Research meets Art meets Free Knowledge meets Activism meets Institutions
Too often our different groups work in silos, follow completely different ways of working and still all have the same goal: make space for digital art and culture, generate visibility, respect, acceptance and resources. We could achieve so much more, if we would exchange more and invite each other into our words.
Given that, we’ve been excited about the request by the COST-Action GRADE (Grassroots of Digital Europe) whether we would like to organise one of their network meetings in 2026 with a strong community focus. After having had the pleasure of taking part in their network and several conferences, we found a lack of francophone exposure (honestly, similar to Echtzeit itself). And after our previous great experience working with the Cookie Collective, we knew exactly who our dream partner for this event would be!
Thanks to Baya’s (Azertype) contacts to the cultural centres and artist scene of Paris and his experience in event tech, we were able to provide a unique programme of frontal presentations, artistic installations, workshops and exchange opportunities between our different worlds.
The presentations included anything from the work of GRADE, Open Science, -Software and -Knowledge topics, Community organising until background information on current artistic projects by the Cookie Collective, for example different live coding platforms, XR (Extended Reality) and Hard- and Software Hacking.
Additionally visitors had tons of fun with the Incontrolab installations by Emilie Breslavetz and Leon Denise (https://playful-machines.com/), Crashboard 2000 and Orbital, as well as a live act in the evening by Azertype with his amazing body-extension for live coding!
The second day focussed on common workshops and knowledge exchange: while participants created their own conference shirts in the DIY-printer, edited Wikipedia and Wikidata and exchanged about FLOSS and Open Science projects, participants could take their first steps in live coding, ASCII/ANSI-art and circuit soldering on the second floor.
This way, experimental creatives found their way into open research projects for novel bio-chemical computation agents to experiment with them artistically, while researchers having published for years about Open Hardware and the Right to Repair learned how to solder for the first time in the Arnica Montana workshop to build a little soundboard.
Full program and event information: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event:GRADE-Paris2026
Such a complex event is only possible with a lot of helping hands and contributors, so a massive THANK YOU to:
…the artists and artisans of the Cookie Collective:
- Azertype – Live Performance, Print-your-own-Shirt, Cookie Collective Compilation Zine
- Emilie Breslavetz – alt.ctrl and Incontrolab Exhibition
- Faure & Ralt 144MI – Living Pseudographics
- Stella Jacobs – Inclusivity as Resistance in XR
- Tan b – Conférence performée – festivités incarcérées, transformé
…the Presenters and Workshop hosts:
- Adel Faure (Cookie Collective)
- Azertype (Cookie Collective)
- Carlos Cunha (GRADE)
- Daniel Mietchen (Wikiverse, WikiCite)
- Hèlène Blondel (Cookie Collective)
- Iolanda Pensa (Wikiverse)
- Mamady Diarra (Cookie Collective)
- Mario Spuler (Echtzeit – Digitale Kultur)
- Nattes à chat (Wikiverse, Les sans pagEs)
…the Orga-Team
- Baya/Azertype (Cookie Collective) – Technical Lead and Cultural Program
- Léa Lacroix (Mindful Projects / Wikiverse) – Community-Outreach
- Maria B. Garda (GRADE) – Academic Program
- Nattes à Chat (Les sans pagEs) – Community-Outreach and Editathon
- Shana Marinitsch (Echtzeit) – Overall Event Direction, Coordination and Communication
- Sirpa Saariaho (GRADE) – Coordination for Reimbursement and Finances
… and last but not least the entire team of le DOC Paris!
