project, a cultural programme of EUNIC Brussels, designed to promote critical and creative reflection on artificial intelligence and the increasing automation of our lives, work and social spaces. On 8 and 9 December a series of conferences around this theme are scheduled to take place at iMAL and Bozar in Brussels.

Press release
Brussels, 8 November 2023
For immediate release

In recent years, marked by an increasingly quantifiable and parameterised world, the words "code" and "algorithm" have invaded our daily lives. Although invisible and incomprehensible to most people, it is essential to understand how they work and what ethical challenges they pose, as their uses linked to machine learning and Big Data condition countless aspects of our lives, such as work, leisure and health. The exhibition 'Code and Algorithms. Wisdom in a Calculated World' seeks to make this phenomenon and its implications understandable, generating questions and knowledge that invite to reflection and debate: can algorithms guarantee greater neutrality and efficiency, are they as free from human biases as we tend to think, how can we make our humanity prevail in a calculated world?

The exhibition, on view from 17 November 2023 to 18 February 2024 at iMAL Art Center for Digital Cultures & Technology in Brussels, has been produced by Fundación Telefónica with the support of the Embassy of Spain in Belgium. Organised on the occasion of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the exhibition is linked to “The Future of Living” project, a cultural programme of EUNIC Brussels, designed to promote critical and creative reflection on artificial intelligence and the increasing automation of our lives, work and social spaces. On 8 and 9 December, a series of conferences around this theme are scheduled to take place at iMAL and Bozar in Brussels.

Curated by Manuela Naveau, artist, curator and lecturer at the University of Art and Design in Linz, it also counted with the advice from various experts. It brings together pieces by 12 artists, together with informative audiovisuals featuring Sergio Oslé, CEO of Telefónica España; Gemma Galdón-Clavell, PhD in Security and Technology Policy and director of Eticas Consulting; Marta Peirano, journalist and researcher specialising in technology, and Coral Calero, PhD in Computer Engineering and professor of Computer Languages and Systems at the Escuela Superior de Informática of the University of Castilla-La Mancha. They discuss the impact of algorithms on our lives, how human intelligence and artificial intelligence can complement each other, what the next advances in the field are, what algorithmic bias implies, how to protect the privacy of the data obtained through them and the environmental impact they generate.

'Code and Algorithms. Wisdom in a Calculated World'
17 November 2023 - 18 February 2024
iMAL Art Center for Digital Cultures & Technology
https://www.imal.org/en

An exhibition produced by Fundaction Telefonica and curated by Manuela Naveau, with the support of the Embassy of Spain in Belgium.

Artists