{"id":2190,"date":"2025-09-22T10:20:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T10:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coda.letras.up.pt\/brkcode\/?p=2190"},"modified":"2026-06-29T17:54:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T17:54:42","slug":"conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coda.letras.up.pt\/brkcode\/conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking the Code: Hacktivating Non-Normative Algorithms | International Conference \u2013 18\u201319 June 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPROGRAM<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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\u00a0Venues and Dates<\/b><\/h2>

Breaking the Code: Hacktivating Non-Normative Algorithms<\/strong> will take place between 17 and 19 June 2026<\/strong>, across several venues of the University of Porto. The main conference will also include online participation for selected sessions.<\/p>

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Main Conference Venue<\/h3><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section><\/div><\/div>

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Casa dos Livros<\/strong>
Centre for Culture Studies in Portugal of the University of Porto
Palacete Burmester
Rua do Campo Alegre, 1055
4150-181 Porto, Portugal<\/p>

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Pre-Conference Workshops<\/h3>

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Porto \u2014 FLUP<\/strong>
Via Panor\u00e2mica, s\/n
4150-564 Porto, Portugal<\/p>

Date:<\/strong> 17 June 2026
Rooms:<\/strong> TV Studio and Humanities Lab Room, ground floor, next to FLUP\u2019s Library<\/p>

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Screening and Artist Talk<\/h3>

Casa Comum \u2014 Reitoria da Universidade do Porto<\/strong>
Pra\u00e7a de Gomes Teixeira
4099-002 Porto, Portugal<\/p>

Date:<\/strong> 17 June 2026, 19:00\u201320:00
Event:<\/strong> Full screening of Dream Factory<\/em>, followed by a conversation with Mark Amerika<\/p>

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Conference Dinner<\/h3>

1000 Paladares Restaurant<\/strong>
Rua do Campo Alegre, 624
4150-171 Porto, Portugal<\/p>

Date:<\/strong> 19 June 2026, 20:30
Note:<\/strong> Registration required. Payment at the conference secretariat upon arrival.<\/p>

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Online Participation<\/h3>

Selected sessions will include online participation. Microsoft Teams links will be sent directly to registered online presenters and participants.<\/p>

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KEYNOTE SPEAKERS<\/b><\/h2>
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Esther Monz\u00f3-Nebot (Universitat Jaume I)<\/strong><\/h4>
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Dr. Esther Monz\u00f3-Nebot trains future translators and interpreters and translation and interpreting researchers at Universitat Jaume I. She is the leader of the TRAP (Translation and Postmonolingualism) research group, Editor-in-Chief of Just.\u00a0Journal of Language Rights & Minorities<\/i>, and Graduate Program Coordinator of Researching Translation and Interpreting. Her research focuses on the sociology of translation and interpreting, particularly legal translation and interpreting, language rights, multilingual governance, and the relationship between language, institutions, and social justice. She previously held a professorship at University of Graz, where she trained researchers in the sociology of translation and interpreting. Her current work addresses inclusive language, translation and oppression, translation policy, and the social, political, and ethical dimensions of translation technologies, including artificial intelligence. She has published widely and participates in international research collaborations on multilingualism, institutions, and power.<\/p>

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Hacktivating Translation and Interpreting: Lucidity in Technofeudal Culture Wars<\/strong><\/p>

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Social discourses present machine translation and automated interpreting (MTI) as neutral technical solutions to communicative barriers, framing multilingualism as a problem, a technical problem. However, neutrality is a point of view, in this case, of those concentrating the resources required for developing MTI systems, including the large language models enabling prompt-based translation. The result is not only a redistribution of work but also a redefinition of translation and interpreting themselves, turning them from interpretive and ethical practices into standardized services that fit the needs of the few. This keynote approaches hacktivating translation and interpreting as a set of actual and potential interventions that redirect these practices toward plural and inclusive forms of mediation. It draws on the idea of lucidity\u2014the effort to face the conditions in which we act without illusion\u2014to examine how exposing the social and ideological work done by apparently neutral technologies can make collective resistance possible. Lucidity implies the ability to see through narratives such as those that present extractive uses of translation as progress. Exposing some of the coalescing narratives, the talk argues for strategies that resist fragmentation, reclaim ethical attention, and re-assert the cultural and political value of translation and interpreting. It suggests that such strategies are essential to counter the concentration of power typical of technofeudal orders, linking the future of democratic societies to the future of translation and interpreting.<\/p>

