MediaFutures Demo Days
A two-day celebration of innovative projects
from all over Europe fighting misinformation and disinformation
Thursday 8 and Friday 9 of June 2023
Design Zentrum, Hamburg
The final event of the MediaFutures Project takes place on the 8 and 9 of June 2023 in the Design Zentrum Hamburg.
This summit on media, data and misinformation will be an occasion to showcase the results of the MediaFutures programme: artworks, tools and services created by the supported artists and startups but also learnings, toolkit on misinformation and policy briefs.
It will include panels and keynotes with experts, presentations of local and European initiatives for artists and startups as well as social moments for professionals and the general audience.
A specific focus will be made on the projects of the 3rd cohort of MediaFutures programme, supported in 2023, providing them with networking opportunities, as well as supporting them with the sustainability and visibility of their projects.
At the end of this event, demonstrating the impact of the MediaFutures programme to reshape the media value chain, attendees will be invited to celebrate the end of this 3-year programme around cocktails and music fostering synergies among teams, cultural and business partners and the general audience.
Programme
Thursday, June the 8th
10:30am – Easy Morning & Breakfast Pastries
11:00am – Welcome and introduction of the day
11:30am – Pitch session Startup meet Artists Track | The four teams supported this year in the Startup meets Artist Track combining the ingenuity of entrepreneurs and the creativity of artists will pitch their projects.
12:30pm – Pitch session “cookouts: Reshaping the Restaurant Landscape through Ghost Kitchens”
Join us as we introduce cookouts, a Hamburg-based start-up pioneering the Ghost Kitchen industry in Germany. Their innovative model connects underutilised commercial kitchens with expanding gastronomy concepts, creating new income streams and fostering sustainable business growth. Alongside their pitch, cookouts is thrilled to provide breakfast and lunch, offering a taste of the efficiency and culinary quality inherent to their approach. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to discover how cookouts is redefining the restaurant landscape, one kitchen at a time.
12:45pm – Networking lunch
2:00pm: Slava Romanov – Edit Wars: disinformation at the heart of the war
Bremen-based data artist Slava Romanov leverages generative graphics and interactive installations to inspire social transformation. Currently, he’s part of the ‘Edit Wars’ team, utilizing the synergy of big data and art to deconstruct propaganda narratives.
2:30pm: Maria Amelie – Factiverse: how to establish credibility in a world of uncertainty and mistrust?
Maria Amelie, is CEO and Co-founder of Factiverse, an AI and NLP startup based on 12 years of research from University of Stavanger. She is an award winning journalist, author of 5 non-fiction books on migration, freedom of speech and entrepreneurship. Prior to Factiverse, she founded Startup Migrants, an European project to discover and support young multicultural founders and connect them with the #startup ecosystem.
Radu-George Caravateanu is an artist from Transylvania, with studies in traditional painting. He also has a degree in philosophy-anthropology, a master’s degree in archaeology. Professional activity in recent years includes mural painting, urban art, graphics and traditional painting.
Ioana Cheres is a computer science engineer and co-founder of TechWave Development Cluj. Through her work, Ioana creates artistic and interactive environments that merge the boundaries of artificial intelligence and human creativity, opening doors to a cross-domain dialogue. In recent years, her professional activities have primarily focused on areas such as artificial intelligence, full-stack development, and IoT development.
3:30pm – Break
4:00pm – Presentation of MediaFutures Data Innovation Toolkit | Over 3 years, MediaFutures developed this resource for innovators, artists and everyone working in-between business and arts. Johanna Walker (King’s College London) will present how to use this toolkit and its application to counter misinformation.
4:45pm – Keynote speech – Dr Stephan Weichert
Dr Stephan Weichert is a media and communications scientist, publicist, filmmaker and social entrepreneur. Together with Alexander von Streit, he runs the independent VOCER Institute for Digital Resilience and the federally funded database project NPJ.news. Weichert has worked as an adjunct professor for 20 years and has led various degree programs and training programs in digital journalism. Parallel to his career as a university lecturer, Weichert has been a writer for various daily and weekly newspapers, radio and online. He has published over 30 books on digital transformation, most recently “Resilient Journalism. How we make public discourse more resilient” (2022). Before that, he was director and author of the 45-minute TV documentary “Medienmakers of tomorrow. A German Journey into the Digital” (2021, WDR/3sat, Eco Media). Weichert is involved in numerous associations and juries, most recently serving as vice chairman of the advisory board of the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society in Berlin. He is also a founding member of the nonprofit Forum for Nonprofit Journalism. In 2014, he received the Media Ethics Award from the Media University for his outstanding journalistic publications on digital transformation.
5:30pm – Break
6:00pm – Pitch session Startups for Citizens Track | This track aims at supporting startups developing innovative ideas, products and services which encourage broader and more meaningful engagement with information. The 4 supported teams will pitch their projects.
