Improving Reality 2014: Visibility is a Trap
Brighton Digital Festival
with Susan Schuppli and Lawrence Abu Hamdan

Improving Reality is a one-day conference that brings together an international community of artists, thinkers and makers to share and experience groundbreaking art and ideas of the present.

This year’s theme is Visibility is a Trap. It is a visceral response to the tension between the tendency to share our lives in public, and our desire and right for more privacy. With a line up of acclaimed international speakers and performers – a who’s who of the now – Improving Reality 2014 addresses the coming of immediacy, the aesthetics of disappearance and the performance of visibility.

In light of the Snowden revelations, we now know that the international security agencies have been spying on the private communications of almost everyone on the planet. The web as we know it is no more. Social media like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have changed from symbols of social progress to weapons of mass surveillance. Improving Reality will take aim at the complex issues at hand.

We are excited to announce the speakers and performers who will feature in our 2014 line-up. Edging more toward festival than conference, this year we place a greater emphasis on experiencing artistic work and include electronic music from composer and sound artist Holly Herndon and the screening of a new moving image artwork by Design Studio Metahaven. We are thrilled to also announce the participation of Professor of Media Arts John Armitage, artist Jananne Al-Ani, artist and writer Susan Schuppli, New York-based Social Media Theorist, Nathan Jurgenson, Founding Director of Edgeryders Nadia El-Imam and groundbreaking artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan.

For further information, see the event on the Lighthouse website.