Reflections

Edited as per request and hope of peace


re: Not a Nice Girl (published on FB and The NOSE)

Not a Nice Girl

by Daniel Adaszynski on Friday, April 8, 2011 at 7:51pm

So a lot of people are getting A Fat Chubby over 'not a nice girl,' and for those who are interested, it's a good opportunity to look at a form of hierarchal, self-righteous indignation play out with each of us in this community.

Not a Nice Girl has sparked an opportunity for the ptbo community to hold dialog over a problem I increasingly hear grumbles over. Namely that an incestuous activist milieu is barring out other people who want to get involved. It wouldn't be a problem if the complainers could self-start their own initiatives - but many community resources are de facto controlled by the current milieu - and they are actively cutting others off from forming their own initiatives.

I don't want to fault the in-groups or the out-groups - we've all had a good thing going before that some new shmuck might ruin. But right now it's preventing the activist community from growing in ptbo, and new resources need to be formed or old ones need to be made more open if this bickering - which has taken the shape of a moral superiority game over some gay poem (pun intended) - is to come to a very substantial resolution.

We know this is a problem in ptbo. I've heard it echoed so many damn times - from when I was fairly new here and still being sized-up by the cliques - to now that I'm leaving my friendly groups and witnessing various rolls over Arthur elections, project initiatives, cafe territory etc.

I can speak fairly safely about it because I'm leaving all of you now and the repercussions won't reverberate to where I'm going - it's a privileged position to speak your mind and not have to face any consequences. So maybe I can say what you may want to say. (Though I won't pretend like I'm speaking for you.) I have always seen all of you as friends - even if we didn't work together or wouldn't work together - the people here have been tenacious in whatever they're working away at and I am grateful for the energy you contribute to the community.

From the "in-groups" to the "out-groups:"

We are aware of the in-groups in ptbo. They host events at Artspace, work at The Cannery, put on fabulous shows, run the Arthur, meet regularly, and in general do substantiative stuff. You are aware if you are in this milieu or not - it is a rather unavoidable fact of ptbo today that it exists - an elephant in the room that everyone and no one is talking about. My message to those not in these groups is to understand that the people who are IN certainly work hard on the things they are doing - that, like any of us, they are wary of people who come in all full of enthusiasm but then leave before contributing anything back. Or, some new blood will come in and cause a ruckus that jams the group from their work, splitting loyalties and causing rifts. The INs of ptbo have a fairly stable set-up, they can work with each other without much debate and have a clear intention. Others may not like it or see things wrong with it - but at least it provides a framework for getting things done.

From the "out-groups" to the "in-groups:"

We are feeling increasingly alienated from you, on what we feel are baseless grounds. Many of us have made substantial contributions to this town that no one can really cast into doubt. Fighting to keep bus services, fighting General Electric, pitching in at FNB, donating to legal causes and so forth. We have proven ourselves to ourselves. But when we try to approach you; as friends, as allies, as business partners, for a cigarette, we are rebutted and made 'other.' This wouldn't frusturate us so much, if it weren't for the fact that you control so many venues and services in our community - which are very deliberately 'protected' from our participation. We are socially shut out from discussions, silenced in media we pay for, ridiculed and caricatured to the point that retaliatory in-groups are forming with similar alienating dynamics of their own. You have gained control of our own little means of production and hoard it - a microcosm of the world around us that we are fighting together.

From 'me' to 'you.'

Like I said, I am not going to fault anyone for being human - I just want to see this addressed and resolved. I do not think the in-groups of ptbo are doing what they do with malicious intent, or that the Outs aren't justifiably kept at a distance in some cases or blameless for the situation at hand. I think, in the heart of this, this is a problem we're all walking around with, the rhythm of it beating in our chests. We have identity problems and we have self-esteem problems, we have wounds in our hearts.

Many of us are still carrying a feeling of rejection. And many of us fear further rejection. And we pre-emptively reject others to ensure we are not rejected by them. We are self-censoring because we fear our friends will turn us out - that the core of who we are is something unlovable and unwanted. It's worth saying that most of us are in our late teens or early twenties - a time when culturally we separate from our parents and form self-standing identities - some of our infighting is rooted in the fact that not all of us have found our own two feet yet, and depend heavily on the opinions of others for our own self-worth.

Yeah, you've heard it before: we can fear what we don't know, and if you don't yet know yourself, you may be afraid of yourself. But this continued subjugation of our souls to the imagined (and sometimes real) wrath of our friends and allies is not helping the situation because it prevents us from discovering that soul through action. We've got to act honestly, and find people who allow us to act honestly, or at least fault each other less. Otherwise we are in a bind: with no self-perpetuating sense of worth that is sovereign and our own - we are going to look for ways to feel better: Put down others, alienate them from our groups, the internalized feelings of worthlessness that were beaten into us as students and workers.

We are going to put the blame on others (somewhat rightfully) but also continue to export the responsibility of change to them, say its their fault, and make ourselves powerless to remedy the situation the way a tired lefty will blame inertia on Public Apathy. The majority of us are white and privileged - if only by education. We do not face the same domination as others, we may look down for a leg to stand on - and see it is our own heel pushing us into the ground. It is internalized oppression and it is ravaging our relationships, preventing us from extending a hand to others - for fear that it'll be slapped away. We are preventing ourselves from gathering the numbers to mount effective campaigns - such that the state rarely needs to get involved. Remember the Summer of the G20 summit; how strong we were as a collective, mobilized force, for that brief period when something big dwarfed anything petty between us.

I love you Peterborough. I found my feet here, and I have everyone from every walk of life to thank for that. I don't care where you stand right now because you helped me be me.

All I want.

Is to return the favour.

words and love,

daniel

Deleted thread part 5

gone, pending some conversation and return to the table and demonstrated commitment to accountability without excuses of no staff over the summer and delayed meetings for the fall

Have taken things down as per requests

Arthur in Crisis; collapse of the anti-oppressive industry?

Hi, Sorry to bother you with this, I am sending this to you and I've sent it to others today: (please comment on this blog or submit to zruiter@gmail.com)

I'm not alone, there are problems and from the outset these problems seem entrenched.


