[Sosfbay-discuss] Exploring the Impact of Information Technology on Society through Art

[Tian Harter]

 >
 >
 > *Hasan Elahi
 >                                         *
 > *Exploring the Impact of Information Technology on Society through Art*
 >
 >
 > Hasan Elahi, an Assistant Professor in the School of Art and Design at
 > San Jose State University, is a conceptual artist in the CADRE
 > Laboratory for New Media, an interdisciplinary academic and research
 > program dedicated to the experimental use of information technology
 > and art.
 >
 > In 2002, Hasan was apprehended by FBI agents after an anonymous
 > tipster falsely accused him of being linked to terrorist activities.
 > Finding himself the subject of a lengthy investigation, he created an
 > ongoing “digital alibi” for himself— a computerized system that tracks
 > his whereabouts and other personal information— and publishes it
 > online. Hasan’s documentary art exhibition, "Tracking Transience: The
 > Orwell Project," made all his personal information, from his current
 > location to his bank statements and telephone records available to the
 > public.
 >
 > Hasan will describe his experiences with the FBI, and with his
 > personal information tracking system in the context of his goals as an
 > artist using electronic forms of information as his media, to explore
 > the way humans interact with electronic information and to investigate
 > the acceptance of the use of this technology.
 >

Hasan began his talk by saying he had been around here about 16 weeks
at this point in time. Then he showed us slides of art he did before
9/11. One piece, titled "Water Table", was a limited edition of small
tables with two inch deep clear plastic bowls of water with pictures of
water printed into the bottoms as the tabletop. Another, titled "Eight
Mile Road", features clever use of reflective materials and projected
footage from the intersections of Eight Mile Road (AKA: the wall between
rich and poor Detroit). He explained that while working on these pieces
he developed an awareness of what he could do with video and electronics.

Then on June 19th, 2002 Hasan was going through the Detroit Airport,
and Homeland Security put a crimp in his plans. Going through customs,
the guy behind the computer screen went white as a sheet when seeing
what came up when "Hasan Elahi" was typed in. For the next six months
the FBI was constantly asking him for more information about everything.
They even gave him nine sequential identical lie detector (polygraph) tests.

As an Artist, he found himself thinking about making something of the
intrusion. He decided to put ALL his information on the web. This
included bank records, flight records, pictures of every toilet and
meal, the building he is currently in, and an assortment of other
things. Visiting it, you will have no trouble finding where he is now
from the Google map, and a picture of the building he is in. Also there
are pictures of art installations he has made as part of the project,
and many links to footage and articles about it in the mainstream media.

Hasan has learned many things from this project and the awareness of the
other stuff on the web that have popped up over the last decade or so.
One thing is that there is so much information out there that raw info
is more of a problem than a solution. He thinks because of this the
culture of secrecy is slowly disintegrating. Another thing is that being
on a show like The Colbert Report has a huge impact on visits to his 
website.

During Q&A a number of interesting points were discussed:

He thinks the guy that ran the storage place where he kept his bulky
stuff he didn't need now turned him in after 9/11, when the paranoia was
thickest. He had given the guy notice on 9/12, because he was going to
be moving to Florida. It didn't help that he has brown skin and a Middle
Eastern sounding name.

The FBI people that interviewed him after he got busted at the airport
were very competent and very scary.

For more information please visit:

http://elahi.org

-- 
Tian
http://tian.greens.org
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