I wanted to tell a story from the point of view of a data entry worker, someone not typically considered when the advantages and disadvantages of eldercare technologies are being assessed. The worker, remotely located and unknown to the people she watches, offers a perspective that points out some of the strangeness of watching from a distance a living person being injured, struggling, or just needing human care and attention. As we move into more widespread use of eldercare technologies, it’s worth considering how surveillant and robotic technologies to support independent elder living could change our relationships with and sensitivity to older populations.
{"title":"Assisted Living","authors":"Kristina M. Sepetys","doi":"10.24908/ss.v19i4.15128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v19i4.15128","url":null,"abstract":"I wanted to tell a story from the point of view of a data entry worker, someone not typically considered when the advantages and disadvantages of eldercare technologies are being assessed. The worker, remotely located and unknown to the people she watches, offers a perspective that points out some of the strangeness of watching from a distance a living person being injured, struggling, or just needing human care and attention.\u0000As we move into more widespread use of eldercare technologies, it’s worth considering how surveillant and robotic technologies to support independent elder living could change our relationships with and sensitivity to older populations.","PeriodicalId":47078,"journal":{"name":"Surveillance & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44984076","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This story is an appropriation/erasure of George Orwell’s 1984, remixing some of its original text with concepts from popular fiction and academic literature, including my published work. These concepts include: lateral surveillance; pandemic policing; data capitalism; predictive policing; and posthuman. The story contributes to the diverse, expanding field of cultural production known as “speculative fiction… a mode of thought-experimenting” (Oziewicz 2017). Rather than trying to predict the future, speculative fiction “unsettles the present” with what-if questions that allow us to “develop alternative social imaginaries and open up new perspectives” and “spaces of debate” (Dunne and Raby 2013: chapters 88, 189, 3).
{"title":"Ten-Four","authors":"Janet Chan","doi":"10.24908/ss.v19i4.15120","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v19i4.15120","url":null,"abstract":"This story is an appropriation/erasure of George Orwell’s 1984, remixing some of its original text with concepts from popular fiction and academic literature, including my published work. These concepts include: lateral surveillance; pandemic policing; data capitalism; predictive policing; and posthuman. The story contributes to the diverse, expanding field of cultural production known as “speculative fiction… a mode of thought-experimenting” (Oziewicz 2017). Rather than trying to predict the future, speculative fiction “unsettles the present” with what-if questions that allow us to “develop alternative social imaginaries and open up new perspectives” and “spaces of debate” (Dunne and Raby 2013: chapters 88, 189, 3).","PeriodicalId":47078,"journal":{"name":"Surveillance & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43178746","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In a not-too-distant future, an anonymous researcher and their team applied for funding to develop their newest invention: a new algorithmic model for smart cameras that would allow people to analyze the movement of cars at a previously unheard-of scale. This system was said to enable new forms of predictive capabilities to emerge: the algorithm would be able to, for example, predict the route drivers wanted to take but had not yet taken—including, for example, their occult inner desires for getting away with a secret lover. A panel of academic reviewers from three different universities audited and reviewed the proposed system. All that is left are segments of the video-report resulting from this meeting, which became an urban legend among technology researchers. The short film “Future Movement Future – REJECTED” is the story of a dystopian surveillance future that was barred by institutional refusal. It importantly reminds us about how total surveillance, the “almighty algorithmic eye,” may end up seeing-predicting much less than imagining-dreaming.
{"title":"Future Movement Future – REJECTED","authors":"Bruno Moreschi, Gabriel Pereira","doi":"10.24908/ss.v19i4.15126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v19i4.15126","url":null,"abstract":"In a not-too-distant future, an anonymous researcher and their team applied for funding to develop their newest invention: a new algorithmic model for smart cameras that would allow people to analyze the movement of cars at a previously unheard-of scale. This system was said to enable new forms of predictive capabilities to emerge: the algorithm would be able to, for example, predict the route drivers wanted to take but had not yet taken—including, for example, their occult inner desires for getting away with a secret lover. A panel of academic reviewers from three different universities audited and reviewed the proposed system. All that is left are segments of the video-report resulting from this meeting, which became an urban legend among technology researchers. The short film “Future Movement Future – REJECTED” is the story of a dystopian surveillance future that was barred by institutional refusal. It importantly reminds us about how total surveillance, the “almighty algorithmic eye,” may end up seeing-predicting much less than imagining-dreaming.","PeriodicalId":47078,"journal":{"name":"Surveillance & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43716731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Utopian theorists often speak about the merits of reading utopian fiction in order to reimagine and rebuild a better world, but dystopian fiction is often overlooked. This is, in my view, misguided because dystopian fiction, like utopian fiction, diagnoses issues with the present, inspires activism and resistance, and, in the twenty-first century, often presents ideas of how to effect positive change through collective activism. As speculative literary genres concerned with world-building, utopian and dystopian fiction have inherent sociological concerns. These texts can therefore be utilised by sociologists and other researchers beyond the arts and humanities. Speculative fiction is important to the field of surveillance studies not only because surveillance is a major theme in these literary texts but also because their formal properties provide us with the language, imagery, and feelings associated with being under surveillance. Twenty-first-century utopian and dystopian fiction has not been thoroughly examined by surveillance scholars. Analysis of utopian and dystopian fiction in this field has also focused on texts set in, and written by authors from, the global north. Considering the plethora of dystopian novels in and beyond the global north published in recent years that discuss surveillance, the neglect of the study of these texts to date is an oversight.