Zach


Staff collective writer for Arthur

current article co-written with Daniel Adaszynski:
Trent Students Challenge Darlington Nuclear

http://www.trentarthur.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2504:trent-students-challenge-darlington-nuclear&catid=16&Itemid=38

previous articles (you'll notice that these articles submitted in the second term are more than the cumulative articles published by the editors-elect)

1. Prisoners of the nuclear grid

http://www.trentarthur.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2456%3Aprisoners-of-the-nuclear-grid&catid=16&Itemid=38


2. Israeli Apartheid Week comes to Trent

http://www.trentarthur.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2435%3Aisraeli-apartheid-week-comes-to-trent-&catid=33%3Acampus&Itemid=100010


3. The True Cost of Nuclear in Ontario

http://www.trentarthur.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2406%3Athe-true-cost-of-nuclear-in-ontario&catid=14&Itemid=33


4. How residents delivered a major upset to GE-Hitachi Canada's nuclear operations

http://www.trentarthur.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2246%3Ahow-residents-delivered-a-major-upset-to-ge-hitachi-canadas-nuclear-operations&catid=14&Itemid=33


5. This is (not) what democracy looks like

http://www.trentarthur.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2329%3Athis-is-not-what-democracy-looks-like&catid=33%3Acampus&Itemid=100010

Voice for Peace

Jews, Queers, and Feminists’ Find Voice for Peace, Arts and Activism

A workshop rough outline adapted from my previous writing and speaking,

Submitted by Zach Ruiter

Contact: zruiter@gmail.com

Informed by feminist art practices, Sigalit Landau problematizes the inheritance of Zionism’s violent history and the deeply masculine ethos of Israeli art. Examining Landau’s articulation of tropes in Israeli art and society elucidates the achievement of the artist’s work, inhabiting both trauma and possibility by re-imagining conflict from opposition to experience.

Not Picasso’s but rather “Israel’s Guernica”, Landau’s 2001 installation of ‘The Country’ in the basement of the Alon Sagev Gallery in Tel Aviv, returned to the traumas sustained in the seared flesh and shell-shocked experience of everyday life during the most recent Intifada. Stripped to their basic anatomy, skinless and sinewy figures sculpted with an expression of sustained agony methodically toil away on what appears to be a typical Israeli rooftop while enjoying a 360 degree wallpapered photographic skyline. It has been observed “what at first suggested a kind of ‘bitter harvest’ in which people stripped of their skin continue nevertheless to labor at the endless drudgery, now suggests the possibility of another activity altogether. The bomb factory is familiar in this part of the world, and the ‘work accident’ a common occurrence. (Leider, p.63)”. From the fruit pours a bloody juice set out into cups for consumption. Landau has challenged the image of fruit as a false metaphor. Beyond the binary of a literal and metaphorical meanings, if fruits nourish the flesh, as bombs they sear opposing flesh. Conflating the nourishment of the self with the necessary destruction of the other, the metaphor of a ‘bitter harvest’ in fruit becomes a barbarian binary.

The nude figures are squeezing orange papier-mâché fruits constructed with Intifada editions of the Israeli newspaper Ha’Aretz. The relationship between the Intifada Ha’Aretz editions and ‘The Country’ is not coincidental but significant to the artist’s project, strongly articulating the bodily/physical reality of ideologies in the forms of the work. The newspapers are not fictional fruits but rather the artist challenges the fictive disconnection of the content and expression of violence in the newspapers. According to Deleuze and Guattari, the distinction between content and expression is constituted by the arbitrary conformity to established notions. Discussing content and expression, the authors quote Hjelmslev, “Their functional definition provides no justification for calling one, and not the other, of these entities expression, or one and not the other, content. […] They are defined only oppositively and relatively, as mutually opposed functives of one and the same function (Deleuze and Guattari, p 45)”. Violence flows through multichannelled layers of perception and experience arriving in ‘The Country’, a rare space of reflection in the midst of violence past, present, and future. The problematic gestures of ‘The Country’ do not support violence as opposition between ‘us’ and ‘them’ but rather the experience of when perceptions meet each other in the flesh.

Reading about Middle East events from the safe distance of our Canadian newspapers, our connection to this violence is reduced from bodies to the letters on newssheet. From a great distance, what we do with this in-formation can participate meaningfully in the formation of alternatives to particular violence. Our official responsibility does not extend beyond disposing the newspapers in the appropriate recycling container but it is a different story for those who have stronger connections and or wish to stand in solidarity with the communities enduring violence.

As a half-Jewish and queer Torontonian who is also the grandchild of Holocaust survivors I am often challenged to find a voice that condemns violence without sympathizing with one side and condoning their violence against the other. In an opinion piece for the Globe and Mail, Irshad Manji, describes a similar predicament but in far better terms, "...as the world watches another Mideast crisis unfold, and otherwise liberal Muslims fall into the tribal trap of sanitizing Islamic extremism while condemning Israeli actions (Manji)”

(Judy Rebick and several Jewish Women successfully occupied the Israeli Consulate in Toronto, before they were peacefully escorted out by the police)

To remain silent would be complicit with the same violence which denies divergent points-of-view and the places necessary to both perceive and speak. It was not until a group of eight Jewish women lead by feminist, activist, and professor Judy Rebick successfully ‘occupied’ the Israeli consulate in Toronto that I realized alternative subject positions are readily and visibly available. The women who spoke for many Jews protested the massacre of Palestinian people in their name. Much like Sigalit Landau’s work these woman created a space to be both Jewish and not onside with the violence committed by Israel. As a model, this protest was effective through making visible and viable alternatives to violence not predicated on reducing people into groups but expanding the space for coexistence of bodies and perceptions.

Feminist theory has concerned itself with the structures enacted and reproduced and behaved which serve to delimit women and those with difference from agency. Judith Butler writes “Indeed, the feminist impulse…has often emerged in the recognition that my pain or my silence or my anger or my perception is finally not mine alone, and that it delimits me in a shared cultural situation which in turn enables and empowers me in certain unanticipated ways (Butler, p 522 italics mine)”. As a female Israeli artist Landau has inherited both the violence of Israeli history and the visual language of Israeli art history, a vision almost exclusively male. Rather than assuming or rejecting the tropes within the specter of Israeli art, Landau’s art re-spects by inhabiting this inheritance and transforming the tropes. And the reclaiming of these tropes from both Landau’s personal experience and experience of being a womanhood is done with all due respect.

Fruit has been a recurring trope with multiple meanings in Israel art, most commonly as symbol of the flesh, reference to the Edenic myth, or claim to both feminine and agricultural fertility. Artist Reuvin Rubin’s symbolist tetraptych, ‘First Fruits’ painted in 1923 presents a primitivist scene of the muscled and dark skinned “New Jew” or “Sabra”. Idealizing the appearance of the local Arab farmers, the representation of the Sabra strongly connected to his physical environment was designed to overcome the image of the frail spiritual Jew of European ghettos. The word Sabra comes from the prickly pear, a red and green fruit with a tough and masculine exterior concealing soft feminine sustenance on the inside.

Standing with a large melon on one shoulder and holding bananas with his other arm, the Sabra’s pants are painted in hues also used in the background hills to naturalize his presence in the physical environment and legitimize his heterosexual procreativity. With a subservient expression and kneeling position the woman’s gaze falls directly to a fruit in her hand in front of the man’s pelvis. The intentionality of the artist behind the woman’s ambivalent expression claim’s the woman’s role as subservient. In a misogynist gesture of both ownership and display, only half of her dress is undone and only half of each breast is bare just so her nipples are in full sight. Her legs are spread open and cradle a basket of more fruit below her pelvis. The land, woman, and fruit all act as objects, each object a prelude to the next in a cycle of male production. The woman is depicted not only as receptive but also receptacle.

