art positions & projects

All Cameras Are Police Cameras

Posted by Christian

All Cameras Are Police Cameras
Great essay by James Bridle, about the advances in locking down public space.

Surveillance images are all “before” images, in the sense of “before and after”. The “after” might be anything: an earthquake, a riot, a protest, a war. Any system reliant on flow, which is all networks from vehicle traffic to commercial supply to video feeds to the internet itself, view disruptions within the same negative moral context. Surveillance images attain the status of evidence for unknown crimes the moment they are created, and merely await the identification of the moment they were created for. Automated imagery criminalises its subject.

Read on for what happened just walking down the streets of London documenting security cameras.

http://shorttermmemoryloss.com/nor/

I wonder what happened to the imagery here? Strangely drained of colour and, presumably, all meta data.

"Citizen Four" next week

Posted by Christian

As we’re going to go to Dortmund to see “Citizen Four” next week, here are some hand picked articles about the background to the film and its making.

Laura Poitras on Filming Edward Snowden and Her New Documentary About Him, Citizenfour – in Vogue Magazine! A reminder of how far this story has infected everyone’s minds now http://www.vogue.com/2865709/laura-poitras-edward-snowden-documentary-citzenfour

Berlin’s digital exiles: where tech activists go to escape the NSA http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/09/berlins-digital-exiles-tech-activists-escape-nsa I sent this to some British friends to try and explain why I’m so upset.

Plus an older interview with Constanze Kurz, about the Berlin exile scene. By Jörg Heiser. http://frieze-magazin.de/archiv/kolumnen/spurlos-verbunden/?lang=en (also available auf deutsch http://frieze-magazin.de/archiv/kolumnen/spurlos-verbunden/ )

 

Michael Stipe on 9-11 and what followed

Posted by Christian

He puts it very well.

In my mind I’m seeing unblinking eyes: HAL 9000 surveying Dave the astronaut; I’m seeing Doug Coupland surveying the 21st-century world; I’m seeing video surveillance everywhere. I’m seeing ourselves watching ourselves and it’s deeply frightening, as a new form of infrastructure that relentlessly monitors and peels back our privacy, our mysteriousness, our individuality, in every way. Do we all need to feel like we’re living in a movie, thousands of unseen cameras invisibly choreographing scenes with our words, our actions, our movements? And are we almost to the point, thanks to the internet, of providing ourselves with our own laugh track? The googly eyes on Coupland’s Osamas lead me to think that one day we will.

The 9-11 pieces by Douglas Coupland he talks about are pretty good. Wow, those toy eyes.

Light-Blue-Boogeyman-1

Privacy and Surveillance Conference, UC Berkeley

Posted by Julia Scher

The conference is hosted by the Data and Democracy Initiative at University of California at Berkeley.  Do let me know if you would like your work included as part of the dialogue.

Event: Pan Optics: Perspectives on Digital Privacy & Surveillance
March 6, 2014 11am-4:30pm
Banatao Auditorium, Sutardja Dai Hall

Presented by CITRIS, CITRIS Data & Democracy Initiative, UC Davis Research Initiative in Digital Cultures

“Recent disclosures about the NSA’s international and domestic surveillance activities have stimulated overdue policy discussions among politicians and outrage among activists. The revelations have also suggested a need to address issues of privacy and surveillance on a broader level across a range of disciplines.

As a pervasive practice employed by governments, corporations, and individuals, routine data collection and ubiquitous camera technology are shifting boundaries and cultural expectations about what should and should not be shared. This symposium will bring together scholars and practitioners from a range of disciplines to discuss privacy protections, surveillance methods, and modes of resistance in a digital age.”

http://democracy.citris-uc.org/

T.C. Boyle on surveillance:

Posted by Christian

While we slept, machines have taken over the world, just as those old science fiction movies predicted.

I was quite struck by this, and it took me some time to figure out why. Now I think it’s because deep down I feel he’s actually right.

This is from him explaining why he signed the „Writers Against Mass Surveillance“ appeal released today. (My translation)

The appeal is now open to be signed from you, too.