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Tatiana Bazzichelli (Disruption Network Lab, Berlin)<\/strong><\/h4>
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Tatiana Bazzichelli<\/strong> is the founder and director of the Disruption Network Lab, a non-profit organisation in Berlin that explores the intersection of politics, technology and society (https:\/\/www.disruptionlab.org\/<\/a>). Her work focuses on whistleblowing, network culture, art and activism. Since September 2023, she is the director of the Disruption Network Institute, a new centre for investigation and empirical research into the impact of artificial intelligence on new technologies of war, automated weapons and networked warfare (https:\/\/disruption.institute<\/a>). She received a Ph.D. in Information and Media Studies from the Faculty of Arts, Aarhus University, in 2011 and is the author of Whistleblowing for Change<\/em> (2021), Networked Disruption<\/em> (2013), Disrupting Business<\/em> (2013) and Networking <\/em>(2006). For three years until 2014, she was a curator at the transmediale art & digital culture festival in Berlin, where she developed the year-round programme \u201creSource transmedial culture Berlin\u201d and curated several events.<\/p>

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Distributed Resistance: Art, Activism and Whistleblowing After the Digital Utopia<\/strong><\/p>

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In the 1990s-2000s, many of us were fighting for freedom of expression, digital rights and the sharing of artistic and hacktivist practices online, as well as imagining a better world. We forged a playful and utopian path of participation in both the digital and \u2018real\u2019 worlds. The belief in the internet as a means of openness and political activism was combined with the spirit of hacker culture: \u2018information wants to be free\u2019. At the same time, a scenario of increasing surveillance and control was taking shape, inviting the public to react, exposing systems of power and injustice, and helping to develop new paths of collective and self-determination. What remains of that spirit today? Widespread populism has led to the consolidation of the right-wing, social networking has turned into a commercial product, and new technologies of domination have clouded our utopias. But new acts of grassroots resistance and distributed, widespread technological sharing practices seek to redefine the balance of power. On the international context, acts of whistleblowing to expose technological and military systems of domination \u2013 from Chelsea Manning to Edward Snowden \u2013 helped to rethink the nature of resistance. Over the past four years, there has been a relentless succession of wars, from Ukraine to Gaza and now in Iran and Lebanon. In the spirit that has united online and offline grassroots resistance for so many years, Tatiana Bazzichelli aims to reflect on new practices to adopt to continue our resistance through art, activism and \u2018real-world practices\u2019 such as whistleblowing. How can we deconstruct forms of power to find new spaces for freedom and action?<\/p>

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Miguel Carvalhais (FBAUP)<\/strong><\/h4>
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Professor of Design and Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Porto, Carvalhais works at the intersection of computation, sound, and artistic practice. His research and artistic work approach computation as a cultural and aesthetic condition, shaping how form, process, and perception emerge in contemporary art.<\/p>

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Searching the Unpredictable, Coding the Break: Art, Computation, the Rift<\/strong><\/p>


<\/b>Computation brings to art something fundamentally different from most of its previous tools and media, something that allows artists to create contexts for unique aesthetic experiences. In this talk I will explore computational artworks, drawing from the first-hand experience of working with computation as a material, a tool, and a medium. I will reflect on key aspects of computational aesthetics \u2014 how computation is spectral, situated, performative, improvisational, theatrical, subjective, and futural \u2014 and expand on some of the prime tensions that are catalysed by computation and on their implications to the creation and the experience of art.<\/p>

