CODE 2026 Makes Refusal Part of the Design Conversation
CODE 2026: Terms of Intimacy is on view in Eindhoven through 25 October with a question that sits behind many apparently effortless digital encounters: what are we agreeing to give away? Presented by IMPAKT during Dutch Design Week, the exhibition brings seven works to Gebouw SFF at Strijp-S through 25 October. Its subject is not the elegance of a new interface, but the choices an interface makes available—and the possibility of refusing them.
Looking without collecting
Ralf Lambie and Gera Pronk's For Your Eyes Only gives that question a clear physical form. According to the published project description, the artwork remains visible while a visitor looks at it, but withdraws when someone raises a smartphone to capture it. The condition turns an ordinary gallery habit into the subject of the encounter.
A photograph can become a reminder, a message or evidence that someone was there. Here, the announced interaction asks visitors to notice what changes when looking and collecting are no longer allowed to happen together. That is an invitation to think about attention, not a claim that one way of visiting an exhibition is morally superior to another.
A voice with conditions attached
Another project, Passphrase, approaches participation through a game inspired by online voice challenges. IMPAKT describes a process in which participants give away a voice and try to win it back. Its five makers are Demi van Kuijk, Erwin Hoogerwoord, Dmytro Tentiuk, Emily W. Bernstein and Anneke ter Schure.
The format makes an abstract ownership question easier to approach. What does recovering control look like after something personal has entered a system? The game is an artistic model for considering that question, not a legal explanation of data ownership or a tested privacy product. Its interest lies in the difference between being invited to participate and being able to determine the terms.
More than a technology demonstration
The works emerged from the sixth edition of CODE, a five-month international programme connecting people within and beyond the arts with researchers, politicians and policymakers. IMPAKT organises the programme with Werktank, PrivacySalon and In Fine. The name refers to developing fairer digital ethics rather than teaching computer programming.
Across the exhibition, subjects include biometric consent, orbital infrastructure and the labour behind machine learning. Read as a group, these are different ways of asking where an individual's choice meets a larger system. Their presence at a design festival makes the conditions around a product or service part of the design conversation, alongside its appearance and operation.
Visiting the exhibition
CODE runs from 17 to 25 October 2026, daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Eindhoven local time. Admission is free at Gebouw SFF (Bosch), Torenallee 49, 5617 BA, in Strijp-S. The official listing describes the venue as partially wheelchair accessible and lists a wheelchair-friendly toilet; visitors needing specific access arrangements should check with the organiser.
This introduction follows the announced programme rather than an on-site test of the installations. The useful starting point is not whether a visitor likes technology, but how much room its design leaves for a different answer.
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