How did the internet go from the utopian free-for-all, open source heaven, libertarian last frontier to the current state of permanent surveillance, exhibitionism and paranoia? This duplicity is the underlying thread that links the artists, activists, and researchers in The Black Chamber, an exhibition, a symposium, an urban intervention and a publication. The Black Chamber aims at discussing the delicate and often awkward role of art and imagination in the age of mass surveillance, stressing the multiple connections between post-studio art and independent research, grassroots reverse engineering, and new forms of political activism in the age of networks. Not just an exhibition catalogue, this book is also an attempt to show the exhibited works as part of larger research processes. With works and original contributions by Jacob Appelbaum & Ai Weiwei, Laura Poitras, Metahaven, Zach Blas, James Bridle, Emilie Brout & Maxime Marion, Simon Denny, Jill Magid, !Mediengruppe Bitnik and Evan Roth.

German drama written and directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms charting a couple's relationship before, during and after the outbreak of the Second World War. After marrying his pregnant girlfriend Lene (Eva Mattes) the day before war breaks out, Hans (Ernst Jacobi) is conscripted to fight for his country in the Nazi army. Now alone in Berlin, Lene gives birth to their daugher Anna (Anna Sanders) but becomes increasingly frustrated with her absent husband's minimal visits home while on leave. After her house is destroyed during the frequent air raids, Lene takes Anna and leaves the capital to join her family in the countryside. Struggling to provide for her daughter, Lene is relieved when she is again reunited with Hans following the end of the war, but in its aftermath, the couple find it difficult to rekindle their love for one another.