Digitally Confident

How do we assert ourselves in the digital society? Which tools do we have to master, which skills do we have to learn? ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien Karlsruhe and the Goethe-Institut provide answers. Digital Confident provides food for thought and empowers people to take action.

exhibition experiment „Open Codes“, 2017/ 2018

Editorial by Peter Weibel
Democracy needs thinking – how we learn to rethink in a digital world

In the future we will need digitally sovereign and culturally competent citizens. Because democracy needs thinking! That is why Peter Weibel, artistic-scientific director of the ZKM Karlsruhe, calls for new educational, social and democratic movements to be initiated and for museums to become places of free citizenship education.

Egometer

Egometer
Your position on privacy regulation

How far should data protection go? Use our Egometer to find out where you stand on regulating privacy and where in the world people share your views!

Egometer
Your position on copyright regulation

How should copyright law be regulated in line with the times? Use our egometer to pinpoint your position on this question and find out where in the world people think the way you do!

Digitally confident: how it works

Have you ever wondered what personal data you have already disclosed online today? What information Internet companies have collected about you? You don't know? Then you're like most of us. Nevertheless, it is crucial to know what risks you are being exposed to and how you can protect yourself against them. sovereignty means taking responsibility – digitally as well. It sounds exhausting, but it's not that difficult!

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Do you feel the same way? While we navigate the Internet and popular software like a fish in water, we are sometimes completely in the dark about what the mechanisms behind it look like. What footprints are we leaving behind? Who can read them? And what decisions hinge on this? Text: Wandering in digital darkness
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But a lot in our lives has long since hinged on this: Whether Google search results or the newspaper articles we are shown - everything is tailored to our personal data profile. Our data is used to influence our decisions and thus even election results. Whether we get a loan, an apartment or a job may depend on the information available about us. Text: How shall I protect myself? Do I care?
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The key: Proactive thinking and questioning. But not all information on the Web is neutral. What information is relevant for me? Where does it come from and what interests are behind it? If you don't think for yourself, others will decide for you - and only seldom for your own benefit. Text: Think? Other people do it for me…
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There's plenty of information and knowledge out there. Only those who are sufficiently informed can participate in a responsible mannervoice. This has seldom seemed easier than it is today: vast amounts of knowledge and background information are available to everyone on the Internet free of charge. Text: Free knowledge
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What Kant already knew: “Have the courage to use your own reason!” What was true then is no less true today: an empowered citizen thinks for him- or herself. More than ever, it is important to question the information we receive, as well as ourselves and our attitudes again and again. Who gets more power by making me use free services? Who will be harmed if I divulge information? Text: Dare to know! Reason “Help youself!”
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Only the well-informed can have a voice. The digital world is changing. In order to stay up to date and have a voice, we have to keep ourselves informed and educated. Education is participation, and participation is the common good. Text: Education Is Participation
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Social commitment must become routine. Do I consent to having self-driving cars in my city? Should artificial intelligence be allowed to make state decisions? Do I want to give companies power over my data? We should not shy away from these questions: social commitment must become routine. Text: Social commitment? – Routine
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Digital empowerment is also a part of this. Anyone who is not concerned today about the opportunities and dangers of the digital world runs the risk of losing influence on an aspect of social life. Only those who understand and are able to interpret contexts will be able to shape the digital world. Text: No confidence without digital confidence

Internet Security
Your Toaster’s Double Life

How can we navigate the internet without leaving a trail? Why do we distinguish between black-hat and white-hat hackers? And what exactly are crypto wars? Questions on data privacy and security in the internet often sound complicated. But many of them are answered very simply.

Model ADA GH5 humanoid robots in Turkey.

Industry 4.0
The end of human labour?

The next industrial revolution is just around the corner: Industry 4.0 describes the increasing automatization of production and logistics. Today the smallest computers can control huge machines and systems and are replacing more and more people.

Artificial Intelligence
Master or Minion?

Will Artificial Intelligence rule humanity at some point? – On the insurmountable distinctions between humans and machines. An essay by Peter Glaser.

When we surf the web with our mobile phone, other people want to see what we’re reading. But you can protect yourself.

Self-Test
How do you conduct yourself when it comes to your data?

How do you conduct yourself on the net when it comes to your data? More on the cautious side? Or rather insouciant? Or balanced and pragmatic? Here is a self-test in six questions.