Tali Tamir in the essay “12 Observations about Israeli Art” argues “Despite the heroic Zionist tale of equality between men and women, the real plot of Zionism is told by men, the male body leading and characterizing it (Tamir p.134).” At the signing of Israel into statehood there was not a woman present at the table. Denuding the traditional representations of the Israeli woman either equal or the generic Eve who must strive to regain innocence and serve her Adam, Landau’s female and male figures work along side each other but are not equal. Both male and female figures are the inheritors of Zionist gender roles and masculinist culture. Landau’s bloody fruits are an intervention of a masculine trope, rather than man’s spoils, the fruits are spoiled by the violence. Violence Israeli men have perpetrated against others, their women, and ultimately themselves.

Roofs and landscapes were among the first motifs utilized by Israeli artists to both imagine and construct national identity. Bazalel school founder Boris Shatz and collegue Zeev Raban repeatedly took the landscape and scattered roofs of Jerusalem as subject matter to convey a metaphysical and utopian yearning to rebuild the sacred Temple Mound. In their landscape paintings roofs hovered beyond time and imbued transcendental religiosity and legitimacy of place. It is interesting to note that Anna Ticho’s drawings and paintings of the same land and roof vistas depict Jerusalem as organic, withered, and old as the mountains. This is very likely the earliest example of pre-feminist Israeli art, patriarchy as withered and impotent as the dried up structures and mountains.

Israeli art historian Gideon Ofrat delivered a lecture to the Department of Art History at York University in October 2008, titled, ‘No Fiddler’. Ofrat narrated the history of roofs in Jewish art and concluded contemporary Israeli artists reject the sentimentalized image of Jewish art sustained by Chagall’s painting ‘Fiddler on the Roof’. Rather than transcendent, or peaceful, Israeli roofs, such as one presented in ‘The Country’ raises the alarm that there is no fiddler on the roof but rather the frequent sound of war sirens.

During Ofrat’s lecture series on Israeli art sponsored by the Koffler Centre for Jewish art in Toronto it was often remarked and discussed by the audience that art from Israel critical of the Israel government rarely left Israel. On a side note often this critical art immobilized by Jewish art institutions abroad was produced by women and queer artists. One proposed understanding was that those who financially supported Jewish art abroad were those who supported the Israeli government and therefore censored critical art.

There is now claim to these speculations in the recent action of the Koffler Centre. The work of artist Reena Katz was censored. Katz describes her exhibition, ‘each hand as they are called’ as “Through a queer framing of social history, this dialogue draws on the current social and economic space of Kensington Market, the trans-cultural game of Mah-Jongg, and the fusion music of the North American Yiddish song. (Katz)”. When the Koffler uncovered artist’s facebook affiliation with “Israeli Apartheid Week” it withdrew its support and ended their relationship.

(Artist Reena Katz speaks to Palestinian rights supporters)

The participation of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QAIA) in Toronto's pride parade sparked a battle between the community in solidarity of Palestinian Queers and the highest levels of Canadian government and corporations who threatened to rescind millions in funding to the Toronto Pride Parade. This really tested the roots of Pride as not just a celebration of sexual freedom but its activist roots and what it may owe to the next group of oppressed people who need rights extended.

These happenings in Toronto have forged a space for Jews and others to be critical of Israel and violence while not sanitizing anti-Semitic opposition to Israel but rather providing a crucial voice for peace.

We at a crux between a media saturated environment and the corporeal reality for those who do not have a voice in this environment, change comes by connecting horizontally through arts, culture, and activism to those who will lend their bodies and voices to call for peace.

I speculate the exhibition ‘each hand as they are called’ may be relavent to what Whiney Chadwick in the article ‘Women artists and the Politics of Representation’ argues is the role of women in art history as the represented, “…as the objects of art rather than as it producers.(Chadwick p167)”. Chadwick argues along Althusser’s theory of ideology as the collected series of images and representations forming the beliefs a society holds to be natural and verifiable reality. For Chadwick feminist art historical analysis can map the techniques of visual representation naturalizing women’s subjectivity as inferior to men’s.

During periods of escalated violence both the Israeli and Palestinian leadership present contradictory information to support their positions. The addition of Landau’s feminist subjectivity into the language of Israeli visual art interrupts the consumption of essentialized representations that engineer conflicting binaries incapable of acknowledging divergent perspectives. Normative representation renders social difference by means of passive observation shuts the observer outside the frame of social experience, and without the agency to contest it.

Visitors to ‘The Country’ are surrounded by the installation, comparable to attending theatre in the round. Immersing the viewers within the work subverts the tradition in Western art of a framed painting that assumes identifying with the centered, male perspective. The format also establishes a responsible agentive look available to the viewer to scrutinize their own participation and gaze in a culture which according to Cynthia Bodenhorst “…continues to colonize most effectively in the domain of the visual (Bodenhorst p.3)”.

Gill Perry notes that in the 1980’s Craig Owens was prompted to ask “what does it mean to claim that these artists render the invisible visible, especially in a culture which visibility is always on the side of the male, invisibility on the side of the female? (Perry p.322)”. Landau’s video installation titled ‘DeadSee’ a pun on the Dead Sea directly intervenes with visibility as male territory. If according to Owens invisibility is on the side of the female, the spectral as male instrument of vision is not unlike the Dead Sea; it contains so much salt it supports no life and people who swim in it float to the surface easily.

In ‘DeadSea’ Landau arranged a spiral of floating watermelons. Some of the melons are bluntly cracked open, salt water spills into their sweet and sustaining flesh. The cracked watermelons reveal bright red wounds, black pits, and along with their rinds, sharing solidarity and the colours of the Palestinian flag.

The artist floats nude inside of the spiral. As the spiral unwinds it becomes linear like a border. The sense of place in the ‘DeadSee’ is not only lyrical but a dangerous and precarious endeavor. Landau also is filmed standing on a watermelon in the Dead Sea. Balancing on the submerged watermelon casts doubt over the Zionist endeavor, reflecting the processes determining sense of self and sense of place in a state of suspension and relation rather than connection to the land.

Reclaiming the female body and gaze are central to Landau’s practice. In her 2004 piece ‘Barbed Hula’ the artist creates images of her experience both beautiful and painful. Naked and set on the beach against the roofscapes of Tel Aviv, the artist hulas with barbed wire, a religious icon of sacrifice. The rock-n-roll icon hula-hoop subverts the religious narrative and the performance sends a clear message the Landau controls her own body. In contrast another of Landau’s hula pieces places three men tied together while hula-hooping. This questions how not just women suffer from patriarchy but so do the men who are confined by it.

