The art of financial hacking

In this extensive four-day program, Paolo Cirio, Brett Scott, and Luce Goutelle will take participants on a journey into the dark heart of finance, showcase previous investigations and interventions into the financial sector, experiment Brussels as the financial heart of Europe by exploring the cracks of the European district and guide you in building your own financial art-hacks.

The financial sector often appears daunting and impenetrable to outsiders. We look on the huge skyscrapers and imagine bankers using obscure language and complex mathematical models to move money around the globe, influencing politicians and pulling strings behind closed doors. The sector, however, is far more permeable than it may seem, and since the financial crisis we have seen a rise in artists, activists and anthropologists intent on exploring the sector, looking for cracks and opportunities for interventions and creative alternatives. Can you build a hedge fund as a way to infiltrate into the inner workings of the sector, or can you design an algorithm that jams the traditional logic of markets? What about going undercover, or using the sector as the setting for installations or interactive theatre?

The event welcomes all people with a curiosity in exploring finance and is aiming for a diversity of participants, e.g. adventurous artists, hackers, activists, performers, filmmakers, researchers, designers, students, and so on.

This event is co-organised by Baltan Laboratories and Unbewich Finance Lab with the support of Finance Watch, Kaaitheater, Fairfin, La Bellone, Tragewegen and Corporate Europe Observatory. It is the second episode of a series and takes a deep dive into the connection between the world of finance and the city of Brussels, being the financial heart of Europe. The first episode was organised in april 2017 during Think Economia Festival organised by Baltan Laboratories in Eindhoven.

About the leaders

Paolo Cirio is a conceptual artist who works with legal, economic and semiotic systems of the information society. He investigates social fields impacted by the internet, such as privacy, copyright, democracy and finance. He shows his research and intervention-based works through artifacts, photos, installations, videos, and public art. Paolo Cirio has exhibited his work in museums and institutions around the globe and won numerous prestigious art awards. https://www.paolocirio.net

Brett Scott is a journalist, campaigner and the author of ‘The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money’ (2013). He works on financial reform, alternative finance and economic activism with a wide variety of NGOs, artists, students and start-ups, and writes for publications such as The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired Magazine and CNN.com. He is a Senior Fellow of the Finance Innovation Lab, an Associate at the Institute of Social Banking and an advisory group member of the Brixton Pound. He tweets as @suitpossum. http://suitpossum.blogspot.be

Luce Goutelle is a theater director, curator and independent researcher. She works on the transformation of the social and economic structures of our society. Bordering on art, journalism and social science, her projects take the form of mysterious events, shows, stories, investigations and underground experiments in contexts as varied as the heights of a business tower, the reception of a hotel, the boards of a theater, a fountain of a park, a cafe, hair salon or a luxury yacht. She co-founded the company Loop-s in 2015 and the creative lab Unbewitch Finance in 2017.

About

Date : 18-21/04/2018 | Duration: 4 days
Location: Brussels | Audience: public event