Taking WikiLeaks as an illustrative example, 'Open' 22 investigates how transparency and secrecy relate to one another, to the public and to publicity in our computerized visual cultures.
Open 22 examines transparency as an ideology, the ideal of the free flow of information versus the fight over access to information and the intrinsic connection between publicity and secrecy. Does transparency only work in a liberating way? Can it not equally have a concealing or controlling effect? Aren’t certain forms of transparency actually the manifestation of the banality of the contemporary spectacle, which revolves around pure display and the production of affects? What role do the media play in this?
My contribution The Fight over Transparency. From a Hierarchical to a Horizontal Organization, and investigation of transparency as a mode of power.