Drawing on the chronology of events in the Edenic myth, Eve grows from Adam’s rib and is responsible for eating the forbidden fruit, gender became the earliest and most essentialized trope to figure difference and the Other. Difference is at the center of conflict; the establishment of distance and the fight for space, land, flesh and fruit, all that is necessary to be.

Difference is imagined in the domain of the visual and abstract. From the mind came the birth of language and according to painter Raffi Lavie, “we are born into abstraction” (p.45 green book). Bodies do not exist before being formed as subjects marked by meanings such as gender and race. In the book Threshold of the Visible World, Kaja Silverman engages with Jaques Lacan’s theory of the mirror-stage that the brain “ ‘functions like a mirror,’ a ‘site’ where ‘images are integrated’ (Silverman, p.11)”. She writes “…Lacan suggests that the subject’s corporeal reflection constitutes the limit or boundary within which identification may occur”. Bodies and the physical world can therefore be understood as the projection of surfaces. Landau’s revision of the language of tropes in Israeli visual culture reframes traditional patriarchic power relations and resulting conflict from an “us versus them” opposition towards the frame of social experience.

In an interview between Paulina Pobocha and Landau, Pobocha asked Landau how she conceived of the relationship between her practice and feminist history. Landau responded “I instinctively think of my art as feminist without running it through feminist scans and criteria…where does feminism end and socialism start? (ref to be added)”. Sigalit Landau’s art is both beautiful and haunted by a past steeped in the specter of great violence and tragedy. The accomplishment of her work is not in the promise of a land or identity but the possibility of the re-specting others and sharing the places of a world in which we might yet be able to live.

Creative Block

Imagination From the Ancients

The source of my imagination has always fascinated me. I think it's because I've always associated the imagination with limitless freedom (or to raise the cheese-factor, a gateway to endless worlds and ideas). Of course like all writers I've experienced draughts of creativity, and at the time I was powerless to stop let alone understand it.

It helps me to understand the problem by finding a metaphor to explain this process, and as there is very little research into how humans are creative I think there's a lot of room to hypothesize.

One theory comes from my Mysticism and Literature class, called Visionary Lit. The theory behind mysticism suggests creativity, imagination, and inspiration all come from a source that is outside and separate from this material world. Mysticism suggests there is a spiritual element of creativity and the mind, be it conscious like God, or unconscious like a river of energy. Inspiration (according to the mystics) comes from stepping outside this world and connecting with another plane of existence (of course all this only happens in your mind or the spiritual realm).

If flashes of drug-induced Hippie drum circles are washing over your mind let me assure you this is not where I am going. Drugs can force a naked, all access tour of your mind, but often with less control, and negative side effects. Furthermore Mysticism suggests you can connect with the imagination on an everyday basis, in the moment, right now.

It's about opening your mind to the moment, and seeing what's in front of you with-through your imagination. "A fool sees not the same tree a wise man sees" says William Blake, suggesting the difference between a fool and wise man (or wise woman) is the key to seeing the present moment with- through the imagination.


What's fascinating is how long mysticism has existed, with the symbol of the axis mundi (representing the connection between human mind and imagination) going back to the Ancient Egyptian Empire.


A Modern Materialist
Skeptic

As a writer I cannot say I've settle on one perspective of the world. I think it's important to allow some flexibility in imagining what is out there, and despite Richard Dawkins' efforts to eliminate spirituality from the equation I don't think anything should be defined in absolutes.

However, I do believe science can explain a lot about ourselves, and I like to think about humanity from an evolutionary perspective.

Whether its building lego, drawing, writing, or improv acting, there have been moments where I felt my imagination was limitless. Looking at the empty page, or spot on stage my stomach would churn with excitement, and my mind would be flooded with possibilities.

These extreme moments of creative freedom contrast starkly with moments of creative block, and have gotten me thinking about the context and catalyst for each.

This has lead to me to hypothesize that our imaginations are something like a metaphysical muscle in our brain, and like all muscles they need both food and exercise.

Now if food is everything we consume (experience wise), and exercise everything we use our minds for, its safe to say everyone is exercising (in some way) all the time (unless of course you're a vegetable, in which case you fall under the catagory creatively obese) The catch is to exercise in the right way, and eat the right foods.

You can't write good poetry unless you've read a lot of good poetry, Just as you can't write a great story or novel if you've only ever watched movies or television, you have to know the discipline you're working in. I heard a great quote that went "Ferocious consumption is not a hunger for content but for form."

Too many creative people mix their influences with their projects, where the concept for a novel comes from what the 30 second trailer looked like in their mind. That's a fine starting place, but more reading is the only way to expand from that seed, and ride further visions of inspiring scenes or plot twists.

When I was younger I had the misconception that my mind needed to be a pure and well filtered environment, as if letting the wrong ideas in would taint or discolour my original inspired vision. This I've learned is the wrong way to think about creativity, because it doesn't strengthening and redefine the colours you have, it limits the colours (tools, complexity) you have to work with.

My highschool Art teacher once told me "art doesn't come from a vacuum".

Another factor in creative block stems from the reason you're making this in the first place. Purpose, theme, and motivation are sometimes left on the sideline because they weren't a part of the inspiring vision you first conceived, yet its these forces- when properly conceived that set your story, or ideas into motion.

Imagine your creative mind is like a storming ocean deep inside your subconscious, There may be a trillion ideas washing back and forth, but what is drawing them out? What are they to stick to or dock from? themes and myths are great tools for the imagination because they are vague enough to allow maximum freedom, while still acting as a lightening rod for your relevant ideas.

Too often we go into our minds with nothing, expecting something to gravitate toward us, or for ideas to just collide into concepts like swirls of gas into a star (too bad our minds aren't based on the forces of gravity).

* * *

Lastly In these short years on earth I've stumbled upon a powerful tool to cultivate imagination, I call it improv. There is something about improvisation theatre that functions like a 20 K creative triathlon (minus the sweat and pain).

When done right, with equally creative people, improv theatre can break open the flood gates for ideas, characters, plot, and dialogue, all through some impromptu role playing. I believe improv creates a context that most people never find themselves in, and exercises muscles that we can barely stretch.

-First, you must enter the stage with an empty mind, no thoughts, no preconceived ideas.
-Second, (if you've squashed you inhibitions) you will be a in a calm and relaxed state.
-Third, there is a subtle (external) force requiring your creative input (ie you have an audience watching/ waiting for you to deliver your line or response, which unlike daydreaming puts a little pressure on you to think.)
-Lastly, well run improv is a safe and positive environment, where you will almost always receive positive feedback (ie laughter) from your response on stage.

People who love improv will tell you that when things get going, ideas, reactions, and responses flow quite easily, training your mind to both think, act, and react in the moment.