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Mark Amerika (University of Boulder, Colorado)<\/strong><\/h4>
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Mark Amerika has exhibited his art in many venues including the Whitney Biennial, the Denver Art Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, ZKM, the Walker Art Center, the Marlborough Gallery in Barcelona, and Casa Comum at the University of Porto.
In 2009-2010, The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, Greece, featured Amerika\u2019s comprehensive retrospective exhibition entitled UNREALTIME including his groundbreaking works of Internet art GRAMMATRON and FILMTEXT as well as his feature-length work of mobile cinema, Immobilit\u00e9. In 2012, Amerika released his transmedia narrative, Museum of Glitch Aesthetics (MOGA), a multi-platform net artwork commissioned by Abandon Normal Devices in conjunction with the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The MOGA project has since been remixed for Amerika\u2019s solo exhibition \u201cGlitch. Click. Thunk\u201d at the University of Hawaii Art Galleries and \u201cGlitch Mix: not an error,\u201d which took place in Havana, Cuba, at the Estudio Figueroa-Vives and the Norwegian Embassy to Cuba.<\/p>

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About Dream Factory<\/em><\/strong><\/p>


<\/b>Dream Factory<\/em> is Mark Amerika\u2019s newest artwork, made in collaboration with Will Luers and Chad Mossholder. In this 30-minute AI-driven cinema work, the artists use poetic and theoretical language in real-time call-and-response sessions with AI systems to coax artificial figures into being. Unfolding across five movements, the work traces these figures as they evolve from ghostly apparitions into entities that speak directly to viewers in modulated human voices, raising urgent questions about creativity and human expression in the age of machine intelligence.<\/p>

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Accommodation suggestions<\/strong><\/h2>
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Tuela Porto Hotel<\/strong> (3-star, 50 rooms) \u2013 5 minutes<\/em>
Rua Arq. Marques Da Silva, 200 \u2013 4150-483 Porto \u2013 Portugal
Phone: (+351) 22 6194100 \u2013 Landline: (+351) 22 6194160
Email: porto@hoteisfenix.com<\/a><\/p>

Boavista Guest House<\/strong> (3-star) \u2013 10 minutes<\/em>
Rua da Boavista, 667 \u2013 4050-110 Porto \u2013 Portugal
Phone: (+351) 92 40 41 500 \u2013 Landline: (+351) 22 202 60 86
Email: info@boavistaguesthouse.com<\/a><\/p>

Hotel Vice-Rei<\/strong> (2-star) \u2013 5 minutes<\/em>
Rua de J\u00falio Dinis, 779 \u2013 4050-326 Porto \u2013 Portugal
Phone: (+351) 22 543 0120
Email: geral@hotelvicerei.com<\/a><\/p>

HF F\u00e9nix Porto Hotel<\/strong> (4-star, 100 rooms) \u2013 5 minutes<\/em>
Rua Gon\u00e7alo Sampaio, 282 \u2013 4150-365 Porto \u2013 Portugal
Phone: (+351) 22 6194100 \u2013 Fax: (+351) 22 6194160
Email: porto@hoteisfenix.com<\/a><\/p>

HF Ipanema Porto Hotel<\/strong> (4-star, 100 rooms) \u2013 5 minutes<\/em>
Rua do Campo Alegre, 156\/172 \u2013 4150-169 Porto \u2013 Portugal
Phone: (+351) 22 6194100 \u2013 Fax: (+351) 22 6194160
Email: porto@hoteisfenix.com<\/a><\/p>

HF Ipanema Park Hotel<\/strong> (5-star, 50 rooms) \u2013 20 minutes<\/em>
Rua de Serralves, 124 \u2013 4150-702 Porto \u2013 Portugal
Phone: (+351) 22 6194100 \u2013 Fax: (+351) 22 6194160
Email: porto@hoteisfenix.com<\/a><\/p>

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Other hotels near the Faculty<\/strong><\/h4>

Hotel Douro<\/strong> (3-star)
Rua da Medita\u00e7\u00e3o, 71 \u2013 4150-487 Porto \u2013 Portugal
Phone: (+351) 226 001 122 \u2013 Fax: (+351) 226 001 090<\/p>

