Invitation: The Para-Real Screening with C/O Berlin - 14 July 2022

As part of the launch of C/O Berlin's new online platform, C/O Digital.

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of The Para-Real: Finding the future in unexpected places, commissioned as part of C/O Berlin’s inaugural C/O Digital 2022-2023 programme.

You are cordially invited to the screening of Episode 1 of The Para-Real, as part of the launch of C/O Digital in conjunction with C/O Berlin’s twenty-second birthday.

Date: Thu, July 14, 2022, from 18:00 to 22:30 
Location: Amerika Haus, Hardenbergstrasse 22–24, 10623 Berlin. 

The evening event, which is free of charge, will also be livestreamed on Undersco.re and C/O Berlin’s YouTube channel.

---

The Para-Real: Finding the future in unexpected places

Between the digital realm and our physical world, the Para-Real is a third space, ephemeral and poorly understood. The Para-Real is where class politics and economics collide with hardware, platforms and infrastructure, and its effects are everywhere, even if often unnoticed. The New Design Congress presents The Para-Real: Finding the future in unexpected places, a research series about subcultures and solidarity networks building livelihoods in spite of platform exploitation, austerity and crisis.

Through a series of immersive expert interviews, Cade “Shibco” Diehm and Ellis “Lightli” Jones meet artists, healthcare workers, content creators, academics and members of resilient subcultures. All of these people share a commonality: they have an innate understanding of the Para-Real and have seized upon these imperfect systems to realise their own financial and social wellbeing, far beyond the unrealised promises made by big platforms and speculative worldbuilding of blockchains and other emergent technologies.

The Para-Real is supported by C/O Berlin and Reclaim Futures.

---

About C/O Digital

A tiny glitch begins to spread across the screen on the wall, blurring the image’s content and finally transforming the static image into a living being. Breaking through the surface of the image and through the screen on the wall, it challenges our perception and the way we see and experience photography. C/O Digital is born.

C/O Digital, the digital sibling of C/O Berlin, is dedicated to the exploration of web-based visual cultures and their forms of artistic expression. Every year it will examine a theme through a series of participatory events and commissioned works by artists that develop networks of topics, strategies, and ideas reflecting current issues.

C/O Digital examines the forms of digital art that are currently firmly based in lens-based media, providing new ways of engaging with it. With New Values, this year’s annual theme, C/O Digital will focus both on terms and practices that challenge the traditional understanding of economic contexts.

---

If you aren’t already, please consider supporting our work via a recurring subscription or one-time donation. Our broad range of support from individuals, organisations, companies and other entities helps us to maintain critical independence.