7:00pm – 8:30pm: Networking drinks & premiere of Hammer & Egg Audiowalk
Friday, June the 9th
09:30am – Easy Morning & Breakfast Pastrie
10am – Panel discussion – Further opportunities for artists and startups
Soenke Zehle (EIT Culture and Creativity)
As a media theorist, Soenke writes, teaches, and engages in collaborative research involving the shifting relationships of art, technology, and design. Co-founder of xm:lab – Experimental Media Lab at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar (HBKS, Academy of Fine Arts Saar), associate researcher at the Ubiqitous Media Technologies Lab (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence), co-founder and co-managing director of the research-based transformation organization K8 Institut für strategische Ästhetik gGmbH. Soenke is currently part of the team of Action Programme Directors of the new EIT Culture + Creativity, the EU’s innovation agency for the creative sector. His research interests include anticipation and the exploration of collective agency and intelligence.
- Gefion Thuermer (IMPETUS project)
Dr Gefion Thuermer is the technical and scientific coordinator of the IMPETUS project, a Horizon Europe project that provides resources, support and recognition for citizen science initiatives across Europe. Her research interest is in (online) participation, process design, HCI and EDI: to enable inclusive engagement wherever people use technology to achieve goals together.
- Paula Lauterbach (Kreativ Gesellschaft)
Paula Lauterbach is Communications Manager at nextMedia.Hamburg. During her bachelor’s degree in media and communication sciences, her master’s degree in journalism at Hamburg University and various stations from TV productions to artist management, she discovered her passion for journalism and the media industry. Since 2019 Paula is constantly working on making the offers of nextMedia.Hamburg and the Hamburg content industry visible.
- Marta Portales (Digital Future Society)
Moderator: Simona Derosa (DEN – Design Entrepreneurship Institute)
Simona De Rosa (PhD) is co-leading the “Media and Creative Industries Research Department” at the DEN Institute. Simona leads policy analysis and impact assessment activities within research projects funded by the European Commission. She is an active member of the Media community at European level and she is strongly engaged in advocacy activities to strength the role of creative and cultural industries to promote innovation. Since 2017 she follows the EU strategies on disinformation and misinformation, being among the initiators of the following EU projects on the topic: Social Observatory for disinformation and Media Analysis, the Italian Digital Media Observatory, and MediaFutures.
11:15am – Break
11:30am – Pitch session Artists for Media Track | The five supported artists will pitch their projects, proposing new ideas and experiences that critically and materially explore data and technology to question its impact on individuals and society.
12:45pm – Networking lunch
2pm – Performance Mining Hate | Built with content generated by the audience, this performance will create awareness on the practices used by anonymous hackers to target journalists and minorities in India to spread misinformation.
3:00pm – Drew Hemment – A journey between art and technology
Drew Hemment is Professor of Data Arts and Society and Director of Festival Futures at Edinburgh Futures Institute and Edinburgh College of Art within University of Edinburgh. He is a Turing Fellow and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He leads The New Real (www.newreal.cc) and Experiential AI in partnership with the Alan Turing Institute and Edinburgh’s Festivals. Over 30 years, Drew has been one of the key figures who has shaped the field of digital art and culture in Europe. He has worked with cities and nations representing culture and research at the highest level, and worked for the Singapore Government on Smart Nation and Singapore’s 50th anniversary. In 1995, Drew founded FutureEverything, named by The Guardian one of the top 10 ideas festivals in the world. In 2016, he founded the GROW Observatory, the world’s first continental scale citizens’ observatory. He is presently working to develop a transformative research agenda for the coming decade on AI and the Arts, and to build a national capability for the UK in this highly significant area. Drew is a frequent public speaker and regularly appears in the media, including as expert witness on BBC’s Moral Maze, and film critic for Afternoon Show on BBC Radio Scotland. He is a member of the Editorial Board for Leonardo and Alan Turing Institute Steering Group for Arts, Humanities and Heritage. His work has been recognised by 14 international awards including Soil Award 2019 (Winner), STARTS Prize 2018 (Honorary Mention), Lever Prize 2010 (Winner), and Prix Ars Electronica 2008 (Honorary Mention).
4:00pm – Hannah Redler Hawes – Interrogating data through art
A contemporary art curator, producer, writer and researcher specialising in new and emergent technologies, Hannah brings international artists, researchers and subject matter experts together to create transdisciplinary projects which provoke social, cultural and ethical questions within the fields of art, data, science and technology. Her curatorial projects have been seen in major museums, galleries, universities, digital space and the public and private realms across the world. Alongside her independent practice she is the Director of the Data as Culture art programme at the Open Data Institute. She developed her love of interdisciplinary practice as Head of Arts Programme at the Science Museum Group, where, between 1999 and 2014 she curated art interventions, exhibitions and events. She also established the museum’s contemporary art collection, which notably includes some of the first ever media art acquisitions by a national museum in the UK. Hannah regularly lectures, speaks and writes on interdisciplinary art and curating practices and is a volunteer mentor for Arts Emergency. She trained at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, Norwich School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London.
4:45pm – Break
5pm – Conclusion MediaFutures | MediaFutures consortium will close the days by summarizing the learning from the event and sharing the lessons learned and best practices on how to support artists and startups reshape the media value chain through innovative, inclusive and participatory application of data.
6:00pm – Prize announcement & Award ceremony
7:00pm – 10pm – Party
