[ARENA] Sousveillance. The Art of Inverse Surveillance

[Tatiana Bazzichelli]

Sousveillance
The Art of Inverse Surveillance
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Conference, public interventions and concert
February 8th - 9th, 2009, Aarhus University
http://www.digitalurbanliving.dk/sousveillance/
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The event is presented by: Digital Urban Living & Digital Aesthetics  
Research Center.
Curated by: Tatiana Bazzichelli and Lars Bo Løfgreen
Supported by Videnssamfundet and the Italian Culture Institute of  
Copenhagen.
In partnership with Skive Art Museum, ARoS and Studenterhus

// Concept //
With the growing spread of pervasive digital technologies the public  
urban space has become open for new forms of both observation and  
surveillance.

Moving away from cameras and directional microphones, face- and voice  
recognition, the pervasive technologies offer not only the ability to  
gather and organise huge amounts of dissimilar data, but as well on  
grounds of these to predict probable patterns of behaviour.  
Commercial mobile variants of Google Maps, YouTube or Facebook are by  
far the only ones to make use of these possibilities. Urban games,  
locative art, flashmob art, pervasive games etc. all represent new  
forms of observational and aesthetic experiments with how we through  
technology perceive and make use of the urban space itself.

Sousveillance, original French, as well as inverse surveillance are  
terms coined by Steve Mann (Toronto, Canada) to describe the  
recording of an activity from the perspective of a participant.  
"Surveillance" denotes the act of watching from above, whereas  
"sousveillance" denotes bringing the practice of observation down to  
human level (ordinary people doing the watching, rather than higher  
authorities or architectures doing the watching).

The conference will be held in conjunction with two digital art  
exhibitions in the city of Århus (one at ARoS and another at Skive  
Art Museum) and aims to create a platform for sharing and discussing  
the topic of surveillance, privacy and control of information,  
analyzing different creative, artistic and political strategies to  
produce fluid zones of interventions, both in the urban space and on  
the net. Main focus is on networking practices and urban actions that  
contribute to criticize the concept of surveillance, propriety of  
data and information, showing new activists and visionary strategies  
to move society toward more inclusive modes of production and sharing  
knowledge.

// Program //

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 8
OUTDOORS

11:00-17:00:
INTERVENTIONS BY:

   * Dmytri Kleiner (CA/DE)
   * Mare Tralla (UK/EE)
   * Leipziger Kamera (DE) + Space Hijackers (UK)

Meeting point:
Auditiorium 3, Building 1252, Aarhus University

The interventions run simultaneously from 11.30 to 17.00.

MONDAY FEBRUARY 9
CONFERENCE
At Auditorium 3, Aarhus University

09.00-09.15:
INTRODUCTION
Tatiana Bazzichelli and Lars Bo Løfgreen (Aarhus University)

09.15-10.45:
1:ST PANEL   David Rokeby (CA) and Jakob Jakobsen (DK)
Moderator: Christian Ulrik Andersen (Aarhus University)

10.45-11.00:
BREAK

11.00-12.30:
2:ND PANEL   Shining (IT), Dmytri Kleiner (Canada/DE)
Moderator: Tatiana Bazzichelli (Aarhus University)

12.30-13.00:
PUBLIC DISCUSSION

13.00-14.00:
LUNCH

14.15-15.45:
3:RD PANEL
Mare Tralla (EE/UK) and Leipziger Kamera (DE)/ Space Hijackers (UK)
Moderator: Lars Bo Løfgreen (Aarhus University)

15.45-16.00:
BREAK


16.00-17.30:
4:TH PANEL
Alexei Shulgin (RU) and Manu Luksch (UK)
Moderator: Søren Pold (Aarhus University)

17.30-18.00:
PUBLIC DISCUSSION

18.30-20.00:
DINNER

MONDAY FEBRUARY 9
EVENING PERFORMANCES

20.15-20.30:
INTRODUCTION
by Tatiana Bazzichelli, Lars Bo Løfgreen

20.30-21.30:
KONRAD BECKER (AT)

22.00-23.00:
GOODIEPAL (DK)

More info:
http://www.digitalurbanliving.dk/sousveillance/