Circuits in Time: Creative Computing Cultures and Media Transfers in Europe
The 4th GRADE Action conference invites scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and community stakeholders to contribute to a dialogue on the role of cross-European media transfers in shaping local creative computing cultures. As digital practices continue to evolve across Europe, understanding how media, knowledge, and creative methodologies circulate transnationally and in a historical perspective is crucial to supporting Europe’s Digital Decade objectives and nurturing a vibrant, inclusive digital future.
This conference will bring together participants from grassroots initiatives, GLAM institutions, educational organisations, and policy bodies from across Europe and beyond. Our aim is to highlight the value of creative computing as a practical and applied concept with diverse historical trajectories, and to foreground its longitudinal and immediate impact on communities, industries, and public institutions. By creating a shared space for reflection, exchange, and collaboration, the conference seeks to strengthen the network’s long-term legacy and support sustained engagement with stakeholders well beyond the lifetime of the COST Action.
A continued priority of this Action is the promotion of gender equality and the meaningful involvement of minority groups in creative computing fields. We particularly encourage submissions from Young Researchers and Innovators (YRIs), especially those from Inclusiveness Target Countries (ITCs).
Keynote speakers: Christina Dunbar-Hester, Maria B. Garda, Paweł Grabarczyk
Conference details
• Date: May 26-27, 2026
• Location: University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences, Kardeljeva ploščad 5, 1000 Ljubljana, and Computer History Museum – Računalniški muzej, Celovška cesta 111, 1000 Ljubljana
• Format: hybrid
• Zoom link: https://uni-lj-si.zoom.us/j/98370598440
Program committee: Maria B. Garda, Jernej Kaluža, Natalija Majsova, Gaja Zornada
There is no registration fee for attending this conference. The event is open to all COST GRADE members, and to the wider interested public. A limited number of travel grants is available to COST GRADE members.
More information about conference related practicalities can be found here.
Detailed session descriptions can be found here.
May 26: Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana
9:00 Registration
9:30 Welcome
9:45 Circuits of critique: “Diversity” interventions in hacking and FLOSS in North America
Keynote lecture by Christina Dunbar-Hester
11:00 Coffee break
11:30 Women and minorities in creative computing in Europe
Open educational resource presentation
12:30 Lunch break
14:00 Privacy from below: Grassroots, creative computing and digital sovereignty in Europe
White paper presentation
16:00 Coffee break
16:30 Revisiting old futures: Piracy as media archaeology
Roundtable
18:00 COST GRADE GC Session
May 27: Computer History Museum
9:30 Museum tour (optional, self-paid)
10:45 Coffee break
11:00 Creative computing in Europe: From grassroots to heritage
Keynote lecture by Maria B. Garda and Paweł Grabarczyk
12:00 Lunch break
13:00 Silicon dawn: Histories and cultures of creative computing in Europe (1970-2000)
Book presentation
15:00 Coffee break
15:30 Collaborative custody: A bridge to permanent memory for intangible digital heritage Roundtable
17:00 Stories of grassroots digital Europe
Exhibition opening