IMPAKT 2023

In the first week of November, comes back the IMPAKT Festival, the oldest media art festival in the Netherlands, funded in 1988.

The festival investigates urgent issues in digital and transglobal culture, by focusing on the relationship between society, media, technology and arts. In addition to the annual festival, the whole year round IMPAKT [Center for Media Culture] presents exhibitions, film screenings, lectures, panel discussions, performance, presentations and artist talks – both online and in our center in Utrecht.

This year a particular focus will be dedicated to Reclaiming Digital Agency that will address our digital rights, the control we have over our data and our lack of agency over the online platforms and devices we use.

The IMPAKT Festival 2023 will connect with CODE, a co-creation project on digital agency that IMPAKT initiated in 2021 and has been organising for two years with partners in Germany and Belgium. CODE refers to an ethical code of conduct that we feel needs to be discussed and developed, with basic principles for governments and the industry to adhere to. To give the discussions we have been fostering in CODE an even bigger platform, the IMPAKT Festival 2023 will put our digital agency centre stage.

During the IMPAKT Festival 2023, we will present the results of the CODE programme so far, together with additional talks, panels, debates, performances, films and artworks. In the festival programme, we will discuss the political and economic power of Big Tech and governments’ use of technology. The festival will respond to growing concerns that we are losing agency over the digital tools and platforms we use daily. The programme will include exchanges and dialogues with politicians as part of the aim to support the development of legislation that regulates Big Tech companies, curbs their power, and protects our rights as digital consumers and citizens.

(from the press release)