Tag Archives: Control

Seeing things in a different light…

It’s been a while, and Jeremy is not back yet. Panopticam has probably gone for good…

However, just when I was about to start packing to return to Brazil, I received a nice message from someone who visited the blog recently, but also the news (via the Urban Lab) about a new computer game by the Bentham Project, called Panopticon Pandemonium. So, I thought it was worthy a post!

The game recreates Bentham’s prison model, the panopticon, and invites players to try the role of the prison’s governor or guard’s supervisor in keeping prisoners contained and behaving nicely, as well as maintaining the prison in order and financially healthy. Players are said to be guided by Jeremy “himself” who will give advices based on his very writings and thoughts. Here is what they say about the game:

“Based in large part on Bentham’s published works, and unpublished manuscripts being explored by volunteers for UCL’s award-winning Transcribe Bentham initiative, Panopticon Pandemonium will provide players with fresh insights into one of the most controversial aspects of Bentham’s thought”

And I will finish this brief (and probably last) post on this experimental project with the kind message I received from Chris, a mysterious visitor. In the end, I have similar feelings when I look back and think about what was supposed to be only a one-day joke. So, thanks to Chris, all other visitors who sent and didn’t send messages, and also thanks to Jeremy and the Urban Lab!

“Thanks for helping me to see things in a different light” (Chris)

Perhaps Panopticon Pandemonium’s players will also see things differently when they look into “Jeremy’s eyes” seeking advice to control their prisoners…

Panopticon Pandemonium

Panopticon Pandemonium

Facebook doesn’t like privacy!

[Primeiramente #ForaTemer; First of all #TemerOut]

Unfortunately, the Panopticam stopped broadcasting the exact hour I was showing this message. So, the very last image broadcasted from their Twitter and YouTube accounts was the one just before me. The text below was ready since the day before and I was waiting until Jeremy was back online to release it, but after realising they are not going to resuscitate the project before I finish my sabbatical leave, I decided to post it anyway. So, this message was originally planned and delivered on February 24th 2016, and is being released on June 23rd 2016, with no images from the Panopticam…

Day 76: Facebook doesn't like privacy

Day 76: Facebook doesn’t like privacy

Inspiration for this message/quote came from the Channel 4 series called Data Baby, with lots of very interesting reports on issues involving privacy, Internet of Things, social media, surveillance, and obviously big data.

In one of the articles, “Ten reasons we should quit Facebook of good”, I found this quote saying Facebook doesn’t like privacy, despite its long and visible privacy policy. The problem, according to this text, the change the policy too much, sometimes unannounced, all according to their own interests and to adjust new features and avoid being sued later – and, of course, having the right to sell users’ data, which is what really matters to them.

Data is today’s goldmine and privacy settings are always calibrated to the amount of “freedom” companies have to monetise personal data. They will say they’re never interested in content and the actual personal data, and this is true, but they can do a lot more to what is known as metadata (data about data). Ask the NSA and GCHQ what kind of data they collect and the answer is exactly the same (have a look at this: “Phew, NSA Is Just Collecting Metadata”). US  Senator Dianne Feinstein (chair of the Senate intelligence committee) has this to say about NSA bulk metadata collection programmes:

“The call-records program is not surveillance. It does not collect the content of any communication, nor do the records include names or locations. The NSA only collects the type of information found on a telephone bill: phone numbers of calls placed and received, the time of the calls and duration.”

They usually don’t want to read our emails or listen to our phone calls, when all they need to build “profiles” is to know who we’re emailing/phoning or when, where from, and things like that. So, with metadata they have users’ habits, connections, movements, necessities, preferences, consumer records, you name it! Ok, this message isn’t about NSA or GCHQ, but Facebook. So, just imagine what Facebook can do with everything its users post/like/share/comment on their profiles?!

A final update to this message (June 23rd 2016) comes from the funny picture posted by Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, recently, where it’s possible to spot his own laptop on the background with tape covering its webcam and microphone. If there’s anyone who knows what’s possible to collect from someone else’s computers, I guess this is him…

Zuck's covered camera and mic

Zuck’s covered camera and mic

Do you want to talk to NSA and GCHQ?

Do you know that the British and US embassies in Berlin have active spy stations capable of listening to all communication in the area known as government district? Their spying structures are physically hidden in the buildings of the embassies and are comprised of antenas  and other devices capable of capturing communication signals, even from live mobile phone conversations.

Artists Mathias Jud and Christoph Wachter were invited by the Swiss embassy, just next door to US and UK buildings, to perform a work of art that would question the obscure powers of NSA and GCHQ in a very ironic way. Their answer to the invitation was a project called “can you hear me?” with anonymous open connection to wifi network through antenas installed on the roof of the Swiss embassy, and the possibility for anyone to talk back to NSA and GCHQ. In Jud’s own words: “Well, if they’re listening … let’s talk to them.”

