[spectre] Sousveillance. The Art of Inverse Surveillance

[Tatiana Bazzichelli]

Sousveillance
The Art of Inverse Surveillance
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Conference, public interventions and concert
February 8th - 9th, 2009, Aarhus University
http://www.digitalurbanliving.dk/sousveillance/
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The event is presented by: Digital Urban Living & Digital Aesthetics 
Research Center.
Curated by: Tatiana Bazzichelli and Lars Bo Løfgreen
Supported by Videnssamfundet and the Italian Culture Institute of 
Copenhagen.
In partnership with Skive Art Museum, ARoS and Studenterhus

// Concept //
With the growing spread of pervasive digital technologies the public 
urban space has become open for new forms of both observation and 
surveillance.

Moving away from cameras and directional microphones, face- and voice 
recognition, the pervasive technologies offer not only the ability to 
gather and organise huge amounts of dissimilar data, but as well on 
grounds of these to predict probable patterns of behaviour. Commercial 
mobile variants of Google Maps, YouTube or Facebook are by far the only 
ones to make use of these possibilities. Urban games, locative art, 
flashmob art, pervasive games etc. all represent new forms of 
observational and aesthetic experiments with how we through technology 
perceive and make use of the urban space itself.

Sousveillance, original French, as well as inverse surveillance are 
terms coined by Steve Mann (Toronto, Canada) to describe the recording 
of an activity from the perspective of a participant. "Surveillance" 
denotes the act of watching from above, whereas "sousveillance" denotes 
bringing the practice of observation down to human level (ordinary 
people doing the watching, rather than higher authorities or 
architectures doing the watching).

The conference will be held in conjunction with two digital art 
exhibitions in the city of Århus (one at ARoS and another at Skive Art 
Museum) and aims to create a platform for sharing and discussing the 
topic of surveillance, privacy and control of information, analyzing 
different creative, artistic and political strategies to produce fluid 
zones of interventions, both in the urban space and on the net. Main 
focus is on networking practices and urban actions that contribute to 
criticize the concept of surveillance, propriety of data and 
information, showing new activists and visionary strategies to move 
society toward more inclusive modes of production and sharing knowledge.

// Program //

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 8
OUTDOORS

11:00-17:00:
INTERVENTIONS BY:

   * Dmytri Kleiner (CA/DE)
   * Mare Tralla (UK/EE)
   * Leipziger Kamera (DE) + Space Hijackers (UK)

Meeting point:
Auditiorium 3, Building 1252, Aarhus University

The interventions run simultaneously from 11.30 to 17.00.

MONDAY FEBRUARY 9
CONFERENCE
At Auditorium 3, Aarhus University

09.00-09.15:
INTRODUCTION
Tatiana Bazzichelli and Lars Bo Løfgreen (Aarhus University)

09.15-10.45:
1:ST PANEL   David Rokeby (CA) and Jakob Jakobsen (DK)
Moderator: Christian Ulrik Andersen (Aarhus University)

10.45-11.00:
BREAK

11.00-12.30:
2:ND PANEL   Shining (IT), Dmytri Kleiner (Canada/DE)
Moderator: Tatiana Bazzichelli (Aarhus University)

12.30-13.00:
PUBLIC DISCUSSION

13.00-14.00:
LUNCH

14.15-15.45:
3:RD PANEL
Mare Tralla (EE/UK) and Leipziger Kamera (DE)/ Space Hijackers (UK)
Moderator: Lars Bo Løfgreen (Aarhus University)

15.45-16.00:
BREAK


16.00-17.30:
4:TH PANEL
Alexei Shulgin (RU) and Manu Luksch (UK)
Moderator: Søren Pold (Aarhus University)

17.30-18.00:
PUBLIC DISCUSSION

18.30-20.00:
DINNER

MONDAY FEBRUARY 9
EVENING PERFORMANCES

20.15-20.30:
INTRODUCTION
by Tatiana Bazzichelli, Lars Bo Løfgreen

20.30-21.30:
KONRAD BECKER (AT)

22.00-23.00:
GOODIEPAL (DK)

More info:
http://www.digitalurbanliving.dk/sousveillance/