This type of thinking is similar to making conversation and formal debate, but with more hospitable conditions and freedom for creative expression.

* * *

Concluding thoughts

So where does creativity come from? How does it get blocked? And more importantly how do you unblock it?

My Creative Writing professor told me a writer's block doesn't exist. Of course her solution was to just sit down and start writing, insisting that anything will lead to something good eventually. And though I can see where she is coming from she was also trying to ward off dreamers from waiting patiently for their inspiration, this can leave some people waiting a long time, with nothing accomplished.

(check out Kafka's parable called "before the Law" and see how Kafka envisions the search for inspiration.)

However I believe my professor fails short in her perception of the artist. I believe a creative person should work whether they are inspired or not; however- I also believe working when inspired/ with inspired ideas is more preferable.

Artists themselves need to realize that moments of inspiration can be self induced, wielded and ultimately rest in the control of the artist himself. Its your gate, your lock, and only you have the right crowbar to prop it open.

Paul Klee's 'Twittering Machine'

interesting how the twittering birds are "fused" with the machine.... giving us an idea that when they tweet, they know not what they tweet or why they tweet, they only know they tweet!

Global Internet Filtering Map

Take a look- great site that talks about censorship regarding internet
http://map.opennet.net/filtering-pol.html

Wafa Sultan

"Obsession" on CNN Newsroom: Radical Islam & Nazism

Tactical Media; Radical Ridicule, Confronting the undemocratic conditions necessary for democracy

click the images to see larger versions, and please watch the videos on full screen


Folk AgitProp
#1 I have many more ideas for folk Agit-Prop, I will continue making them throughout the summer, ready to launch in September and will be public domain and usable in any publication. The folk agitprop is inspired by Henry Darger, who traced images and painted them in with watercolour.

#2 Student conference on Interdiscplinarity at York University, the goal will be to share papers and have discussions, resulting in a website holding a manifesto on Interdiscplinarity at York as well as the papers submitted

#3 When space is limited for resistance on campus I propose holding a party/art show where invited artists would submit art work with a critical York theme. The images should be racy and hopefully ridicule the university very badly, these images should include all scales and different mediums. This would be held in a gallery as an art show, and a good excuse to have a big opening and party.... the downtown galleries are a place where York security have no juristiction

#4 You are familiar with my work with the youtube video "amazing diva of canal street", I am going to divide the 3 minute video into its 4401 frames and copy them all with tracing paper or projector. i will display these images in a series in a gallery, the idea will be to manually animate them by moving your body against the images. I will also scan every image and animate a film. I will also chose some scenes and paint them life size (as allready evidenced by the photocopied life size examples I put on the board) *idea, the grey wall of the subway tunnels in Torontow would make for a great manual animation canvass, too bad if this was done it would most likely be for advertising.... if you steal this idea you have to at least share credit with me

Folk AgitProp

Censorship (Y.S)

Web 2.0 - Initial Test Run @ Videotage, Hong Kong from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For on Neoliberalism

the above is brilliant, but somethings not right

Censorship examples

Just an example of how the internet censorship works

Internet Censorship (Y.S)

I am looking at Censorship of Internet within different countries
Here are some information that I have found while researching this topic



[vedio]




10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger [1]

CPJ names the worst online oppressors. Booming online cultures in many Asian and Middle Eastern nations have led to aggressive government repression. Burma leads the dishonor roll.


New York, April 30, 2009—With a military government that severely restricts Internet access and imprisons people for years for posting critical material, Burma is the worst place in the world to be a blogger, the Committee to Protect Journalists says in a new report. CPJ’s “10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger” also identifies a number of countries in the Middle East and Asia where Internet penetration has blossomed and government repression has grown in response.

“Bloggers are at the vanguard of the information revolution and their numbers are expanding rapidly,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “But governments are quickly learning how to turn technology against bloggers by censoring and filtering the Internet, restricting online access and mining personal data. When all else fails, the authorities simply jail a few bloggers to intimidate the rest of the online community into silence or self-censorship.”
Turkmen soldiers guard an Internet cafe in Ashgabat. (Reuters)
Turkmen soldiers guard an Internet cafe in Ashgabat. (Reuters)

Relying on a mix of detentions, regulations, and intimidation, authorities in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Egypt have emerged as the leading online oppressors in the Middle East and North Africa. China and Vietnam, where burgeoning blogging cultures have encountered extensive monitoring and restriction, are among Asia’s worst blogging nations. Cuba and Turkmenistan, nations where Internet access is heavily restricted, round out the dishonor roll.

“The governments on the list are trying to roll back the information revolution, and, for now, they are having success,” Simon added. “Freedom of expression groups, concerned governments, the online community, and technology companies need to come together to defend the rights of bloggers around the world.”

CPJ issued its report to mark World Press Freedom Day, May 3, and to call attention to online repression, a great emerging threat to press freedom worldwide. CPJ considers bloggers whose work is reportorial or fact-based commentary to be journalists. In 2008, CPJ found, bloggers and other online journalists were the single largest professional group in prison, overtaking print and broadcast journalists for the first time.

In compiling this list, CPJ studied conditions for bloggers in countries around the world. CPJ staff consulted with Internet experts to develop eight criteria that included governments’ use of filtering, monitoring, and regulation; authorities’ use of imprisonments and other forms of legal harassment to deter critical blogging; and the extent and openness of Internet access. For further explanation of CPJ’s methodology, click here.


WORST COUNTRIES TO BLOG

1. BURMA

Burma, which heavily censors print and broadcast media, has also applied extensive restrictions on blogging and other Internet activity. Private Internet penetration is very small—only about 1 percent, according to the Internet research group OpenNet Initiative—so most citizens access the Internet in cybercafés. Authorities heavily regulate those cafés, requiring them, for example, to enforce censorship rules. The government, which shut down the Internet altogether during a popular uprising in 2007, has the capability to monitor e-mail and other communication methods and to block users from viewing Web sites of political opposition groups, according to OpenNet Initiative. At least two bloggers are now in prison.

Lowlight: Blogger Maung Thura, popularly known as Zarganar, is serving a 59-year prison term for disseminating video footage after Cyclone Nargis in 2008.



2. IRAN

Authorities regularly detain or harass bloggers who write critically about religious or political figures, the Islamic revolution, and its symbols. The government requires all bloggers to register their Web sites with the Ministry of Art and Culture. Government officials claim to have blocked millions of Web sites, according to news reports. A newly created special prosecutor’s office specializes in Internet issues and works directly with intelligence services. Pending legislation would make the creation of blogs promoting “corruption, prostitution, and apostasy” punishable by death.

Lowlight: Blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi, jailed for insulting the country’s religious leaders, died in Evin Prison in March under circumstances that have not been fully explained.



