It’s Time to Open the Black Boxes
Τέχνη και Πολιτική σε συνέργεια

mέta | The Centre for Postcapitalist Civilisation, DiEM25 and Progressive International gladly announce their decision to jointly endorse and support the “It’s Time to Open the Black Boxes” project.

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We invite you to explore the updated website opentheblackboxes.org, in which submission is now available in over 15 languages and to participate in the two current open calls: our ongoing “Shape the World with your Word”, along with “In the Era of War”, by contributing your own two words.

Initiated in 2012 by the nonprofit organization Vital Space and the artist Danae Stratou, “Open the Black Boxes” is an international, collaborative, multilingual, participatory and continuously upgraded platform, offering real-time cultural and statistical material online for public use.

Via visually engaging formats, the open-source platform reflects an ever-changing portrait of contemporary society, eliciting from all over the world one-word responses that highlight collective fears and/or aspirations on any given subject and conjuncture. The project investigates the space between art, democracy and political action by raising awareness on present challenges, attaining global outreach and by focusing on how society responds directly to its most pressing issues

“It’s Time to Open the Black Boxes” invites people across the world to submit online a single word in reply to one of two questions:

“What threatens you the most?”

“What are you most eager to preserve?”

At a time marked by war, multiple crises, a global pandemic, economic uncertainty, social and environmental disasters, we find ourselves in the clasps of multiple fears. We are in need of expression, and Digital Media offers the most liberating and ecological space for this action. When put together, these single words help paint a magnificently insightful picture of our priorities, offering an opportunity to explore our shared public space, our shared fears, our shared aspirations, thus helping us visualise in condensed form our angst and the hope that springs from it at the current juncture.

Gathered without intermediaries, the words become a valuable record of our time. Combining new technologies with art practices can open the public dialogue at this critical time to promote direct and advanced democratic practices.

The statistics presented, and their constant flow, serve as raw materials for artists, researchers, and everyone who wants to make sense of the present crises and reimagine our future.

By jointly endorsing and supporting “It’s Time to Open the Black Boxes”, mέta, DiEM25, and Progressive International are firstly enabling the project to grow thus gathering vital data on how society responds directly to its most pressing issues and simultaneously they are given a tool to widely disseminate their views, receive valuable feedback and propose concrete news ways of deepening public participation through artistic means.

Since 2016 the project has already offered visual and participatory material presented at many of DiEM25’s events throughout Europe as well as run specific open calls, in synch with particular campaigns by our movement, and presented the resulting artistic video projections at the ΜeΡΑ25 launch events in Athens and Berlin.