art of surveillance

ART OF SURVEILLANCE Tiffany Holmes •
http://www.artic.edu/%7Etholme/surveillance_course/index.html


In this hybrid studio/seminar course, we will investigate how and why artists have subverted traditional modes of surveillance for creative and critical discourse. Questions of modernism, postmodernism, surveillance, transparency, cyberspace, and changes in the built environment since the end of WWII will be investigated through close analyses of theoretical texts and media art. In the studio component of the class, techniques such as video tracking, audio monitoring, data tagging, and web camera checking will be demonstrated. Course requirements include weekly contributions to a reading response journal, facilitation of one group discussion, and a final research or multimedia project.

Readings include works by: Jeremy Bentham, Jonathan Crary, Michel Foucault, Bureau of Inverse Technology, Critical Art Ensemble and more.

Screenings will include art works by Jim Campbell, Julia Scher, Steve Mann, Mona Hatoum, David Rokeby, Lutz Bacher, Camille Utterbeck, Knowbotic Research, PANOPTIC, Surveillance Camera Players, the NYC Surveillance Camera Project, and selected works at the MCA’s Version>03 festival (March 27-30, 2003).

Three recent exhibitions that critically deal with issues of surveillance: ctrl[space] (ZKM, 2001), Anxious Omniscience: Surveillance and Contemporary Cultural Practice" (Princeton Univ. Art Musuem, 2002), and Open_Source_Art_Hack (New Museum of Contemporary Art, 2002) will collectively provide a starting point for our conversations.


1) TOPIC: • defining surveillance via video • GL1 authorization
LECTURE: A big picture look at the field "Hacking Big Brother: Media Artists Attack Surveillance Culture"
HOMEWORK (DUE NEXT CLASS):
SKIM Chapter 1 from Orwell's 1984 (http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/1984/1984_c1.htm), and read from
CTRL[Space]:
Dorte Zbikowski, "The Listening Ear: Phenomena of Acoustic Surveillance" p.33-49,
Thomas Y. Levin, "Rhetoric of the Temporal Index: Surveillant Narration..." p.579-593.

http://www.open-loop.org/


2) TOPIC: Phenomenologies of Surveillance/Surveillance and Punishment
FILM: The Conversation directed by Francis Ford Coppola

A) Read Druckery in CTRL[Space] p. 150-157, read Foucault conversation p.94-101, and skim through Chapter 3, Politics of Observation.
Create ONE of the following responses to the reading (written responses one page or less); Please email this to the class and bring 1 printout for instructor!
1) Spoof ad for a bioinfomatics company (Ideas at end of Druckery article) or dataveillance company. (see Adbusters for ideas).
3) Write a short positon paper that sets forth your response to the question of how modern systems of power are maintained. Foucault says (p.99) that power is a "machinery that no one owns" and on p. 100 discusses malveillance, an "apparatus of total and circulating mistrust" Consider contrasting this opinion with the Virilio quotation on p. 156: "ONE MAN = A TOTAL WAR."
4) Discuss the seduction of visibility in comparison to that of data-mining--are we living in a panoptic or post-optic world? (Druckery p. 151).

What is phenomenology? Phenomenology is a philosophy or method of inquiry based on the premise that reality consists of objects and events as they are perceived or understood in human consciousness and not of anything independent of human consciousness.

SCREENINGS:

Chapter 1 in CTRL[Space]

Nicholaes Maes, The Eavesdropper (1655)� Ironic situation constructed by painter: we see what the eavesdropper cannot...

History of eavesdropping

Literary treatment: eavesdropping/spying • Orwell's totalitarian police state, Butler's treatment of communication failure in anarchist world without speech, Harry Caul in Coppola's The Conversation, and the Grimm Brothers' Rumpelstilzchen (discovery of name by spy)

1960s Happenings • Allan Kaprow and experiments in the everyday • List Center

Stelarc's extra ear

Paul Seidler: arrested for using GPS to track his ex-girlfriend

Consumer-grade surveillance products: http://www.youdoitsecurity.com/

SWIPE at Turbulence and SWIPE main

Tiffany Holmes: Nosce Te Ispum (2000)
In class happening: Take a notebook and pen out on Michigan Avenue. Locate someone wearing a hat. Follow that person for a maximum of eight blocks writing down as much information as possible about that individual, their behavior, whether you think they are observing you, etc. Write down your route too. If you have a voice recorder or video camera feel free to tape your comments instead of writing them down.