Quality Hotel Portus Cale Porto<\/strong> (3-star)
Avenida da Boavista, 1060 \u2013 4100-113 Porto \u2013 Portugal
Phone: (+351) 226 083 900 \u2013 Fax: (+351) 226 083 906<\/p>

Porto Pal\u00e1cio Hotel<\/strong> (5-star)
Av. da Boavista, 1269 \u2013 4100-130 Porto \u2013 Portugal
Phone: (+351) 226 086 600 \u2013 Fax: (+351) 226 091 467
Email: reservaspph@sonae.pt<\/a> | portopalaciohotel@sonae.pt<\/a>
Website: www.hotelportopalacio.com<\/a><\/p>

Sheraton Porto Hotel & Spa<\/strong> (5-star)
Rua Tenente Valadim, 146 \u2013 4100-476 Porto \u2013 Portugal
Phone: (+351) 220 404 000
Email: sheraton.porto@sheraton.com<\/a>
Website: www.sheratonporto.com<\/a><\/p>

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CALL FOR PAPERS<\/b><\/h2>

Breaking the Code: Hacktivating Non-Normative Algorithms<\/b>
<\/b> International Conference \u2013 18\u201319 June 2026<\/b>
<\/b> Theme 2026: Error 403 \u2013 Critical Refusals<\/b><\/p>

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Casa dos Livros (University of Porto) + online<\/span>
<\/span> An output of the BRKCODE Project (DARIAH-EU), in partnership with the\u00a0Electronic Literature Organization<\/a><\/span><\/p>

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What does it mean to err \u2013 to glitch, to refuse efficiency, to disobey system logics?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The inaugural conference of <\/span>Breaking the Code: Hacktivating Non-Normative Algorithms <\/span><\/i>adopts the theme <\/span>Error 403 \u2013 Critical Refusals<\/span><\/i>, inviting scholars, artists, and those working across research and artistic practice to treat error as a critical condition, to read glitch as resistant gesture, and to approach refusal and deviation as an opening to new epistemologies and creative forms.<\/span><\/p>

We proceed from the recognition that algorithms, often presented as neutral and universal, operate as normative structures that shape and constrain identities. They codify and reproduce biases linked to gender, race, class, and sexuality while masking these operations through appeals to efficiency and objectivity. To address these dynamics, we draw on Judith Butler\u2019s performativity, Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw\u2019s intersectionality, and Donna Haraway\u2019s situated knowledges, in dialogue with Critical Code Studies (Marino, 2020; Montfort et al. 2013) and Creative Digital Humanities (<\/span>Rettberg and Saum-Pascual 2020).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

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Within this frame, error becomes method. Glitch practices, acts of critical hacking, and algorithmic disruptions, such as livecoded improvisations, are not accidents to correct but practices that surface and expose what systems obscure. As Legacy Russell notes in the <\/span>Glitch Feminism Manifesto<\/span><\/i> (2020), \u201cto glitch is to embrace malfunction, and to embrace malfunction is in and of itself an expression that starts with \u2018no\u2019.\u201d Crucially, \u201cmalfunction\u201d here does not denote total breakdown but deviation from normative scripts: a \u201cnonperformance\u201d and a \u201crefusal\u201d that resists the demand for seamless operability. In that spirit, the conference foregrounds artistic and scholarly interventions that make visible algorithmic exclusions, challenge normative frameworks, and reimagine alternative futures for digital culture.<\/span><\/p>

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In doing so,<\/span> Error 403 \u2013 Critical Refusals<\/span><\/i> seeks to establish a critical platform linking intersectional research with creative disobedience, while advancing explorations of algorithmic glitch aesthetics and pedagogies. Through this platform, the conference positions itself at the crossroads of theory and practice, inviting dialogue across critical analysis and experimental making.<\/span><\/p>

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Topics of Interest<\/b><\/p>

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We welcome contributions that respond to the theme through conceptual analysis, artistic intervention, or pedagogical experimentation. Areas of particular interest include:<\/span><\/p>