The Limits of Transparency

Symposium
Palace of the Academies, Brussels
Organisation
Activity in the context of the Thinkers' cycle
More transparency! This demand can currently be heard everywhere. Transparency is meant to magically solve most problems of social life in today’s democracies and the consensus holds that more transparency is unconditionally positive. Transparency is, however, not simply given, but rather the result of deliberate operations. If transparency exists only as manufactured, there can only be transparency where the manufacturing operations are negated or made invisible, just as the windowpane only works if one sees through the glass and not the glass itself. This symposium will explore the agenda of transparency in the field of politics, media, aesthetics, optics, architecture, photography, cinema, history of science, philosophy, literature, digital culture.
Photo: Gerhard Richter, 4 Panes of Glass, 1967 (Installation view Anthony d’Offay Gallery, Londen, 1991) © Herbert Foundation, Gent
11-12-2017
12-12-2017