Sa, 12.07.2026
3 pm
Talk
about 60 minutes
conversation pieces_Internet
The internet today feels more and more like a battleground, a terrain of increasing threat. The question of how to survive online has become both urgent and personal: how to be present and safe in a space where visibility itself carries risk? This question operates on multiple levels, from the intimate to the infrastructural, bound up with the very nature of platform capitalism itself. Inspired by science fiction, the dark forest theory uses the metaphor of a forest at night to frame the universe as a hostile territory where silence is the smartest strategy. Like animals moving through darkness, you stay safe by staying hidden. Bogna Konior's The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet (2026) maps a digital world in which silence becomes strategy and new forms of intelligence emerge through obfuscation. What does this mean for the internet of our future and for our agency online? What protocols, networks, and shared conditions are necessary to build an internet worth inhabiting? Joining the conversation around navigating the internet are Anan Fries and Noemi Garay Murcia.
The discourse series conversation pieces takes everyday technologies as its starting point and situates them in the context of the swimming pool. Each edition departs from a text that sets the thematic frame and serves as a shared point of reference. Invited guests engage with the topic from artistic, theoretical, or technological perspectives, sharing their thoughts and work in dialogue. Here, where we can drift in the water and the gentle sound of splashing forms a steady background hum, the question which technologies carry us and which pull us under is close at hand. A cooperation with transmediale festival, curated by Anna-Lena Panter.
about the curators
transmediale is an annual festival and a space for critical reflection on art and technology. It brings together transdisciplinary communities and diverse audiences interested in digital cultures to develop new perspectives on our technological age. The transmediale festival takes place annually at the end of January and forms the core of the organisation’s programme. In addition to the festival, transmediale organises events, publications, and residency programmes throughout the year. In 2027, the 40th edition of transmediale will take place.
Anna-Lena Panter organises, curates, and edits projects between Berlin and Vienna. Since 2020, she has worked in various roles at transmediale festival in Berlin. She currently coordinates the festival programme and is responsible for year-round studio activities as well as the transmediale residencies. With a background in publishing practices, she organises exhibitions, discursive formats, and gatherings.
about the guests
Anan Fries is an interdisciplinary artist based in Basel and Berlin. Their practice examines how technologies carry power, ideology and potential for social change. Fries creates installations and performances and regularly collaborates with HAU Berlin. Their video essay Artificial Sex Ep. 1 & 2 received the IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling and the Special Jury Prize of Columbia University's Digital Storytelling Lab. They are co-curator of New Rituals [for the End of the World] at HEK House of Electronic Arts Basel.
Noemi Garay Murcia is a curator and cultural producer based in Berlin, she is the co-managing director of Error 417 Expectation Failed, an independent foundation that supports contemporary Internet art. Since 2020, she has regularly curated exhibitions at panke.gallery and has also co-founded the project space /rosa in Berlin.
Her focus is on art that explores the conditions of contemporary networked technologies. Noemi is enthusiastic about facilitating spaces where people can come together to experience and discuss net-based arts.
Sa, 12.07.2026
3 pm
Talk
about 60 minutes
conversation pieces_Internet
The internet today feels more and more like a battleground, a terrain of increasing threat. The question of how to survive online has become both urgent and personal: how to be present and safe in a space where visibility itself carries risk? This question operates on multiple levels, from the intimate to the infrastructural, bound up with the very nature of platform capitalism itself. Inspired by science fiction, the dark forest theory uses the metaphor of a forest at night to frame the universe as a hostile territory where silence is the smartest strategy. Like animals moving through darkness, you stay safe by staying hidden. Bogna Konior's The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet (2026) maps a digital world in which silence becomes strategy and new forms of intelligence emerge through obfuscation. What does this mean for the internet of our future and for our agency online? What protocols, networks, and shared conditions are necessary to build an internet worth inhabiting? Joining the conversation around navigating the internet are Anan Fries and Noemi Garay Murcia.
The discourse series conversation pieces takes everyday technologies as its starting point and situates them in the context of the swimming pool. Each edition departs from a text that sets the thematic frame and serves as a shared point of reference. Invited guests engage with the topic from artistic, theoretical, or technological perspectives, sharing their thoughts and work in dialogue. Here, where we can drift in the water and the gentle sound of splashing forms a steady background hum, the question which technologies carry us and which pull us under is close at hand. A cooperation with transmediale festival, curated by Anna-Lena Panter.
about the curators
transmediale is an annual festival and a space for critical reflection on art and technology. It brings together transdisciplinary communities and diverse audiences interested in digital cultures to develop new perspectives on our technological age. The transmediale festival takes place annually at the end of January and forms the core of the organisation’s programme. In addition to the festival, transmediale organises events, publications, and residency programmes throughout the year. In 2027, the 40th edition of transmediale will take place.
Anna-Lena Panter organises, curates, and edits projects between Berlin and Vienna. Since 2020, she has worked in various roles at transmediale festival in Berlin. She currently coordinates the festival programme and is responsible for year-round studio activities as well as the transmediale residencies. With a background in publishing practices, she organises exhibitions, discursive formats, and gatherings.
about the guests
Anan Fries is an interdisciplinary artist based in Basel and Berlin. Their practice examines how technologies carry power, ideology and potential for social change. Fries creates installations and performances and regularly collaborates with HAU Berlin. Their video essay Artificial Sex Ep. 1 & 2 received the IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling and the Special Jury Prize of Columbia University's Digital Storytelling Lab. They are co-curator of New Rituals [for the End of the World] at HEK House of Electronic Arts Basel.
Noemi Garay Murcia is a curator and cultural producer based in Berlin, she is the co-managing director of Error 417 Expectation Failed, an independent foundation that supports contemporary Internet art. Since 2020, she has regularly curated exhibitions at panke.gallery and has also co-founded the project space /rosa in Berlin.
Her focus is on art that explores the conditions of contemporary networked technologies. Noemi is enthusiastic about facilitating spaces where people can come together to experience and discuss net-based arts.
TROPEZ
at Sommerbad Humboldthain
Wiesenstraße 1, 13357 Berlin
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Monday – Sunday
10.00 am – 6.00 pm
TROPEZ
at Sommerbad Humboldthain
Wiesenstraße 1, 13357 Berlin
Google Maps
Monday – Sunday
10.00 am – 6.00 pm
