What is personal data in an age where data is everything but personal? The Glass Room is an interactive exhibition on data and privacy that provides different ways of understanding how technologies and data are changing our lives. The Glass Room currently comes in three formats:
The Glass Room Misinformation Edition explores how social media and the web have changed the way we read information and react to it. The exhibition consists of a series of posters, interactive apps and animations which can be hosted in public or private spaces anywhere in the world. It also exists as a freely-accessible virtual experience online – click here to try it out! The Misinformation Edition has been translated into Italian, German, Spanish and French, with more languages coming soon.
This edition was developed as a result of high demand from visitors of larger Glass Rooms in London and New York, who also wanted to set up similar exhibitions in their cities. This smaller, portable version comes in a lightweight and adaptable format that can be set up in a variety of different spaces from libraries and schools to conferences and metro stations. So far we've hosted over 100 events in over 20 countries and our resources are available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
The Glass Room Plus is curated exhibition that can be set up at large cultural events in Europe. The Glass Room Plus features 15 art objects, a Data Detox Bar and a training programme for a team of ‘Ingeniuses'.
The Glass Room began in 2016 at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin as part of their Nervous Systems exhibition, examining the relationship between human and machine. There, Tactical Tech set up The White Room, a space designed to look like a tech store, but really containing art objects that provoke visitors to think about their relationship with technology. After the success of this exhibition, we partnered with Mozilla to create The Glass Room New York later in 2016, as a stand-alone, pop-up exhibition in SoHo, with additional art objects and a full programme of events. Its impact - from media coverage to attendance to engagement – far exceeded all expectations. The following year, in 2017, again in partnership with Mozilla, we brought The Glass Room to London, drawing nearly 20,000 visitors over three weeks.
GAFAM Empire is a project developed by DensityDesign Lab and Tactical Tech that looks at all the known acquisitions conducted by five big tech companies: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft, from the moment they made their first one to the end of summer of 2022, when we stopped collecting data.
Tactical Tech is looking for partner organisations to co-develop, adapt and host events for our projects
The Data Detox Kit, The Glass Room, What the Future Wants, and the Digital Enquirer Kit are seeking partners!
The Glass Room presents Capsule 2.0, 'Nothing Personal?', our latest showcase of digital objects, both old and new. This second capsule explores how technologies are designed, branded and engineered to collect deeply personal data and influence our real-time behaviours.
From the tech boom to tech backlash, our understanding of the digital has become both deeply personal and deeply political. Two major Glass Room exhibitions tackling these themes are taking place in The Netherlands, in Leeuwarden and Amsterdam.
The Glass Room presents Capsule 1.0, a quarterly showcase of digital objects - old and new - from previous Community Edition series, independent investigations and collaborations. This first capsule explores how our phone numbers, face prints and personal data travel from our smartphones to different third-party organisations.
Check out this updated visualisation of the data you give away when you click 'I Agree', with key phrases from the terms and conditions of popular apps and services.
The Glass Room: Misinformation Edition, which can be visited online or hosted offline, has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Slovenian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian, with more coming soon. Take a look and visit the exhibition virtually in your preferred language!
The Glass Room: Misinformation Edition explores how social media and the web have changed the way we read information and react to it. This new exhibition, which can be visited online or hosted offline, tackles all forms of misinformation.
We are delighted to announce that The Glass Room has been selected as one of the winners of Creative Review's The Annual 2020 award. The Glass Room was described as "thought-provoking...a fascinating look at our relationship with digital devices".
Thank you to everyone who took part in The Glass Room San Francisco that ran from 16 October to 3 November 2019 with over 20,000 visitors, a daily program of events, and over 50 artworks that playfully and provocatively explore our relationship to technology.
Data about reproduction, and especially menstruation, is being tracked and gathered by many different companies, without people’s awareness of the extent or the financial value this data has, nor the possible consequences for them individually or the collective harm.
The Digital You initiative is a collaboration between Goethe-Institut Kinshasa and Tactical Tech, that invites young people in Sub-Saharan African countries to think critically about their relationship with digital technologies and how tech influences their lives.
Working with data comes with risks. This four-step guide from our Data & Activism project is designed to help individuals, NGOs and other civil society actors create their own Data Policy.
When you Google your name, you'll likely find a whole range of digital traces: do you want the world to find everything you've ever put online? A new Data Detox Kit article explains how to curate your online identity and accounts.
