2026-06-14 –, Hauptbühne (Saal 1)
As AI-generated content floods the internet with sameness, this panel asks what it means to stay deliberately weird.
Alessandro Longo looks at glitches and unexpected readings of AI-generated images, while Alistair Alexander and Jaya Klara Brekke offer practical tooling and pathways for challenging tech power structures.
Susanna Davies-Crook frames the discussion around alterity and subculture, considering how intervention and appropriation can be used counter-culturally, and what aesthetic resistance might look like.
Panelists: Jaya Klara Brekke, Alessandro Longo, Alistair Alexander
Moderator: Susanna Davies-Crook
Jaya Klara Brekke was awarded a PhD in the field of Digital Geography from the Durham University, UK and has spent the last fifteen years working on the meaning-making and political economies of emerging technologies in theory and practice. She is currently Chief Strategy Officer at Nym, a decentralized platform that inverts the principle of AI in order to provide unprecedented security for internet traffic in transit
Alessandro Y. Longo is a researcher, writer, and cultural organizer based between Berlin and Turin. He’s a PhD candidate at DREST (Italian Doctoral School of Religious Studies), where he investigates the emergence of synthetic intimacy on AI companionship platforms.
Alessandro is the initiator and maintainer of REINCANTAMENTO, an independent research and publishing group exploring technology, radical imagination, and rituals through the lens of re-enchantment. He's a user researcher for Shared Visions, a Creative Europe-funded cooperative art platform adopting Web3 infrastructure, and has spent several years contributing to protocol design and blockchain governance through Curve Labs and Circles Coop.
Alistair writes, researches and engages a diverse range of people on the ecological and social impact of technology, he works with activists and campaigners on reimagining our technology futures.
Alistair has written widely about permacomputing, the semi conductor supply chain, AI and collapse, ecologies of knowledge for Truthdig.com, Berliner Gazette, Branch Magazine.
Recent projects include a course on tools to Disconnect/Reconnect with School of Machines, researching regenerative pathways for AI and digital infrastructures with Bath Spa University and the London Design Museum, applying the Doughnut Economic Model to NHS digital services.
Alistair writes a newsletter at https://reclaimedsystems.substack.com/
More info on his projects https://reclaimed.systems.
Susanna has worked professionally in the fields of contemporary art and media for over 15 years. Her experience spans the breadth of the creative industry. She has initiated and managed large-scale brand partnerships and immersive high budget exhibitions as well as small and innovative artist-led interdisciplinary projects. Susanna previously held the post of Curator of Talks and Research at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts), London and Head of Content and Community at Ignota Books. She is currently Curator of Public Programs at the Barbican.
In 2019, Susanna worked from concept to completion with Jefferson Hack on Transformer: A Rebirth of Wonder at 180 Studios in the role of Associate Curator.
She has held editorial positions at Dazed, Sleek and Exberliner and her writing has featured in several published collections and exhibition catalogues. Her writing has been published internationally including in Frieze, Twin and LEAP Shanghai.
Susanna studied at The Royal College of Art, University of California at Berkeley, University of Leeds and University of the Arts London. She is also a fully qualified hypnotherapist D.Hyp, HPD (NCH), CH and Yoga teacher (RYT750h)."