Meet the Makers: Roos Groothuizen

Still from ‘Ode to Frances’ (2022), sourced from the artist’s website.

For this special Halloween edition of Meet the Makers we will be joined by Roos Groothuizen, a media artist who cares about digital human rights. She is based in Rotterdam, where she co-founded .zip, an art space and media lab. In her own practice, and in collaboration with the art collective Telemagic, she researches the human side of invisible algorithms, information filters, and unfair distribution. Who is in control of what we perceive?

Working primarily with playful media, Roos uses game mechanics to give interactive and immersive forms to these abstract issues: a casino where you gamble with your personal data, an escape room about the power of Big Tech, a dollhouse detective game about smart home devices, a VR installation about identity etc.

Roos’ current project involves smart doorbells. These are devices of questionable legality that are changing streetscapes and neighborly relationships, raising important questions about the rights of privacy, the desire for convenience and safety, as well as cultural attitudes towards public and private space. They are also objects of interest given the rise of surveillance horror, which is a subgenre that uses diegetic cameras to great effect, for example in the iconic game Five Nights at Freddy’s. How are the affordances of smart doorbells, with their fish-eye lenses, their fickle motion sensors, and their unexpected blind spots going to inform the next generation of found footage horror? Join us to find out in this extra spooky Meet the Makers session!

If you wish to attend this event please RSVP via this form.

Meet the Makers is a series by The Creative Humanities Academy, a platform that fosters collaboration and knowledge exchange between cultural and creative professionals and academic researchers and students.