[-empyre-] week three | locative scraping and counter-surveillance

[Robert Spahr]

> 
> Can you say more about the databases that some of the Crufts projects scrape? 
> Are they all publicly available? I’m thinking of images from CCTV cameras and other private and public surveillance systems.


Almost all of my cruft pull from publicly available websites. The CCTV
cameras are also available on the web, sometimes unintentionally. So the
web is a big list of changing data, that for my own creative practice I
find it most helpful to visualize these databases as streams of
information that my cruft dips into, and produces a snapshot.

I have found my own email inbox for example to feel more like a stream
of data, rather than the traditional metaphor of an inbox of documents.
It's hard not to feel overwhelmed by the ever increasing data. My
automated code has produced thousands of images, videos and textual
works that I have not seen. Somehow having the archive is as important
as having seen all the images and data produced. But again there is a
pressure of having an ever increasing archive of data.

> 
> Have people been rallying for increased surveillance in the United States since the Paris (and Beirut and Bamoko) attacks?
>


From my perspective the people want something to be done, as long as it
makes them feel safe. The politicians and some of the networks,
especially CNN, are fueling our fears. Removing encryption will do
little to help, but will do everything to allow those in power to know
what everyone else is doing, who they are talking too, and when they
might be organizing.



-- 
Robert Spahr
http://www.robertspahr.com



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