Locative Media & Surveillance

There's an interesting story online from the BBC on locative media and surveillance. It describes an art project at the San Jose Zero One ISEA 2006 symposium that traced attendees movements without their knowledge. The team behind it fixed nodes to traffic lights and pedestrian crossings at busy intersections, dressed in the bright orange overalls of municipal workers. Other tracking nodes were deployed in hotel lobbies, cafes and cinemas, placed in flowerpots, and buried beneath bar terraces. One of the artists involved, Drew Hemmet, was interviewed for the story:

The attendees were also sent messages through bluejacking - the process of scanning for and connecting to other Bluetooth-enabled mobile devices without the owners' consent.

"That is actually a surveillance act - so every time you use Bluetooth you're actually looking to see what other devices are around you, and without disclosing who you are," said Mr Hemmet.

"Someone received messages from someone who had intimate knowledge of their movements, that were written in such a way as to make them think that maybe they signed up to some social network, but forgot.

"Then, over the week, the messages got slowly more sinister - and changed from 'coffee later?' to 'are you ignoring me?'"

The messages ultimately directed people towards the Loca stand at Zero One, where people could scan their device and receive a personalised printout of their movements.

Some individual logs were over 100m long.

The nodes are placed on walls and street furniture. "A lot of people were very surprised that we were technically able to do it," Mr Hemmet added.

For more see BBC and Zero One

Final Assessment Task

For the final assessment task, a CDR of the blog needs to be handed in. This is a hard copy will be used to mark the online project and confirm that the work has been completed by the set deadline.

Step 1 - Save all relevant material from the blog.

From the Firefox browser window, select 'File' menu, 'Save Page As' option. Make sure the file is clearly titled, and save to the desktop.



IMPORTANT - If your blog has multiple entries or pages, be sure to make copies of ALL relevant material. This is formal requirement for assessment. Note that images and video can be left as web links, these will be loaded on screen when connected to the Net.


Step 2 - Burn to CD.

Load a blank CDR into the disc drive (blank CDRs and pockets will be made available in the workshops this week). A menu will automatically appear.

Select 'Open writable CD Folder using Windows Explorer'

Drag files into CD Drive window.

Select 'File' menu, 'Write these files to CD.'

The process begins automatically. The CD drawer will open on completion, this should only take a couple of seconds.


Step 3 - Deliver to Media Communications Office.

Label the CD clearly.

Use a CD pocket or case to hand in, attach a signed purple form and deliver to the office by Friday 5:00 pm.

A stamped and self-addressed envelope is required for comments and feedback.

Some Week 11 Links

Locative Media



Proboscis - Urban Tapestries
http://urbantapestries.net/

Volkmar Klien and Ed Lear - Traces of Fire
www.traces-of-fire.org/

Esther Polak - Amsterdam Realtime
http://realtime.waag.org/

Esther Polak, Ieva Auzina and RIXC - MILK Project
www.milkproject.net/


Alternate Reality Gaming

Pac Manhattan
www.pacmanhattan.com


Counter-Surveillance




RTM Mark - Guide to CCTV Destruction
http://www.rtmark.com/cctv/

Surveillance Camera Players
http://www.notbored.org/the-scp.html

Institute for Applied Autonomy - iSee
http://www.appliedautonomy.com/isee.html

Trevor Paglen - Limit Telephotography
http://www.paglen.com/pages/projects/nowhere/photos_images.htm

Net Communication YouTube Film Festival

Take a break from the final assignment and add your favorite YouTube video content in the comments below.

Open-Source Museum Opens in Second Life

A group of students from Brown University have launched an open-source museum in the virtual world of Second Life. Known as OSMOSA, the Open-Source Museum of Open-Source Art, the museum is located »in Second Life's Eson region« and features a mess of artworks that anyone can copy, modify, alter or otherwise contribute to. The museum itself is open to alteration as well, which is a fantastic idea. The modding got under way at the opening party Tuesday night: an already-altered image of Manet's Olympia (with space helmets added to make it more excellent) came out the other end of the night with some interesting additions and adjustments...

The museum was organized by Deborah Abramson, Kiera Feldman, and Davis Jung (aka Deborah Maertens, Koco Furse, and Jinsaedavis Jun in Second Life, respectively), and built out with help from SL residents Kenny Hubble, Soupcan Tomsen, and "the Loyalist College Team."

From http://www.3pointd.com/20070427/open-source-museum-opens-in-second-life

Net.Art

Jodi
Jodi.org (1993); http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/
%20Wrong; http://404.jodi.org/
ASDFG (2000); http://asdfg.jodi.org/
<$Blogtitle$>; http://blogspot.jodi.org/




Health Bunting
_readme (1998); http://www.irational.org/_readme.html

Mark Napier
Shredder 1.0 (1998); http://www.potatoland.org/shredder/

Cory Arcangel
Data Diaries (2002); http://www.turbulence.org/Works/arcangel/
Dooogle (2004); http://www.dooogle.com/

Josh On (Futurefarmers)
They Rule (2004); http://www.theyrule.net/




RTMark
http://www.rtmark.com/legacy/history.html

EToy
Toywar (1999); http://www.etoy.com/

Yes Men
Dow Ethics (2004); http://www.dowethics.com/
http://www.theyesmen.org/




Ubermorgan
Google Will Eat Itself (2005); http://gwei.org/index.php
Amazon Noir (2006); http://www.amazon-noir.com/
http://www.ubermorgen.com

Websites; Listserves
Nettime, 7-11, Syndicate
Rhizome; www.rhizome.org

Alex Galloway
StarryNight (1999 - onward); http://rhizome.org/starrynight/




Raqs Media Collective
Opus (2003); http://www.opuscommons.net/

0100101110101101.org
Life Sharing (2001); http://0100101110101101.org/

Golan Levin
Dumpster (2005); http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/thedumpster/




Abstraction
www.abstraction-now.at/the-online-project/

This is an image of drawball