Mathias Jud did an interesting TED talk about this and other installations, and said that for the “can you hear me?” project, they received more than 15,000 messages, including:

“@NSA My neighbours are noisy. Please send a drone strike.”

Day 73: Do you want to talk to NSA and GCHQ?

Day 73: Do you want to talk to NSA and GCHQ?

I connect, therefore I am!

This is how André Lemos and I attempt to discuss, on a recently published paper, what we call informational territorialization, when the power to connect can determine position and ownership in space. The title of the paper is “I connect, therefore I am: places, locales, locations and informational territorialization” and, in our own words:

“We seek to build an understanding of how to think through the different forms of spatiality (territorialization, placemaking, locales, locations, etc.), and the recent developments in the human experience with information and communication technologies, especially those most directly related to, or dependent on, geolocational and control functions.”

What we try to do in this article is to, first, clarify the conceptual boundaries between location, locale, and place, and then reflect on how these geographical dimensions behave in the face of communication, information and the various possibilities of territorialization.

Day 71: I connect, therefore I am!

Day 71: I connect, therefore I am!

Territory is a “political technology”!

Inspiration of today’s message came from the excellent article by Stuart Elden on territorialities titled “Land, Terrain, Territory”. Elden examines the concept of territory beyond the traditional biological and social uses of the term. Territory is approached from the point of view of a sociotechnical construction for the demarcation of land and terrain. Ellen’s work is way too complex to be explained in a few sentences and a couple of paragraphs, so I leave this with his own words and recommend the reading of his very interesting paper…

“Territory can be understood as a political technology: it comprises techniques for measuring land and controlling terrain. Measure and control – the technical and the legal – need to be thought alongside land and terrain. Understanding territory as a political technology is not to define territory once and for all; rather it is to indicate the issues at stake in grasping how it was understood in different historical and geographical contexts.”

Day 70: Territory is a "political technology"!

Day 70: Territory is a “political technology”!

Do you know any stupid ‘smart city’?… I do!

Of course I won’t name any dumb city. In general I think cities are already smart, in a way. In the end, cities are what they are because these are the places where we concentrate efforts, resources (well, not always!), flows, people, etc., to try and make the best of our time (ok, definitely not always!). Anyway, cities were created as agglomerations to help humans optimize the time to travel from point A to point B. And there is all the good things we get from unexpected encounters and from the mixture of differences.

This is changing quickly and the neoliberal city of the 21st century doesn’t like wasting of any kind. Smarter cities, as they’ve been called these days, are efficient systems where connections work to keep things working with no interruptions, no waste of time, no waste of resources, no clashes, no disputes, no questions… it’s supposed to be all about organisation, efficiency, effectiveness, precision and productivity. Smarter in this sense is also related to homogeneity and avoiding differences by steriotyping patterns and standards of behaviour, people, places and activities. I even wonder if soon we’ll cease being citizens and start being urban customers.

Not long ago, the star-architect Rem Koolhaas said that “by calling it smart, our city is condemned to being stupid”. So predictable, so boring, so stupid!… Got it?

Thus, what is the limit of smartness for cities? When do things stop doing things for us and let us be more spontaneous, different, alternative and unconstrained?

Day 69: Do you know any stupid 'smart city'?... I do!

Day 69: Do you know any stupid ‘smart city’?… I do!

I’d rather dérive than be a smart idiot!

Who isn’t tired of this “smart everything” discourse?

I am, and I am also tired of things deciding what’s best for me. I am tired of algorithms trying to guess what I am thinking, suggesting me what it thinks it’s the best route, are the best shops (or even know about our bodies before we do, like I posted yesterday), etc. And I’ve just read the news that Twitter will use algorithms to order users’ timelines, instead of time itself…

So, today’s message is a tribute to the theory of dérive by Guy Debord and his situationist friends. I would rather get lost in the city than having “best routes” calculated all the time by things that think they know me better than I do!

Day 68: I'd rather drive than be a smart idiot!

Day 68: I’d rather drive than be a smart idiot!

Fear and paranoia define our notion of “the others”!

The Brazilian geographer, Marcelo Lopes de Souza coined the word “phobopolis” (“fobópole” in Portuguese), to discuss the idea of generalised and banalised fear as well as the militarisation of the urban question. This is in line with other works about fear, paranoia and militarised spaces such as Zygmunt Bauman’s “Liquid Fear”, Stephen Graham’s “Cities under Siege: the new military urbanism”, or Lieven De Cauter’s “The Capsular Civilization: on the city in the age of fear”, among many others. Marcelo explains:

“Phobopolis (Port. fobópole) is a new word; it means city of fear. I introduced the concept in order to emphasise the degree of intensity in terms of violence and fear prevailing in some cities today.”