3. SYRIA

The government uses filtering methods to block politically sensitive sites. Authorities detain bloggers for posting content, even third-party material, deemed to be “false” or detrimental to “national unity.” Self-censorship is pervasive. In 2008, the Ministry of Communications ordered Internet café owners to get identification from all patrons, to record customer names and times of use, and to submit the documentation regularly to authorities. Human rights groups noted that authorities harass and detain bloggers perceived as antigovernment.

Lowlight: Waed al-Mhana, an advocate for endangered archaeological sites, is on trial for a posting that criticized the demolition of a market in Old Damascus.



4. CUBA

Only government officials and people with links to the Communist Party have Web access. The general population goes online at hotels or government-controlled Internet cafés by means of expensive voucher cards. A small number of independent bloggers such as Yoani Sánchez detail everyday life and offer criticism of the regime. Their blogs are hosted outside the country and are largely blocked on the island. Two independent bloggers tell CPJ that they are harassed by authorities. Only pro-government bloggers can post their material on domestic sites that can be easily accessed.

Lowlight: The government now jails 21 writers who were on the leading edge of online journalism in the early part of the decade. These writers, all but one of whom was jailed in 2003, phoned or faxed their material to overseas Web sites for posting.



5. SAUDI ARABIA

An estimated 400,000 sites are blocked inside the kingdom, including those that tackle political, social, or religious issues. Self-censorship is widespread. Aside from “indecent” material, Saudi Arabia blocks “anything contrary to the state or its system,” a standard that has been interpreted liberally. In 2008, influential clerics called for harsh punishment, including flogging and death, for online writers guilty of posting material deemed heretical.

Lowlight: Blogger Fouad Ahmed al-Farhan was jailed without charge for several months in 2007 and 2008 for promoting reform and the release of political prisoners.



6. VIETNAM

Bloggers have daringly tried to fill the gap in independent news that is left by the traditional state-controlled media. The government has responded with more regulation. Authorities have called on international technology companies such as Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft to provide information about bloggers who use their platforms. Last September, prominent blogger Nguyen Van Hai, also known as Dieu Cay, was sentenced to 30 months in prison on tax evasion charges. CPJ research shows the charges were in reprisal for his blogging.

Lowlight: In October 2008, the Ministry of Information and Communication created a new agency tasked with monitoring the Internet.



7. TUNISIA

Internet service providers are required to submit IP addresses and other identifying information to the government on a regular basis. All Internet traffic flows through a central network, allowing the government to filter content and monitor e-mails. The government employs an array of techniques to harass bloggers: conducting surveillance, restricting bloggers’ movements, and undertaking electronic sabotage. Online writers Slim Boukhdhir and Mohamed Abbou have served jail time for their work.

Lowlight: In a March address, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali warned writers against examining government “mistakes and violations,” saying it was “an activity that is unbecoming of our society and is not an expression of freedom or democracy.”



8. CHINA

With nearly 300 million people online—more than any other country in the world—China has a vibrant digital culture. But Chinese authorities also maintain the world’s most comprehensive online censorship program, one emulated by many other countries. The government relies on service providers to filter searches, block critical Web sites, delete objectionable content, and monitor e-mail traffic. Because China’s traditional press is tightly controlled, bloggers often break news and provide provocative commentary. Blogs, for example, played prominent roles in spreading news and information about the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. But bloggers who go too far in promoting unpopular views or reporting sensitive information can find themselves in jail. At least 24 online writers are now in prison, CPJ research shows.

Lowlight: In 2008, the National Office for Cleaning Up Pornography and Fighting Illegal Publications announced that it had removed more than 200 million “harmful” online items during the prior year.



9. TURKMENISTAN

President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov promised to open his isolated country to the world by providing public Internet access. But when the country’s first Internet café opened in 2007, it was guarded by soldiers, connections were uneven, the hourly fee was prohibitively high, and authorities monitored or blocked access to certain sites. The Russian telecommunications company MTS, which entered the Turkmen market in 2005, started offering Web access from mobile phones in June 2008, but service agreements require customers to avoid Web sites critical of the Turkmen government.

Lowlight: Turkmentelecom, the state Internet service provider, routinely blocks access to dissident and opposition sites, while it monitors e-mail accounts registered with Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail.



10. EGYPT

Authorities block only a small number of Web sites, but they monitor Internet activity on a regular basis. Traffic from all Internet service providers passes through the state-run Egypt Telecom. Authorities regularly detain critical bloggers for open-ended periods. Local press freedom groups documented the detention of more than 100 bloggers in 2008 alone. Although most bloggers were released after short periods, some were held for months and many were kept without judicial order. Most detained bloggers report mistreatment, and a number have been tortured.

Lowlight: Blogger Abdel Karim Suleiman, known online as Karim Amer, is serving a four-year prison term on charges of insulting Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
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METHODOLOGY

In consultation with Internet experts, CPJ developed eight questions to assess blogging conditions worldwide. The questions:

* Does a country jail bloggers?
* Do bloggers face harassment, cyber-attacks, threats, assaults, or other reprisals?
* Do bloggers self-censor to protect themselves?
* Does the government limit connectivity or restrict access to the Internet?
* Are bloggers required to register with the government or an ISP and give a verifiable name and address before blogging?
* Does a country have regulations or laws that can be used to censor bloggers?
* Does the government monitor citizens who use the Internet?
* Does the government use filtering technology to block or censor the Internet?

Based on these criteria, CPJ regional experts nominated countries for this list. The final ranking was determined by a poll of CPJ staff and outside experts.
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Interesting "anti-surveillance" project by a Canadian filmmaker

I just found out about this project.

http://eyeborgproject.com/home.php

I'm not sure if it's more scary to have the filmmaker himself as "surveillance" ...

Implications of surveillance on urban life

**Note: I share this essay here as an extension to the presentation I did earlier, as well as using it as the background research information for my final project. This is not the final project itself.

- written by Monica Law

Surveillance has penetrated every part of our city life. It is so common that we no longer pay attention to the ubiquitous signs of “24Hrs CCTV”, or even worse that we are not aware of the frequency of our personal data being collected in our everyday life. Although surveillance seems to be invisible to a majority of the civilians, ironically we become much more traceable and visible through the surveillance structure. When we are hoping to use the technology to improve the safety and security of our public life, we also give ways to the people in power to exercise control and plan for order. Then it is the constant flow of information regarding where we carry out our daily activities assist business corporations in generating more profits. In the end, the information that is collected from different sources is assembled together into a partial profile of each individual that enable systematic categorization and social classification. From the surveillance system point of view, we are defined by the data image drawn from the assemblage of recorded behaviours, rather than by the embodied persons.

Therefore I am interested in looking at the implications of surveillance on our city life from three different aspects: surveillance as social control; surveillance as social sorting; and using surveillance technology to codify bodies as data. At the end, I will look at the various forms of resistance towards surveillance and hopefully we can develop a sense of direction that can help us to deal with its influence on our urban life.

