Julian Oliver

Julian Oliver is a New Zealander, Critical Engineer, systems administrator and electronic artist based in Berlin. His work and lectures have been presented at many conferences, museums, festivals and international electronic-art events including Transmediale, the Chaos Computer Congress, Ars Electronica, Tate Modern, FILE and the Japan Media Arts Festival. Julian has received several awards, most notably the distinguished Golden Nica at Prix Ars Electronica 2011 for the project Newstweek (with Daniil Vasiliev). He is the co-author of the Critical Engineering Manifesto and co-founder of Crypto Party in Berlin, who’s shared studio Weise7 hosted the first three crypto-parties worldwide. He is also the co-founder of BLACKLIST, a screening and panel series focused on the primary existential threats of our time.

Julian has given numerous workshops and master classes in data forensics, creative hacking, computer networking, counter-surveillance, software art, object-oriented programming, radio, UNIX/Linux, (and previously) augmented reality, virtual architecture, video-game development and information visualisation worldwide.

He is an advocate of Free and Open Source Software and is a supporter of, and contributor to, initiatives that reinforce rights of privacy and anonymity in networked and non-networked domains. He has often donated his time and experience in these areas to the support of activist initiatives and at-risk groups, with a focus on environmental defence.

Articles about Julian’s work, or work he’s made with others, have appeared in many news channels. Among them are The BBC (UK), The Age (AU), Der Spiegel (DE), El Pais (ES), Liberation (FR), The New York Times (US), La Vanguardia (ES), The Guardian Online (UK), Cosmopolitan (US), Wired (DE, US, UK), Slashdot (US), Boing Boing (US), Computer World (World) and several television stations worldwide.

Julian Oliver bought NETworkshop, with Oliver Danja Vasiliev, to AND Festival 2013 and was commissioned by Abandon Normal Devices to create Border Bumping for Mobile Caravans as part of AND Festival 2012.