Data↔Worlds Final Conference of the Second Funding Phase at Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden

The Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden is pleased to announce the final conference of the second funding phase “Data↔Worlds”, taking place from September 28–30, 2026, at TUD Dresden University of Technology.

Conceived as a multi-format gathering, the conference marks the culmination of the Lab's three-year funding phase under the guiding theme “Data↔Worlds: Socio-Technical and Cultural Syntheses of New Realities”. It explores the societal and planetary implications of data-driven technologies across governance, power, culture, and the environment, while asking how data might also become a site of empowerment, imagination, and more just and sustainable futures.

Keynote Lectures

Louise Amoore (Professor of Political Geography, Durham University)

Manuela Naveau (Professor for Interface Cultures / Critical Data, Head of Department Interface Cultures, University of Arts Linz)

Joanna Zylinska (Professor of Media Philosophy + Critical Digital Practice, King's College London)

Exhibition Opening

Schaufler Residency@TU Dresden 2026: Quadrature (Juliane Götz and Sebastian Neitsch)

September 29, 2026, 7 pm | University Gallery, Görges Building, TUD Dresden University of Technology

The conference panels explore

Data politics—authoritarian and extractive data regimes

Datafied decision-making—algorithmic governance and its stakes

Data beliefs—the faith and mythology built around data

Data hermeneutics—how data is read, interpreted, contested

Data ecologies—data's material and environmental entanglements

Data epistemologies—truth, uncertainty, and authority in data regimes

“Data↔Worlds” brings together an international group of scholars, artists, and practitioners whose work has shaped our research, including many with whom we have had the chance to collaborate through the Schaufler Lab’s graduate seminars, conferences, exhibitions, videocast series, and publications.

Panel speakers include Azadeh Akbari (Goethe University Frankfurt), Cassandra Ashton (independent scholar), Kat Austen (University College London), Alexandra Gilliams (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), Sophia Jaworski (Capilano University), Katrin Köppert (The Humboldt University of Berlin), Paulan Korenhof (Wageningen University and Research), Frida Mannerfelt (Lund University) , Konstanze Möller-Jansen (TUD Dresden University of Technology), Ilona Nord (Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg), Sabrina Pölle (University of Passau), Patricia Reed (Design Academy Eindhoven), and Avinash Sharma (People for Himalayan Development, Indien).

The program opens with a keynote by Joanna Zylinska, followed by the first thematic panel sessions. The first day concludes with a keynote by Louise Amoore, while the second day brings additional panel discussions, a keynote by Manuela Naveau, and the exhibition opening with artist duo Quadrature (Juliane Götz and Sebastian Neitsch), Schaufler Residency@TU Dresden 2026.

The conference closes with final panel sessions and a closing plenary featuring the keynote speakers together with the Schaufler Lab speakers Orit Halpern and Moritz Ingwersen.

The Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden—a joint project of TUD and THE SCHAUFLER FOUNDATION—is an interdisciplinary research environment dedicated to exploring the relationships between humans, machines, technology, and the world. Bringing together perspectives from social sciences, humanities, and the arts, the Lab is shaped by the close collaboration between the Schaufler Kolleg@TU Dresden graduate program and the Schaufler Residency@TU Dresden artist-in-residence program.

Participation is free of charge. The conference will be held in English.

Registration is required and can be completed here.

For further information, please contact:

Stephan Wiegand
Communications
Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden
+49 351 463 44357
schauflerlab@tu-dresden.de