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. 

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.