Hacking for Interactive Art Activism

Ludic Method Tea
with Paolo Cirio
17.11.2026, 17:00
Studio Experimental Game Cultures

Hacking for Interactive Art Activism

Artist and activist Paolo Cirio orchestrates actions on the internet by hacking power structures and engaging online audiences in playful interactions with the data he exposes. His interventions and social experiments engage crowds of participants to play, react, and interact with his websites, which make sensitive information an agent of knowledge and change. His work employs a variety of strategies, including transmedia, documentary, street art, and internet art.

About Paolo Cirio

Paolo Cirio investigates and subverts systems of power structures. The evidence he exposes forms the basis of his creative advocacy campaigns. He has received numerous legal threats for his art interventions, which involved hacking, data leaks, and identity theft. His cyberattacks have unsettled Facebook, Amazon, Google, VISA, Cayman Islands, and NATO, among others. As an activist, he mobilizes around Internet privacy and artificial intelligence, high finance and intellectual property, climate change and militarism. His artworks are presented as installations, artifacts, photos, videos, and public art, both offline and online. His theoretical essays examine the aesthetics and ethics of his practice and the subjects he investigates.

Cirio has exhibited in international museums and has won prestigious awards. His artworks have been covered by hundreds of media outlets and he regularly gives public lectures and workshops at leading art festivals and universities worldwide.

Paolo Cirio has won a number of awards, including Golden Nica first prize at Ars Electronica in Linz, 2014; Transmediale second prize in Berlin, 2006; Eyebeam Fellowship, 2012; and NEA grant at ISCP in NYC, 2017; among others awards.