The disturbing perception of fear and the atmosphere of paranoia in contemporary cities are also captured and discussed in many films and novels. Sometimes very explicitly, others as a background for different stories, these issues are the focus in the feature film Neighbouring Sounds, directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho (Brazil, 2012). I will be the curator for one of the UCL Urban Lab film sessions on March 8th, when the film will be screened and followed by discussions with the audience and special guests.

The context used by Mendonça Filho gave me the idea for today’s message to Jeremy Bentham. The winds of global capitalism and recent economic prosperity brought about some complex clashes between modernity and a colonial culture of masters and servants in countries like Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and many other fast-growing emergent nations. Placemaking in these countries is a process marked by constant tensions in the simmering relations between the parties in an ever more complex social stratification. Upper and middle classes, working and low-income classes, dispute power and protagonism in the making of urban spaces and territories. Fear and paranoia contaminate the perception of “the others” and help defining commonalities and separations…

Day 64: Fear and paranoia define our notion of "the others"!

Day 64: Fear and paranoia define our notion of “the others”!

How do you control “your boundaries”?

Last week, I had a very nice and informative walk around the City of London to “see” the boundaries and spatial control strategies for the ring of steel. I thank Henrietta Williams for kindly accompanying me and for explaining everything she knows about this famous urban territory, created in the 1990s to secure the financial core of London against, at that time, bomb attacks by the IRA.

Sentry box on the ring of steel

Sentry box on the ring of steel

Jon Coaffee has written many important papers describing the different material and immaterial (technological, political) strategies put in place at the Square Mile (one of the names by which the City is also known) since the 1990s to maintain the ring of steel in place, motivated by ever changing domestic and foreign threats to the security of the powerful businesses situated in this area.

Another interesting work I came across was one by Camilo Amaral on the (re)production of urban enclosures in London – “Urban Enclosure: Contemporary Strategies of Dispossession and Reification in London’s Spatial Production” (2015, unpublished) –, where he analyses various strategies for dispossession and land control in recent urban developments in the English capital. The idea of “tangled control” is particularly useful to understand the material and immaterial forms through which private corporations manage and take control of privatised public areas. It also helps us debate the limits between public and private spaces in the contemporary city. According to Camilo,

“The institution of multiple specific rules, with each place imposing a different set of use norms (such as prohibition of bikes, drinking, or the necessity of leaving a licence on a parking vehicle) transforms the city into an intertwined set of tangled orbits of hierarchy and control.”

I have been revisiting these and other works about securitising urban spaces because of my recent interest in territorial/boundaries control. This has been at the core of my recent work and I am trying to see if there’s any ground for comparison between what is happening in the UK and Brazil with regards to privatised public spaces and the territorial changes triggered by this swap in landownership. So, more to come in this theme soon…

Day 62: How do you control "your boundaries"?

Day 62: How do you control “your boundaries”?

UK Terrorism Act is incompatible with human rights!

“Terrorism” as a concept is a true black box and its definitions is freely and openly determined according to the convenience of certain state and corporate interests. It has become an excuse in current legal systems around the world – and, consequently, for police and border control forces – to skip citizen and human rights in investigations and check points, allegedly for the sake of “national security” – another obscure term.

In recent years, after the phenomenon of Wikileaks and, more recently, the Snowden revelations, we have witnessed the increase in the attempts to use terrorism-based law and regulations against journalists and whistleblowers. In one of the most notorious cases, David Miranda was detained for 9 hours at Heathrow airport during a trip from Germany to Brazil, after a meeting with filmmaker Laura Poitras. David Miranda has knowingly been helping her and journalist Glenn Greenwald in publishing the documents carefully released by Edward Snowden.

British officers used what is officially known as stop powers in schedule 7 of the UK Terrorism Act 2000. Apparently 85,000 travellers a year are “randomly” stopped at British ports and airports under this legal justification. And guess what are the allegations used by officers to invoque schedule 7? A suspicion of a person’s involvement in “terrorism”. Miranda appealed against his detention and yesterday the Court of Appeal’s ruling established that, although his detention was considered lawful, the powers contained in schedule 7 are flawed and that the Terrorism Act is incompatible with European convention on human rights. This is being seen by many, including Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden, as an important win for press freedom.

According to the ruling, the government and the parliament will have to re-examine the act and the (considered) broad definition of terrorism.

Day 61: UK Terrorism Act is incompatible with human rights!

Day 61: UK Terrorism Act is incompatible with human rights!

“Every grade of society has its appropriate and peculiar spies” (Charles Dickens)

Another day (without timelapse feed), another citation to Lapham’s Quarterly issue on “Spies”, and a funny section called “conversations” with extracts by Charles Dickens and Edward Snowden.

Day 56: "Every grade of society has its appropriate and peculiar spies" (Charles Dickens)

Day 56: “Every grade of society has its appropriate and peculiar spies” (Charles Dickens)