FREEPORT 2020

A program of distributed laboratories

Freeport is a nomadic program that fosters creative research for a world of humans, non-humans, and machines, supported and co-produced by Matadero Madrid and The Influencers.

It is aimed at an emerging cross-local network of tech-savvy artists, experimental designers, researchers and students (both undergraduate and postgraduate) who wish to explore alternatives to conventional artistic, academic, or market-oriented methods to respond to the complexity of a networked planet.

Structured as a series of thematic laboratories led by internationally recognized artists and researchers with the participation of local collaborators, Freeport 2020 explores the notion of “distributed workshop”: the labs are built around a versatile mix of online and offline activities that are tailored to content (rather than the other way around) and take place concurrently in Madrid, Barcelona, and other European cities, where decentralized work teams carry out local research and development, while the coordination team syncs them through a program of shared online activities.

Applications open on October 10, 2020 - Deadline: see below
Team applications warmly welcome!

Anatomies of a Black Box - with Vladan Joler

Nov 4 - Dec 9, 2020 - Applications deadline: October 25
Full description & sign up

A laboratory about mapping contemporary complex systems and infrastructures of exploitation. Taking Joler and Crawford’s “Anatomy of an AI system” as the starting point, you will be led into a roller coaster trip through the simple internet packet delivery system, following with Facebook’s sophisticated algorithmic factory, and going even deeper into fashionable corporate devices that actually operate as planetary-scale systems of knowledge extraction under the futurist label of machine learning and the likes.

#Mememanifesto - with Clusterduck

Nov 23 - Dec 4, 2020 - Applications deadline: November 5
Full description & sign up

An exploration of the potential of memetic symbolism and its elusive meanings. We will dive into the history of weird esthetics and consider memes as hyperstitional technologies that uncannily delve into identity politics, the esoteric and conspiracy theories. Surprisingly (or not), from this vertiginous vantage point we are able to get a glimpse of the depths of the web, but also inspect the strange and sometimes disturbing ways in which internet cultures become politicized, and how this politicization can mutate into incomprehensible, or overtly toxic, phenomena.

Signal & Storms 2 - with Asia Bazdireva & Solveig Suess

November - December 2020

More information soon