[spectre] (Fwd) [c-list] ctrl_space: disturbing for what it does not say

[Inke Arns]

[originally to c-list, greetings, Inke]


------- Forwarded message follows -------
From:           	"Inke Arns" <inke@snafu.de>
To:             	Cream List <c-list@laudanum.net>
Date sent:      	Sat, 9 Mar 2002 14:17:04 +0100
Subject:        	[c-list]  ctrl_space: disturbing for what it does not say=
 / show

Dear Sarah and others,

someone said ctrl_space? I reach for my revolver ... sorry for that crude
allusion. Here's why (some quick notes written yesterday night on the trai=
n
between Regensburg and Berlin):

I went to see ctrl_space at the ZKM in Karlsruhe in December and spent two=
 days
in the exhibition (the catalogue was not published by then -- I don't know=
 if
it's already out by now). There's a huge amount of great video installatio=
n
pieces, almost all the classics, Bruce Nauman, Dan Graham, and all that, a=
nd
some more recent stuff, also quite interesting, at least some of it. It is=
 a
very large exhibition .... it is a bit too big perhaps.

But this is not the problem. I find the exhibition extremely disturbing - =
not
because of its theme or because of what it shows, but precisely because of=
 what
it DOES NOT show and talk about.

Again and again we are told in this exhibition that surveillance takes pla=
ce
only when a camera is present and taping something. Surveillance and contr=
ol
entirely rely on images and the visual -- at least that's apparently what =
the
organisers want to tell us. How can you curate an exhibition on the theme =
of
surveillance in the year 2001/02 and not mention Echelon one single time?
Seriously, today the Internet is not something new anymore, not even for t=
he ZKM
(who has ignored it for a long, long time).

Why curate an exhibition in the year 2001/02 when all you want to do is bo=
il up
again that old (1980s) video surveillance aesthetics? It is certainly easi=
er to
find media art works dealing with or exploiting this kind of visual survei=
llance
techniques, because -- they simply rely on visual material. Were the organ=
izers
afraid of having to deal with realities that are too difficult, too abstra=
ct in
order to be thematized in media art works (an argument which does not hold
anyway: just look at Marko Peljhan's makrolab project at
http://makrolab.ljudmila.org)? Or that these realities would be too diffic=
ult to
be presented in an understandable way for a general public? Were they afra=
id of
having to deal with realities that are not concealed by visual surfaces, i=
.e. of
having to deal with the reality of "raw" code? This is what surveillance a=
nd
control in electronic space are targeted at today. It is exactly what Lawr=
ence
Lessig's "Code is Law" (by now almost classic) slogan is about.

Yes, in the exhibition there *are* indeed some pieces using the Internet -=
- but
here again, these pieces use web *cameras*, suggesting that even on the In=
ternet
surveillance only happens where a camera is present. I find this really
problematic - especially if you see that at the ZKM whole school classes b=
eing
sent through the exhibitions. One can imagine that these school children, =
who
won't necessarily read the books on data surveillance that are on display =
in the
reading room of the exhibition (yes, they are, good works by Christiane
Schulzki-Haddouti, for example, a German investigative journalist and spec=
ialist
on data surveillance and Echelon), will come home at night, saying: "Mom, =
look,
[it did not hurt!] - if I surf the Internet nobody can see me, thus there =
is no
surveillance!"

Of course not all surveillance concerns exclusively the "code" below the
surfaces (well, in a way, even the following examples radically differ fro=
m
1980s video surveillance simply because they rely on digital data). Yes, t=
here
are new forms of surveillance using images, just think about the automated=
 face
recognition systems installed in a town in Great Britain, or the iris
recognition systems which are about to replace other (analogue) identifica=
tion
technologies. But most of the works in the exhibition do not even *mention=
* the
new quality of these digital visual surveillance techniques. 

My main argument / criticism is that the "nature" of surveillance in elect=
ronic
space such as the Internet is completely ignored in this exhibition. Elect=
ronic
space not only connects people, but also allows for a much more perfect an=
d
ubiquitous, and less and less noticed control and surveillance -- precisel=
y
because surveillance and control are not relying on visual images anymore,=
 but
on code.

Perhaps one can say that we are not relying on the model of the "panoptico=
n"
anymore (as claimed by ctrl_space), but rather on a model of the "pancodic=
on".
Have to think about that.

For further information tune into

makrolab
http://makrolab.ljudmila.org

world-information.org
http://world-information.org

Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti
http://members.aol.com/InfoWelt

Duncan Campbell's homepage
<http://www.gn.apc.org/duncan/> 


and the following event (which is about to start):



---------------------------------------------------------------



SURVEILLANCE AND CONTROL

Saturday 9 March
1400 - 1830 [ GMT ]

Starr Auditorium, Level 2, Tate Modern, London, UK

Tickets: UK=A310 / =A35.
Ph: 020 7887 8888

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/programmes/webcasting/surveillance.htm

+ + +

ABOUT THE EVENT

Surveillance and Control is a half day conference which will consider
widespread uses of electronic surveillance.  It aims to analyse how recent
social and political developments have impacted on discourses around
surveillance, and to address how various surveillance technologies have
influenced new media art practice.

We are confronted by the troubling and expanding presence of
surveillance in our daily life. Monitoring devices are used ever more to
observe physical space, while electronic space has been proven to be
likewise vulnerable to scrutiny, due to the operation of global data
interception systems.  The increasing ubiquity of surveillance has
radically transformed the relation between public and private spheres, as
well as the very nature of political and technological control.

Surveillance has been a rich source of interest for artists for many
years, and in recent times monitoring and tracking technologies have
formed a major part of the arsenal of the contemporary artist.
Exhibitions such as CTRL[SPACE] at the ZKM in Germany, reveal a growing
interest in artistic surveillance tactics, drawing attention to new
interpretations of the 18th Century concept of the panopticon as an ideal
mechanism of observation and control.

Our concept of a continually observed society has moved on since Michel
Foucault seized on the panopticon as a metaphor for the oppressive use of
information in modern society.  Though Foucault's observation that control
no longer requires physical domination over the body, but can be enacted
through the constant possibility of observation, still holds true, the
methods used to monitor individuals in space have changed considerably. 
Surveillance and Control will not only refer to the uses of conventional
monitoring and tracking technologies, but also the operation of
'dataveillance' - the largely invisible practice of tracking and
intercepting electronic data.

The events of September 11 and their continuous re-enactment as media
spectacle, have created a new psychological environment in which these
issues can be considered. Since this time, new surveillance and
communication interception powers for law enforcement agencies and
intelligence authorities have been proposed and enacted in many countries.
The war on terror has lead to what Goebbles once described as, the
`optimum anxiety level' which is needed to mobilise a larger audience for
a certain common cause - in this case the rehabilitation of the
authoritarian state and the expansion of the military and policing. In
this context, it becomes more problematic to speak about privacy and
threats to freedom of information.  Surveillance and Control will ask if
there is a possibility to counter this meticulously maintained public
anxiety, and re-engage dialogue about the limits of freedom versus the
limits of systems of surveillance and control.

This half day conference features artists Marko Peljhan (Slovenia), Kate
Rich (Australia / UK) and Julia Scher (USA), investigative journalist,
Duncan Campbell (UK), media theorist, Eric Kluitenberg (Netherlands), and
Konrad Becker from Public Netbase (Austria).  The event will also feature
an info-booth by World-Information.org.

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/programmes/webcasting/surveillance.htm


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