Black transparency is an involuntary disclosure of secrets against a backdrop of systematic online surveillance, as large parts of contemporary life move into the digital realm. In their latest book, Metahaven embark on a journey of subversion while examining transparency’s intersections with design, architecture, and pop culture, as well as its ability to unravel the circuitry of modern state power.

Communists Anonymous understands the historical incarnations of communism as substantially incomplete in thought and practice, and places communism where it originated—in the realm of fiction. Only as fiction can communism manifest itself again beyond doubt.

The globalized world seems at once transparent and opaque. The exhibition project “Transparencies” examined the cultural facets and atmospheres of these (non-)transparencies. The two-part, joint exhibition project in Bielefeld and Nuremberg was dedicated to developments in “transparent society,” asking how these are reflected in the current work by contemporary artists.

Black transparency is an involuntary disclosure of secrets against a backdrop of systematic online surveillance, as large parts of contemporary life move into the digital realm. In their latest book, Metahaven embark on a journey of subversion while examining transparency’s intersections with design, architecture, and pop culture, as well as its ability to unravel the circuitry of modern state power.

Today we live in a world that can be described as an “internet of things,” one that embraces digital technologies, and fulfills the dream worlds envisioned by twentieth-century writers, architects, and artists. The internet is an ever-growing storage space of information that we have come to rely on—but what does this thing called the internet really mean? And does it still exist?

What happens when you look at design as some thing more than a service-based relationship between client and designer? What new strategies and models help to question and challenge the limits of design? What outer circumstances influence this kind of practice?