Class & Exhibition, ArtEZ & Het Nieuwe Instituut
In the Interaction Design department at ArtEZ in 2017, I taught a studio about surveillance regimes and forensic aesthetics, guiding students to create speculative designs and working prototypes. The works included:
- a compass that tracks and points to surveillance satellites, helping users to navigate urban environments without being spotted (Jelle Reith)
- a drone that generates smoke layers to cover protesters underneath, hiding them from aerial monitoring (Merel Peters)
- a light design for buildings to render them unphotographable (Arthur Duindam)
- a digital file smuggled in the unused data regions of an innocent host file (Laura van Duist)
- a satellite dish fitted with microphones to map explosions (Tycho Kilsdonk)
- a system to broadcast radio waves as a communication channel in case of digital meltdown (Bente Brunia)
- a “Shazam for recognizing drones”, but using cheap components that are locally accessible via a phone call instead of through smartphones with mobile Internet (Oscar van Leest)
The final projects were presented in a pop-in exhibition at Het Nieuwe Instituut in 2018. The works functioned as conversation pieces to stimulate discourse on ways to increase the agency, mobility and (in)visibility of surveilled populations. The minimal exhibition design and techno-optimism of the prototypes was offset by a poster-sized publication featuring a text by Becket Flannery. His manic, paranoid prose echoed a manifesto by Christopher Dorner, a former LAPD officer who went on a killing spree and consequently was the first person to be hunted by drones on American soil.
Image: Merel Peters
Image: Jelle Reith
Exhibition view.