The working conditions for artists in Berlin are often hard, and few can make a living off their art alone.

Working conditions in the arts
Fair-trade music downloads

Many artists live in precarious conditions, and few can make a living off their art. Initiatives like fair music providers and fair-trade certificates for music labels show how a more equitable value chain could be created.

Artificial intelligence
The sensitive algorithm

Artificial intelligence is now an integral part of our everyday lives. It makes our smartphones smarter and can diagnose disease and write screenplays. Are there any limits, and might it soon surpass us in creativity and empathy – and perhaps even help us achieve immortality one day?

Artificial intelligence
Humanoid robots knocking at the door

International research networks are working on robots that move, behave and even think more and more like humans. Still, it will be a while before artificial intelligence catches up to us.

What constitutes reality?
Realer than real

How can and should reality be defined in these days of virtual and alternative realities, of VR goggles and fake news?

Smile to Vote: Screenshot of the fictitious company website

Smile to Vote
A Smile Please... You Have Voted!

The media art project “Smile to Vote” revolves around a voting booth that scans faces and automates the vote-casting process. Its originator, artist Alexander Peterhaensel, criticises the increasing encroachment of technology on privacy.

Rayk Anders and his research team for the documentary “Lösch Dich. So organisiert ist der Hate im Netz”(Delete yourself. Organised hate on the Internet) commissioned by German broadcasters (ARD/ZDF).

Spreading hate on the Internet
“The three of us can make it seem like there are hundreds of us”

In their documentary “Lösch Dich. So organisiert ist der Hate im Netz” (Delete yourself. Organised hate on the Internet), YouTuber Rayk Anders and his team investigate how Internet trolls use hate to promote their political aims.

The VR artwork „Mercury“ by Banz & Bowinkel during the exhibition “RESET III AND VIRTUAL REALITY” curated by Tina Sauerländer from “peer to space” at Priska Pasquer art gallery in Cologne, Germany, in 2017.

VR and art
The self, the world and dissolving distinctions

Virtual reality is conquering the art scene, and more and more German artists are devoting themselves to artificial worlds. Some of the spectacular projects truly test the boundaries of perception.

Virtual Reality
VR “made in Germany”

Ten German virtual reality and 360-degree video projects you should know about.

More and more women are working in gaming.

Women in the gaming industry
“You haven’t noticed us? Then you need to improve your network!”

Computer game development and programming was once a field largely dominated by men. But there is a sea change underway: we spoke to five women from the gaming industry.

Darknet
Redeeming the darknet in five examples

The darknet is often seen as the Cain to the internet’s Abel, as a hub for weapons and drugs and a paradise for paedophiles and terrorists. But, as it turns out, it’s not really so dark after all.

How do we develop into a competent, digital society?

We asked personalities who deal with digitization in Germany. Read their answers here.

Goethe-Institut initiatives worldwide

Klartexte

It seems more and more difficult to distinguish facts from “alternative facts”, news from “fake news”, truth and lies. And plain text from the text? #Klartexte wants to promote attentive, unagitated and critical media consumption.

The Earth Is Flat – How to Read Media?

Dealing confidently with digital information sources: "The Earth Is Flat - How to Read Media? by the Goethe-Institut Moscow supports young people, teachers and media experts in exactly this respect.

Access for all: Open Data

Government agencies publish data, members of the public can use them for their own purposes: this is the central concept behind the open data movement internationally. The Goethe-Institut Indonesia presents ways in which a culture of publically accessible data can emerge in Southeast Asia.

Data Privacy in Five Minutes

What do the private sphere and data privacy mean in the digital age? The theatre project P3M5, initiated by the Goethe-Institut USA, revolves around this question. Dramatists from the USA and Europe present their answers in 5-minute films.

Cooperation with ZKM worldwide

A co-production of

Responsible for project

ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien Karlsruhe
Stefanie Strigl Digital Communication
Regina Hock Press Officer

Goethe-Institut
Christine Ruhland / Jörn Müller; Online Editors

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Digitally Confident

Editorial by Peter Weibel
Democracy needs thinking – how we learn to rethink in a digital world

Egometer

Egometer
Your position on privacy regulation

Egometer
Your position on copyright regulation

Digitally confident: how it works

More on the topic

Artificial intelligence and art
Seven artists breathe life into algorithms

Algorithmic Governance
Total surveillance