Surveillance as social control

Surveillance is not new to the 20th or 21st century. The idea of surveillance has been around since the ancient time, though in a closed knitted community like those back in the old days, surveillance basically equals to “watching over each other” to monitor people’s life progress or simply a way to show care. However in the modern society, surveillance becomes a structure for exercising power and control. Michel Foucault’s influential concept of “panopticism” states that the permanent visibility enabled by a structure liked the “panopticon” (the concept of a circular prison building with each prison cell visible and facing the central tower where guard is sitting) would “induce in an inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automated functioning of power”¹. Therefore people knowing that they may be monitored at any time should act according to the rules or norms, making themselves their own surveillance. This concept illustrates the idea of a disciplinary society, which is “related to a unique historical context; specifically to the requirements of industrial capitalism which sought to instill in the labouring classes a distinctive temporal and bodily discipline which meshed with the routines to the emergent factory system.”²(Haggerty 2006: 27) However with the rapid advancement of technology that enhances the growth of global capitalistic system, Foucault’s model is considered to be too limited and hence the idea of “disciplinary society” is replaced by the “society of control”, introduced by philosopher Gilles Deleuze. He views surveillance as a “fundamental to a new order of global capitalism” (Ericson and Haggerty 2006: 4) , though it does not reduce surveillance to simply the collusion of economic and political power, it emphasizes that surveillance serves the goal and agendas of various institution, government, military conquest, scientific progress and risk management.

In the society of control, the control mechanisms operate in both visible and invisible ways. From the perspective of surveillance, the positive aspect of having visible control mechanism is to maintain safety, security and social order. However with the technology allowing easy viewing, checking, storing and comparing of personal visual images as well as other forms of personal data, it is the question of the accessibility to this information that we need to concern.

The control mechanism that operates invisibly in fact can be more problematic. Most of the general public do not know who has the access to what type of personal information and how information is linked from database to database. The concept of “surveillant assemblage” states that "no single Orwellian Big Brother oversees this massive monitory effort. ... Part of the power of surveillance derives from the ability of institutional actors to integrate, combine, and coordinate various systems and components. Hence, while powerful institutions do not control the entire spectrum of surveillance, they are nonetheless relatively hegemonic in the surveillant assemblage to the extent that they can harness the surveillance efforts of otherwise disparate technologies and organizations.” ( Ericson and Haggerty 2006: 4-5). Back in 2002 to 2006, the case of Syrian-Canadian Maher Arar raised public attention and question to how individual confidential information is collected, analyzed and stored by the government intelligence agencies. It is not unreasonable to worry that the same story may happen to anybody. Under the name of national security, information is completely isolated to the access by government officials only. On one hand information seems to be protected, but it also means that there is no way to verify its accuracy and it requires much effort to prove innocence if information is mistakenly being linked to any criminal act.

Surveillance and social sorting

Living in a city today means that “we experience surveillance in ways that are multifaceted, multi-layered, and moment by moment” (Lyon 2004: 299). Other than surveillance cameras, our activities and public behaviours are constantly being surveyed by cell phone, bank machine, barcode door key, internet, credit cards, store loyalty card, etc. However most of the surveillance devices are not dedicated to security, much of the data collected from these means are analyzed and stored for advertising and marketing purpose. Management in corporations rely on these information to create plans and strategies for their business. However when they intend to create top notch services to the loyal customers, they are at the same time dismissing consumers who do not fit their target profile.

According to David Lyon, sociology professor of Queen’s University, “consider surveillance as social sorting is to focus on the social and economic categories and the computer codes by which personal data is organized with a view to influencing and managing people and populations” (Lyon 2003: 2). As in the Maher Arar case and many other similar cases, their “Arab” or “Muslim” backgrounds are profiled in the highly secure areas, liked national borders and airports, that these information trigger the alert system established by the governing body and such categories carry significant consequences.

The fact is surveillance regardless of form (i.e. street camera, loyalty card in a supermarket, credit card usage, etc) captures information which is stored in remote searchable databases. The collected personal data can be sorted and matched at a distance, and is accessible by multiple parties.³ Computer algorithms enable institutions or companies to sort the data based on age, gender, race, occupation, income level, etc. The more people are categorized and classified, the greater the potential of creating the so-called digital divide, since each individual’s profile is not only shaped by their own attributes, but also characterized by the computer program based on the profiles of all other individuals within the database. The result is all profiles are “fundamentally relational, or comparative, rather than individual identities”⁴ (Gandy 2006: 370). In this case, “individuals are placed at risk of discrimination by virtue of their membership in groups, rather than specifically on the basis of their individual identities” (Gandy 2006: 370). It is especially problematic that individuals most likely are not aware of what type of groups their profiles are assigned to, and the potential risk of discrimination is hardly scrutinized by the public.

The growth of surveillance as social sorting may credit towards the improvement in technology, but it is rather the result of fear and perception of risk that drives the desire to enhance the management of the populations. The increase of surveillance cameras of the post-911 US is an example of the result from fear of terrorism or concern of national security. In the commercial world, risk can also be calculated in financial terms, and it is being individualized according to personal profile. The credit rating we have, the insurance premium we should pay and the accessibility of resources we are allowed to have are based on the individual risk profile calculated from personal data collected from the public mass. Under the concept of modernity, categorization is often encouraged as the process is deemed as rational and analytical. However with the growth of modern institutions, we are prompted to align our self-identities with the institutional identities, that the relationships signify the determination of our chances in life.

Surveillance and body tracing

In the article of “Tracing the Individual Body: Photography, Detectives, and Early Cinema”, it mentions that photographic portrait was being analyzed and rationalized by Bertillon that he prescribed a series of physical traits into a standardized vocabulary, “the troubling mass and variety of the physical body so faithfully transcribed by a photograph was thus reduced and translated through a limited code - simple, unvarying, and precise”. The problem of this 19th century practice was “the photograph finds its place within a logic of analysis into paradigmatic components, which are separated from a specific singular body in order to be circulated, compared, and then combined in order to point the finger of guilt.” (Gunning: 32). In the era of digital surveillance, the same practice still exists, but with the “improvement” over the efficiency and accuracy in collecting, analyzing and storing of body information, as well as extending the surveillance from potential criminals to the general populations. One of the examples is “using biometric identification and verification systems to construct and reinforce social identities by digital registration and processing of individual physical characteristics” (Ploeg 62). Fingerprinting, DNA screening and facial recognition embedded in CCTV system are just few common devices we know of. With the development of information technology, these data are connected with other personal information on file. The significance of the body information is that they provide material to generate more information about the individuals, families and populations that facilitate further categorization of the population into various risk groups. The various analysis using the codified body information directly affect policy making and implementation, as well as the development of prevention strategies.

