Blog Entry Week 5
For the group research project, I was interested in working on the Data and Surveillance, Bias, Control topics. Based on my research for previous blog posts, I was particularly interested in looking at oppressive systems, and I suggested examining the NSA’s Skynet as a case study, which I had discussed in a previous post. I would also be interested to continue researching the political interference by groups such as Cambridge Analytica, which I have also previously researched, and discussed with my group.
During our group meeting, we discussed a lot of ideas around surveillance and control, particularly governmental or corporate interest in personal data, how it is taken, and how it is used. I had suggested the reading of Hito Steyerl’s A Sea of Data: Apophenia and Pattern (Mis-)Recognition (2016), which discusses trying to predict things based on patterns in data, and the margin of error in that. In the essay, Steyerl also discusses the Skynet program.
We were very keen on the comparison of apophenia, or recognising signal in noise — a very human phenomenon — to algorithmic pattern recognition in data, a very machinic idea.
We also discussed apophenia in targeted advertisements — as we all agreed that we often see targeted advertisements which are completely irrelevant to our interests, but sometimes suspiciously close to things which we had even verbally spoken about (I am now pretty certain that Mr Zuckerberg is listening to everything I say, and I am going to start wrapping everything I own in tin foil) and decided that we should do some research into how targeted advertisements are assigned.
This led us to discussing Cambridge Analytica’s political interference. Ho Yin recommended that we watch the documentary The Great Hack (2019), by Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim, which follows Professor David Carroll and investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr in uncovering Cambridge Analytica’s data mining and influence on the 2016 US presidential election and the Brexit vote.
Kerrie suggested we listen to a recent Intelligence Squared podcast, An Artificial Revolution, with Ivana Bartoletti and Yassmin Abdel-Magied. In the podcast, data ethics consultant Ivana Bartoletti discusses privacy of data and user consent to sharing data.
Alexandra proposed the idea of creating a screen-based performance for the outcome of our research project, utilising different windows showing documentary footage. We decided to start working towards this as an initial idea, and research how data is taken on a mass scale, what it is used for, and how we can act in resistance to this.
Amer, K., Noujaim, J. (2019). The Great Hack. Netflix
Intelligence Squared (2020). An Artificial Revolution, with Ivana Bartoletti and Yassmin Abdel-Magied. https://play.acast.com/s/intelligencesquared/anartificialrevolution-withivanabartolettiandyassminabdel-magied
Steyerl, H. (2016). A Sea of Data: Apophenia and Pattern (Mis-)Recognition. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/72/60480/a-sea-of-data-apophenia-and-pattern-mis-recognition/
