[-empyre-] Week 2 of the April 2018 discussion: New Media Documentary Practice

[Dale Hudson]

Hi Rachel.

Interesting question about how the widened awareness of data sales might affect arts practice on networked platforms. Our digital identities are bought and sold like physical bodies of people in some places. 

I was speaking with a friend, who wondered whether fear of data surveillance might be a “first world problems” since people in other places (his reference was parts of Africa) are accustomed to repressive surveillance measures but need to access the Internet or mobile network in order to survive in the sense that their livelihood or lives are dependent on it in some way. 

What are people’s thoughts?

Best,
Dale


> On Apr 17, 2018, at 18:46, Rachel Johnson <connecting2rachel at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Hello ! 
> New media artists by definition are critical of the way networks function so the past several months should come as no great surprise, however as FOSTA/SESTA has literally shut down the accounts of many friends and put their livelihoods at risk and with the facebook analytica trials being fodder for jokes and memes on the commercial radio awareness of the cost of online activity is at an all time high, even for those who are not necessarily subversive in their intent.
> I am wondering how new media artists will respond to the breakdown of an internet popularly visualized as freely flowing into a space that is undoubtedly mined heavily by corporations and policing bodies ? It seems that interactions with the networked becoming more expensive in terms of our ability to protect aspects of our existence- our bodies, our dreams, our statistics, our identities, and our relationships to ourselves and our loved ones- from those who could access it for gain at a level that our subconscious cannot compartmentalize.
> 
> Could this be a prompt for introducing how your practice relates to a network? 
> 
> Re: the structural necessity that code does access some part of users .... the heaviness of "CODE" as such increasing as the reliability of networks decreasing.... NOTE- my context is the USA.
> 
> Apologies 
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