Similar to the problem mentioned about the 19th century’s photographic portrait practice, using surveillance networks to collect body information poses the problem of turning our physical characteristics into digital representations, that at the end they are used as part of the construction of our identities. Fingerprint, DNA or even iris scan are often be considered as the ultimate verification of identity, which implies that we “locate the body as a site of ultimate truth or authenticity about the person” (Ball 309). However the body that information is taken from only constitutes part of a person. Body data is still an abstract entity which disassociates from bodily experiences or stories that play a critical part in defining who we are, as David Lyon argues, “these body identities permit classification and assessment based on ‘samples’ but exclude the possibility of hearing the voice of the person whose body is under scrutiny, in the form of the ‘stories’ that she might tell” (Lyon 2008: 507). Therefore biometric identifications only represent fractions of a person and it mostly serves as the means to construct identities for us by others. According to Lyon, although current biometric identification system applies to everybody in the society, it is still mainly “developed for crime control (law enforcement), social assistance (welfare recipients) and border control (passport issuance) purposes. In each case, already marginalized or disadvantage persons - criminal, the poor and people of colour - are in view and the aim of these systems is to distinguish between those that should be included or excluded, trusted or not and so on ” (Lyon 2008: 505). Therefore relying only on the abstracted body data to identify those of vulnerable and marginalized groups by the people in power is subject to the risk of injustice.

Resistance to surveillance

Having recognized the impacts and the power relations within the surveillance structure, it is reasonable to have resistance emerged alongside with the increase of the penetration of surveillance in our life, as a way to reclaim the power by the powerless. The motivation of the resistance may not come from the desire to eliminate the surveillance system, but to reduce its grasp on our life. Resistance comes in all different approaches. According to Gary Marx, he summarizes the behavioral techniques to subvert personal information surveillance into eleven categories: discovery, avoidance, piggybacking, switching, distorting, blocking, masking, breaking, refusal, cooperative and counter-surveillance moves. He states that “these concepts suggest that human creativity seeking to thwart systems of surveillance is aided by logistical and economic limits on total monitoring, the vulnerability of those engaged in surveillance to be compromised, and the interpretive and contextual nature of many human situations” (Marx: 373). These methods may require the practitioners to have certain knowledge about the operation of surveillance system. However tactical moves against surveillance being employed in everyday life can still be simple and easily practiced by the powerless group.

For example, people can refuse to become any loyalty club member to avoid stores from gleaning personal information, or people purchased special plastic license plate cover to block the photo radar cameras. Among the activist and artist world, there are many more substantial surveillance resistance projects going on. A web-based application called iSee employs “Inverse Surveillance” as their tactics “intervene the process of surveillance attempts to undermine or reverse the authoritative power associated with the technology”5. It mapped out the locations of CCTV in the urban areas and use computer algorithms to allow users to search for a path from destination A to destination B with minimal surveillance. This type of project provides a site of resistance to those that are vulnerable under the optical gaze, liked the visual minorities who are subjected to stereotyping as the threat to security, or women that simply being watched for “voyeuristic” reasons. There is another project called 2.4 Ghz designed by Benjamin Gaulon to “survey the surveillance” by using at wireless video receiver to hack into wireless surveillance camera and broadcast the hacked footage to the public6. Ultimately these various tactical moves allow the general public to make a statement towards the wide spread surveillance being imposed on their life to balance out the overpowered social control inserted by the governance body.

Conclusion

I have looked at multiple aspects of the impacts of surveillance on our urban life. We looked at the surveillance as social control, which usually being inserted onto the public sphere in the name of security, but it also serves the purposes for governance and institutions to exercise their power on the public. Surveillance also excise invisibly as a population management tool, that we are constantly being classified and categorized which influence how individual is being identified and affects the various chances in life. The rise of applying biometric technology as an identification of individual posing the threat of providing means for others to construct identities for us using fragmented and abstract body data. It resurrected the practice of the old time and the new technology can easily stay away from the scrutiny by the public.

I believe as a person trained to be an artist and cultural critic, it is important to constantly investigate cultural phenomenon, liked the topic of surveillance, with a critical mind. Therefore development and research on tactics or resistance to control is an empowerment to the vulnerable. When we see the masses becoming accustomed to the surveillance structure and start losing the awareness of how their lives are being influenced by it, I am hoping that my learning and education will bring contribution to the scrutiny of the institutional power. Ultimately I hope that our thoughts and concerns will reduce the risk of injustice and balance the power exercised by the governance and institutional force.

Notes:
1 Foucault, Michel. “Panopticism” in Discipline and Punish - The birth of the Prison, trans. by Alan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon, 1997.

2 Information originally from: Thompson, E.P. “Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism” in Customs in Common. New York: New Press, 1991. 352-403

3 Information from “Surveillance as Social Sorting” p.2.

4. Originally from O.H. Gandy, “Exploring Identity and Identification in Cyberspace.” Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy 14:1085-1111.

Bibliography

Ball, Kirstie. “Organization, surveillance and the body: towards a politics of resistance”, Theorizing Surveillance: The panopticon and beyond, edited by David Lyon. Cullompton, Devon : Willan Publishing, 2006; 296-317.

Ericson, Richard and Haggerty, Kevin. “The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility”, The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility, edited by Kevin D. Haggery and Richard Ericson, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006; 3-25.

Gandy JR, Oscar. “Data MIning, Surveillance, and Discrimination in the Post-9/11 Enviornment”, The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility, edited by Kevin D. Haggery and
Richard Ericson, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006; 363-384.

Graham, Stephen, “The Software-Sorted City: Rethinking the “Digitial Divide”, The Cybercities Reader, edited by Stephen Graham. London ; New York : Routledge, 2004; 324-331.

Haggerty, Kevin. “Tear down the walls: on demolishing the panopticon”, Theorizing Surveillance: The panopticon and beyond, edited by David Lyon, Cullompton, Devon : Willan Publishing, 2006; 23-45.

Lyon, David, “Biometrics, Identification and Surveillance”, Bioethics,Vol 22 Number 9 2008; 499-508.

Lyon, David, “Introduction”, Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk and Digital Discrimination, edited by David Lyon. London ; New York : Routledge, 2003.

Lyon, David, “Surveillance in the City”, The Cybercities Reader, edited by Stephen Graham. London ; New York : Routledge, 2004; 299-305.

Lyon, David, Surveillance society: monitoring everyday life, Buckingham ; Phildelphia, PA. : Open University, 2001.

Marx, Gary, “A Tack in the Shoe: Neutralizing and Resisting the New Surveillance” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 59, No. 2, 2003; 369-390.

Van der Ploeg, Irma, “Biometrics and the body as information: normative issues of th socio-technical coding of the body”, Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk and Digital Discrimination, edited by David Lyon, London ; New York : Routledge, 2003; 57-73.