Join us for the return of Breaking Codes, a weekend-long event that highlights emerging moving image makers who are building radical, expansive and wholly new definitions of cinematic form. This year we are thrilled to welcome Nick Briz, NIA JUNE, and Amina Ross and explore their work over the course of four free events.

Chicago artist and technologist Nick Briz joins the SNF Parkway Theatre from Chicago to present a performative lecture and screening on a topic synonymous with our digital age: online surveillance. Often discussed as solely an issue of digital privacy, Briz illustrates how deep the rabbit hole truly goes through his digital artworks, showing the audience how tech companies might know much more about you than you might realize. Although Briz’s works are critical of many contemporary tech and internet-based companies and their practices, he doesn’t cross the line into digital nihilism—instead, he offers practical solutions for caring for oneself online and posits how our hyper-connected overlords might better use their tools to help mankind, as opposed to doing what capitalists do best: making money off of their users. Through artful visualizations, videos, and informed discussion, Briz helps his viewers to understand and contend with the current online surveillance state.

Nick Briz is an internationally recognized new-media artist, educator and organizer. His work investigates the promises and perils of living in an increasingly digital and networked world. He is an active participant in various online communities and conversations including glitch art, net art, remix culture, digital literacy, hacktivism and digital rights. He’s co-founder of netizen.org a nonprofit focused on digital literacy and digital culture, he’s Associate Professor Adjunct at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Lecturer at the University of Chicago, and a freelance Creative Technologist.

See all the programs that are part of Breaking Codes 2022!

Friday, December 9
7 pm – Nia June Screening with Q&A
Saturday, December 10 
4 pm – Nick Briz Artist Talk with Q&A

7 pm – Amina Ross Screening with Q&A
Sunday, December 11
2 pm – Tactical Misuse Workshop with Nick Briz

Breaking Codes is made possible by a generous contribution from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.