Terms from readings:

Levine essay:

• dataveillance
• ECHELON
• Siemens-Plessy video-traffic monitoring system
• Jai p.579
• 1999 IKonos satellite imagery p.580
• Retinal scan/biometric screening
• Denmark vs. Great Britian, CCTV laws
• EMHC p.581
• diegetic gaze p.581
• scopophilia
• panoptical hermeneutics p.582
• semiotic compensation p.585

Zbikowski essay:

• eavesdrop-how to define acoustic surveillance?
• Athanasius Kircher
• Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
• Panoptican (1787) p.42
• Metaphors of acoustic surveillance spawn art "Walls have ears." p.45
• Bogomir Ecker p.48-49.

3) TOPIC: Surveillance and Punishment
HOMEWORK (DUE NEXT CLASS):
 A) Read CTRL[Space], Duncan Campbell, "Inside Eschelon," p.158-169.
B) Find a futuristic surveillance or dataveillance technology online that might be marketed to provide some form of "security". Be prepared to present this URL in class.

SCREENINGS

Ivan Smith • home in a gallery
Jonas Dahlberg
Frank Thiel • City TV at CTRL[Space]
Biosphere II
Tree sitter and Earth First activist,
Julia Butterfly • cut to Luna, home tree
Tiffany Holmes • Follow the Mouse
Surveillance Camera Players
Yukinori Yanagi

TECHNICAL OBJECTIVES: TECHNICAL OBJECTIVES: Students will manipulate data in fields, use global variables to store data, and grab streaming video and individual frames in Macromedia Director using Xtra "TrackThemColors." See Class 2 Technical Exercises page 1 and page 2

Students will complete exercises using repeat loops to gain understanding of property scripting in Director. Also see handout for class.

EXTRA: Students will track one color in Macromedia Director using Xtra "TrackThemColors".

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION: Based on reading, Druckery and Foucault

1) According to TD, how did the events of 9/11 devastate the media industry? p.150-151

2) Describe "panoptic" vs "post-optic" culture. p.151

3) How might identity act as an interface? p.151

4) What solution was offered to solve the privacy/ID issue in the Netherlands? p 152

5) What is Larry Ellison's argument FOR national identiy cards? Is there a hidden agenda? p.153

6) What is "agentless perception" and give an example of it. p.153

7) According to Virilio, what is the "art of remote control"? p.153

8) What is Druckery talking about when he discusses the "terror of agents"? How might "bio-technics" alleviate this terror? p.154

9) What are some of the cultural effects of genetic research? p.154-155 (Vlacovsky + Mayfield court marshall-Iceland database organised by "decode" 112 year rights)


4) Topic: Politics of Observation • IN-CLASS VISITOR Huong Ngo • http://www.huongngo.com/
HOMEWORK (DUE NEXT CLASS):
READ in CTRL[Space] Victor Burgin, Jenni's Room: Exhibitionism and Solitude, pp. 228-235 and skim through Chapter 4, Surveillant Pleasures
B) Choose a writing or studio assignment:
WRITING: Respond to one or more of the following in a paper that is 1 page or less. Make 17 copies of your paper for next week for your classmates.
-Can surveillance be pleasureable?
-Do any of today's reality television shows do interesting/critical things with eavesdropping technologies? Do you think that reality television changes or alters human behavior of the participants in the way that Foucault describes a "disciplinary mechanism?"
-Compare JenniCam to Vito Acconci's provocative piece, SeedBed (1972).
STUDIO : Using a camcorder or digital camera bring in tape (2 minutes or less) or images of something live and happening in the city that could be considered an example of a "surveillant pleasure."
C) Email your instructor your topic/premise for your final project/lectur



read complete syllabus
http://www.artic.edu/%7Etholme/surveillance_course/index.html

also teaching at art and technology graduate seminar

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