Art of Surveillance
From the art and new media studies blog:
A post on a class called the Art of Surveillance. The class leans a bit towards philosophical and critical readings. But the class also requires a final research paper or multimedia paper, so it will be interesting to see what the students develop. You have to love a class that asks students to do the following:
Take a notebook and pen out on Michigan Avenue. Locate someone wearing a hat. Follow that person for a maximum of eight blocks writing down as much information as possible about that individual, their behavior, whether you think they are observing you, etc. Write down your route too. If you have a voice recorder or video camera feel free to tape your comments instead of writing them down.
The class materials are quite different than the usual stuff in the newspaper or on this blog. But it is striving to teach students about how to think broadly about the interactions of surveillance, privacy, and technical change. Here is some more information on the class.
Readings include works by: Jeremy Bentham, Jonathan Crary, Michel Foucault, Bureau of Inverse Technology, Critical Art Ensemble and more.
Screenings will include art works by Jim Campbell, Julia Scher, Steve Mann, Mona Hatoum, David Rokeby, Lutz Bacher, Camille Utterbeck, Knowbotic Research, PANOPTIC, Surveillance Camera Players, the NYC Surveillance Camera Project, and selected works at the MCA’s Version>03 festival (March 27-30, 2003).
Three recent exhibitions that critically deal with issues of surveillance: ctrl[space] (ZKM, 2001), Anxious Omniscience: Surveillance and Contemporary Cultural Practice” (Princeton Univ. Art Musuem, 2002), and Open_Source_Art_Hack (New Museum of Contemporary Art, 2002) will collectively provide a starting point for our conversations.
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