CODE 2026: Terms of Intimacy

New Codes for a Fair Digital Future

This exhibition brings together seven works produced within CODE 2026, the sixth edition of an international program that unites artists, non-artists, politicians, policymakers and researchers from different countries in dialogue, critical discussion and artistic intervention. CODE does not refer to coding, but to the collective exploration of new and fairer codes of digital ethics.

Over a five-month trajectory, participants develop projects that respond to the same central questions: how can we regain agency over our digital lives, become less dependent on Big Tech, and push governments to better protect our digital rights? Terms of Intimacy is the result of this year's CODE trajectory.

Intimacy as Extraction

Terms of Intimacy addresses topics that are the subject of intense legal and political debate, including orbital governance, biometric consent, algorithmic moderation, the hidden labour behind machine learning, and the psychological architecture of AI companionship. In the exhibition, these often abstract issues are translated into playful, bodily experiences.

A clear tension runs through the works: technologies that present themselves as intimate and personalised, are in fact silently extracting, monitoring, and reshaping the people they claim to serve. Voice, attention, presence and bodily data become currencies whose ownership is unclear, governed by orbital, corporate, and algorithmic systems that remain largely beyond public control.

From Exhibition to Policy

With this exhibition, CODE seeks to influence public policy on a national and international level, creating awareness of the issues at hand, and outlining ways to improve laws and legislation that protect us as digital citizens and consumers. It aims to inspire and facilitate cross-disciplinary collaborations with the potential to create systemic change.