Control society and media in cultural praxis today. This blog is collaboratively edited by the Surveillant Architectures Group.
Byline to the video:
Court footage- Expert reconstructs MI6 spy bag incident. This reconstruction shows an expert working under controlled supervision attempting to lock himself in a bag. It must not be copied.
Expert Recreates Mysterious Death of MI6 Agent (Raw Video)
Here’s a floorplan of the Ostasiatisches Museum for you to use.
There is also some more material on the KHM Fotoserver, currently available here: afp://fotoserver.internal.khm.de (this will only work on Macs and inside the KHM local network. PC users try smb://fotoserver.internal.khm.de). Photos are in a folder called Ostasiatisches Museum.
to follow up on today’s seminar:
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/performer-audience-mirror/
watch a video of the 1975 performance here http://vodpod.com/watch/1502271-dan-graham-performeraudiencemirror-1975
http://notesonlooking.com/?p=3218
plus, see Rock My Religion here http://vimeo.com/5445916
“Die ersten Cyborgs werden bereits getestet.”
Insekten als Drohnen - Forscher basteln an fliegenden Mini-Cyborgs
Throwable Robots to join battle in Afghanistan.
“these are designed for military use, and so were built with the ability to work the moment they hit the ground — there’s no need to worry about whether it is right side up, or rough terrain. They are also simple to control.”
Same idea, but can also jump! Love the video.
SandFlea – surveillance robot
“Sex nur unter der Bettdecke und bei abgeschaltetem Licht” lautet der durchaus ernst gemeinte Rat der regimekritischen Aktivistengruppe Freie Jugend an die Besucher des Eurovision Song Contest in Baku.
Dear all,
as mentioned a couple of weeks ago, you have the chance to show some artworks at the SIGINT 2012. The SIGINT is a huge conference of the Chaos Computer Club, which will take place in May 18th-20th in Mediapark, Köln.
More info here: http://sigint.ccc.de/
I had a meeting with my friend who helps organizing the event and had a look at the possible exhibition space. The idea was spreading artworks all over the place… Here are some pictures I took, so you get an idea.
The CCC has rented 2 buildings, in one building there will be mostly lectures, in the other there will be hackers sitting around, doing crazy things. If you are interested in showing a piece and getting in touch with them, please send me an email with your proposal until April 15th!
See you soon :-)
Theresa
resenka {AT} gmx.de
UPDATE: there’s a sneak preview of talks & lectures online now
The Guardian has published an analysis of the planned unprecedented security measures for the 2012 London Olympics, and the wider implications of a booming security industry.
Highlights:
“… the London Olympics will host the biggest mobilisation of military and security forces seen in the UK since the second world war. More troops – around 13,500 – will be deployed than are currently at war in Afghanistan. “
Mind you, that’s just the military troops deployed on home turf; the number of police is kept secret!
“… Ramping up surveillance is thus now as much a part of economic policy as a response to purported threats.
The security boom is unaffected, or perhaps even fuelled, by the global crash, as wealthy and powerful elites across the world seek ever-more fortified lifestyles.”
That’s called ‘new enclosures’ for you….
The author also contextualises the often-heard theory that the security structures of airports function as a testing ground for a more widespread application:
“…the familiar security architecture of airports and international borders – checkpoints, scanners, ID cars, cordons, security zones – start to materialise in the hearts of cities. What this amounts to, in practice, is an effort to roll out the well-established architecture and surveillance of the airport to parts of the wider, open city. The “rings of steel” around the City and Docklands in London were early examples of this.”
By the way, the drawing above is a schoolboy’s rendition of Wenlock the London Olympic mascot, dressed as a police officer.
This article on gamesmonitor.org.uk, an Olympics-critical site goes on to describe how emergency measures acquired for the severest of emergencies are now routinely exercised on routine small-scale events such as union demonstrations. Using Giorgio Agamben’s definition of the ‘Ausnahmezustand’ (State of Exception) the article describes the ‘performative’ ‘unveiling’ of a new type of police cordon, and the “new enclosores” appearing in our cities which work like medieval defence structures.
“One aspect of the performativity of the ‘unveiling’ of the #Nov30 wall stands out: its timing. It marks the end of a year of unrest, in which the Met have been accused by the right in slacking in their response to the student and 26 March protests, and accused by the liberal left of slacking in their response to the riots. More importantly, it marks an authoritarian escalation ahead of a 2012 which promises more poverty, more inequality, more unemployment and more unrest: and with it, a state of exception of truly Olympian proportions.”
There’s a nice ending to that article, check it out. A good ending is so important (in an article as in artworks).
Please take a moment and send an email to your elected representative in the EU parliament:
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
ich möchte Sie dringend bitten, alles in Ihrer Macht stehende zu tun, um die Einführung des Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreements (ACTA) zu stoppen. Es sieht mir so aus, als wäre es nicht das Ziel unserer Parlamente und Regierungen, z.B. China auf dem Weg zur Demokratie zu begleiten. Im Gegenteil, unser eigenes Land, beziehungsweise unser Zugang zum Internet, scheint sich immer mehr China zum Vorbild zu nehmen. Lassen Sie uns diesen Trend stoppen bevor es zu spät ist. Es ist sehr leicht, Freiheiten aufzugeben, aber unendlich schwieriger, sie (zurück-)zu erkämpfen.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
…
As a citizen who will be severely affected by ACTA, I am shocked that this legislation has been drafted and signed in almost complete secrecy by unelected officials and corporate lobbyists, without public access to the text or any respect for the democratic process.
I remind you that as one of my personal representatives in the EU parliament, it is your job and your duty to understand precisely the effects that legislation will have on the people, and to act in the people’s interest. ACTA is finally coming to the people’s attention, and we are collectively outraged.
The internet has grown to be the most important platform for information sharing and granting power to the people in the history of mankind. ACTA will fundamentally destroy the openness and ingenuity of the Internet, lacks democratic credibility, and poses a serious threat to free speech that wrongly requires ISPs to surveil and police their users.
I urge you to withhold consent on this agreement, seek to draft better legislation with more respect for the rights of the person, and to stand up for democracy and the fundamental rights of every human across the world.
http://www.bmbf.de/pubRD/CBRNE_Bekanntm._600x800_D_TERAcam.pdf
Official announcement of the development of portable Terhertz scanners, also known in Germany as ‘Nacktscanner’ (great word). I would love to see that image live and moving. Do we have the funds to get one of those for the KHM? Their development after all is sponsored by the German Ministry of Education. :)
P.S. I can’t for the life of me see a gun under that clothing. Can you? Is that dark rectangle supposed to look like a gun? They’re kidding.
Funny how one tends to believe something just because it’s an official announcement. You trust some words more than your eyes. There’s an old fairy tale about this: The Emperor’s New Clothes
Sascha Lobo talking about how politics, the media and the economy used to be ‘black boxes’, simply because of the high costs of communicating details about their inner workings. Now with the Internet and cheap communication, the trade secret becomes the exception, rather than the rule. People want to know why and how things get decided.
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/0,1518,811007,00.html
(In German)
I feel that trend, too. Funny how hard it is to resist the urge to disclose the references and sources of your art works. Now with art I’d argue that often it’s better to hide the strings of your puppets. Or what do you think?
