What we do
DNI provides a platform outside of the constraints of journalism and the academy. Through year-round research and events, it explores the role of data capitalism, technological warfare, and surveillance technologies grounded in the experience of the Global Majority.
Investigation of “the Kill Cloud”, a term coined by US military whistleblowers-turned-DNI fellows (Ling, Westmoreland, 2021), is at the heart of the Disruption Network Institute’s research. It refers to an intensifying, networked global infrastracture dominating the full spectrum of warfare – sea, land, air, space and cyberspace. This interconnected infrastructure deploys AI, satellites, and communication tools, among other things, to track, target, and conduct autonomous warfare across all domains, but particularly affecting the Global Majority.
Merging AI into warfare, the Kill Cloud continuously mines data from space, cyberspace, ad-tech tracking, and the electromagnetic spectrum to dominate battlespaces far beyond traditional physical borders. DNI Advisor Lisa Ling emphasises that unlike traditional military frameworks, this infrastructure heavily relies on private Silicon Valley venture-capital-backed companies, giving tech executives unprecedented influence on global military operations - without federal oversight.
Impact
DNI uniquely provides cross-disciplinary networking, amplifies whistleblowers' voices globally, and influences civil society, journalism and scholarship.
Founded on 11 September 2023, the DNI fellowship programme has enabled six fellows across two rounds.
2025–2026
2025–26 fellows produced reports on the Kill Cloud's architecture and erosion of sovereignty (Westmoreland), telecoms surveillance and targeting in Kenya (Shabibi), automated extraction targeting Indigenous peoples at the US-Mexico border (Roxanne).
Read the 2026 publications · 2025-2026 research framework
2023-2024
2023–24 fellows published four reports in November 2024 covering the Kill Cloud military-industrial complex and drone warfare accountability (Lisa Ling), special operations databases (Jack Poulson), AI safety in autonomous weapons (Naomi Colvin), and the somatic impact of the Kill Cloud (Joana Moll).
Read the 2024 publications · 2023-2024 research framework
Disruption Network Institutes offers also opportunities of residencies.
2025 residency project: Speculative Violence. Ethics, Aesthetics, and Power in the Age of AI-Generated 'Synthetic Realism' by Donatella Della Ratta.
Our Mission
As a collective not beholden to the constraints of journalism and the academy, the Disruption Network Institute aims to refocus attention on the important yet hidden aspects of the militarisation of AI.
First, the most marginalised and impoverished Global Majority countries were and remain the testing ground for the development of targeting algorithms. Second, the application of predictive AI to bulk-collected data over wide geographies, by intelligence and police forces, turns entire populations into potential threats. Third, the application of militarised AI (particularly predictive analytics) extends across conflict and into counterinsurgency and peacetime states. Fourth, while the errors of algorithmic warfare must be understood, they must also not be used to obscure the politics of killing, which underlies the well-documented, deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure – see for example, the attack on Minab girls’ school in Iran.
DNI’s work also seeks to bring attention to the significant continuities between AI in policing, paramilitary policing and warfare in the Global Majority, which can be seen clearly in multiple geographic areas, including Kenya-Somalia and Afghanistan-Pakistan. What AI feeds off is data, and data is not only produced by ultra-advanced technology (e.g. synthetic aperture radar), but everyday technologies, from wearables, to phones, cars and digital public infrastructure. In understanding the utility of AI in processing a “tsunami” of data, ubiquitous surveillance tech and its integration into public life must be understood to be challenged.
Our Work
Creating Network of Trust: Connecting Whistleblowers, Investigative Journalists, Campaigners and Artists
Disruption Network Lab (DNL), the organisational framework in which DNI operates, offers a space, between the fault lines of journalism, campaigning and scholarship, for the development of research and connections between influential experts and actors. We create networks of trust: whistleblowers, investigative journalists, campaigners and artists are working together to establish connections and continue their sharing both online and in person.
DNI’s programme is unique in that some of the key players are whistleblowers. They have chosen DNI as their preferred investigative hub to conduct self-directed research on AI, surveillance, and militarisation. This scope is also reflected in DNL’s structure: we are a team of seven people, most of whom have a migration background. We have a strong commitment to critical transdisciplinary scholarship and public engagement. The director and founder, Tatiana Bazzichelli, has 25 years experience of making information accessible to the general public and civil society through public events, publications and community outreach.
For the list of DNI Advisory Board Member see here.
Team
Tatiana Bazzichelli
Director, IT/DE
Tatiana Bazzichelli is founder and director at Disruption Network Lab. Her focus of work is whistleblowing and digital culture. She is author of the books Whistleblowing for Change (2021), Networked Disruption (2013), Disrupting Business (2013), and Networking (2006). In 2011-2014 she was programme curator at transmediale festival in Berlin. She received a PhD degree in Information and Media Studies at the Faculty of Arts of Aarhus University in Denmark in 2011. Her PhD research, Networked Disruption: Rethinking Oppositions in Art, Hacktivism and the Business of Social Networking, was the result of her 2009 visiting scholarship at the H-STAR Institute of Stanford University. In 2012-2014 she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Digital Cultures, Leuphana University Lüneburg. In 2019-2021 she was appointed jury member for the Capital Cultural Fund by the German Federal Government and the city of Berlin, and in 2020-2023 jury member for the Kulturlichter prize, a new award for digital cultural education in Germany. Tatiana Bazzichelli is Board Chair of the Disruption Network Lab e. V.
Jonas Frankki
Creative Producer, SE/DE
Since 2014 Jonas Frankki has designed and animated the visual identity of the Disruption Network Lab and each conference, and additionally researches speakers, networks and topics for future events. Since 2023 he is also Press Manager, communicating the conference contents to journalists, developing media partnerships and PR, expanding the reach of the Disruption Network Lab and its activities. Jonas was born in Sweden, studied Marketing, International Relations and Culture Management in Gothenburg. In 2002 he co-founded Mediekritik.nu, an early platform for crowdsourced fact checking of Swedish mainstream media. From 2012 to 2022 he worked as Art Director for sinnwerkstatt, a Berlin media agency for sustainability, designing campaigns and communication for countless German and international NGOs. He is Deputy Board Member of the Disruption Network Lab e. V..