Class artifacts
Reading
(Reading responses due Monday 8pm, as usual.)
• Finn Brunton and Helen Nissenbaum, Obfuscation: A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest, 2015. Please read the 4 intro pages, as well as chapter 1. I have also include chapter 2, the epilogue, and the notes. All of the examples in chapter 2 are also fascinating to consider. At minimum please make sure to have a look at example 2.11 (“Personal disinformation: strategies for individual disappearance”) on page 35. (Update: this text is included in the Google Drive folder under Class resources > All texts. Here’s a direct link.)
• (Optional.) DJ Pangburn, “How to Disappear in a Fog of Data (and Why),” Vice.com, 2016. This Vice piece is in conversation with Brunton about the book. It adds some interesting perspective, but let’s focus on reading the book together.
• (Optional.) “Techniques of the Observer: Laura Poitras and Hito Steyerl in Conversation,” Artforum, 2015. This (long) interview adds some context fo the Steyerl video below. Perhaps have a look if you’d like to learn more about the filmmaker and her various philosophies.
• (Optional.) Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, 2006. This is a collection of poetic and often poignant essays. We already have plenty to read this week, so I’ll just leave this here as something you may want to pick up later if you’re enjoying these themes. I’ll include a short excerpt later in the semester. Summer feels like it’s still a world away, but this could be a great summer read!
Watch
Screenings
We’ll watch these together in class, but feel free to watch them on your own before.
• Hito Steyerl, “How Not to be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File,” 2013 (15:45)
• “Donald Crowhurst Aboard the Teignmouth Electron,” footage originally c1970. From a YouTube video uploaded by user Ann Murdoch, 2019. Note this is a 16min video that cuts off and repeats a second time for some reason. Original description from the YouTube post:
Silent film shot by Donald Crowhurst aboard the Teingmouth Electron during his ill fated voyage as part of the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, a single-handed, round-the-world yacht race in 1968-69. The narration is a dramatic reading of his logbook. The Teignmouth Electron was found abandoned and logs, shown in this film, indicate that Crowhurst had violated the rules of the race by stopping to make repairs to his boat, and then began sending in false position reports. Crowhurst’s writing becomes increasingly detached from reality, suggesting that he suffered a psychological crisis which may have led him to commit suicide by jumping overboard. My grandfather, Stanley Best, was Crowhurst’s main sponsor.
Projects
- TrackMeNot.io, A project of Vincent Toubiana, Daniel C. Howe, and Helen Nissenbaum. The project FAQ
- AdNauseam, A project of Daniel C. Howe, Mushon Zer-Aviv, and Helen Nisseunbaum.
- CV Dazzle, computer vision camouflage
- Invisibility Cloak, Tom Goldstein
Cases of disappearance
I’m fascinated by all these cases of disappearance and they offer compelling complements to the theme of the week. For anyone interested in tactics for hiding from surveillance, we might imagine each of these examples as offering cases where off-gridding “succeeded”, even if tragically or unintentionally. Each of these articles includes examples of various grids that people unwillingly fell off (communication networks, roads, GPS devices, maps) and various grid-like techniques for their recoveries (rectilinear search patterns, mobile device tracking from cell towers, satellite vision techniques). I know you won’t have time to read all of these, but they are all remarkable cases. Perhaps select one or two and try to find some of the examples of grids and their failures.
- Jordon Golson, “How It’s Possible to Lose an Airplane in 2014,” Wired.com, 2014
- Paul Tough, “A Speck in the Sea,” New York Times, 2014
- Steve Silberman, “Inside the High Tech Hunt for a Missing Silicon Valley Legend,” Wired.com, 2007
- Rupert Yaylor, “The Mysterious Voyage of Donald Crowhurst,” 2020
Class artifacts
Links to come