{"title":"Speculative Fiction, Sociology, and Surveillance Studies: Towards a Methodology of the Surveillance Imaginary","authors":"Jade Hinchliffe","doi":"10.24908/ss.v19i4.15039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v19i4.15039","url":null,"abstract":"Utopian theorists often speak about the merits of reading utopian fiction in order to reimagine and rebuild a better world, but dystopian fiction is often overlooked. This is, in my view, misguided because dystopian fiction, like utopian fiction, diagnoses issues with the present, inspires activism and resistance, and, in the twenty-first century, often presents ideas of how to effect positive change through collective activism. As speculative literary genres concerned with world-building, utopian and dystopian fiction have inherent sociological concerns. These texts can therefore be utilised by sociologists and other researchers beyond the arts and humanities. Speculative fiction is important to the field of surveillance studies not only because surveillance is a major theme in these literary texts but also because their formal properties provide us with the language, imagery, and feelings associated with being under surveillance. Twenty-first-century utopian and dystopian fiction has not been thoroughly examined by surveillance scholars. Analysis of utopian and dystopian fiction in this field has also focused on texts set in, and written by authors from, the global north. Considering the plethora of dystopian novels in and beyond the global north published in recent years that discuss surveillance, the neglect of the study of these texts to date is an oversight.","PeriodicalId":47078,"journal":{"name":"Surveillance & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46664965","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This piece of creative writing explores the possible impact of emotional artificial intelligence (EAI), a variety of technologies which have the common aim of inferring human emotion from outward expressions such as facial expressions, vocal patterns, text, and physiological data. It is difficult to determine exactly how EAI might affect people when thinking in the abstract. We therefore took a collaborative approach, combining the imagination and writing skills of a Sci-Fi writer, with the knowledge base of an academic studying EAI, in order to create a story which makes the potential consequences of EAI real in a tangible way. Some readers may have prior knowledge of EAI, and for you we hope this piece can offer new insights or different perspectives to consider. However, we suspect many readers will not have heard of EAI and be considering it here for the first time. For you, we hope to provide a story which you can truly immerse yourself in, which can act as a prompt for you to begin to consider your views on this technology. EAI may be at a relatively early stage of development, but we do not anticipate it being long before it is a widespread technology. Our prompt as writers was to create an imagined surveillance future. Our invitation to you as readers is to not only imagine it, but ponder it, live in it, question it, and, ultimately, shape it.
{"title":"How Are You Feeling Today?","authors":"Michael Deerwater, R. Scarff","doi":"10.24908/ss.v19i4.15114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v19i4.15114","url":null,"abstract":"This piece of creative writing explores the possible impact of emotional artificial intelligence (EAI), a variety of technologies which have the common aim of inferring human emotion from outward expressions such as facial expressions, vocal patterns, text, and physiological data. It is difficult to determine exactly how EAI might affect people when thinking in the abstract. We therefore took a collaborative approach, combining the imagination and writing skills of a Sci-Fi writer, with the knowledge base of an academic studying EAI, in order to create a story which makes the potential consequences of EAI real in a tangible way. Some readers may have prior knowledge of EAI, and for you we hope this piece can offer new insights or different perspectives to consider. However, we suspect many readers will not have heard of EAI and be considering it here for the first time. For you, we hope to provide a story which you can truly immerse yourself in, which can act as a prompt for you to begin to consider your views on this technology. EAI may be at a relatively early stage of development, but we do not anticipate it being long before it is a widespread technology. Our prompt as writers was to create an imagined surveillance future. Our invitation to you as readers is to not only imagine it, but ponder it, live in it, question it, and, ultimately, shape it. ","PeriodicalId":47078,"journal":{"name":"Surveillance & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46781578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article contributes to the discussion around surveillance invisibility by engaging with the existing literature and discussing Salvatore Vitale’s “Persuasive System” installation as a case study. Based on the conceptualization of surveillance as a “black box,” the article frames power imbalances involved in biometrics and video surveillance technologies and shows how Vitale’s installation aims at playing with and exposing these dynamics by reconfiguring them.
{"title":"Challenging Black Box Technology Power Imbalances by Exposing Them: “Persuasive System” as a Prism for Decomposing Contemporary Surveillance","authors":"Philip Di Salvo,Salvatore Vitale","doi":"10.24908/ss.v19i4.15117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v19i4.15117","url":null,"abstract":"This article contributes to the discussion around surveillance invisibility by engaging with the existing literature and discussing Salvatore Vitale’s “Persuasive System” installation as a case study. Based on the conceptualization of surveillance as a “black box,” the article frames power imbalances involved in biometrics and video surveillance technologies and shows how Vitale’s installation aims at playing with and exposing these dynamics by reconfiguring them.","PeriodicalId":47078,"journal":{"name":"Surveillance & Society","volume":"25 3","pages":"511-517"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138504092","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This story of Natalija is inspired by Evgeny Zubkov’s artwork titled Russia 2046. The piece depicts an old woman feeding breadcrumbs to drones. We imagine that where the drones are now, there once were birds. What are the relations of these various actors and how can we understand this change? For us, the image of Natalija encapsulates the relationships we as humans can form with non-living creatures, the spaces we share and the practices we engage in. Furthermore, it brings into question the separation lines of post-human and non-human life in an age of learning machines. This story as a whole depicts a future where technologies, in this case self-adapting drones, are introduced into an environment but, as time passes, are left to a state of neglect. In the story, the devices learn to interact with their surroundings, leading to contact and interaction between drones and human. While the story is imaginative, there are several reference points to surveillance research, particularly to questions relating to space/place (how is space under surveillance being produced?), agency (what kind of agency surveillance enables or supports; how is surveillance perceived by the user/target?), and technology (what are the varying contextual roles surveillance techniques are able to take?).
{"title":"Flock of Rogue Drones","authors":"H. Koskela, L. Mäkinen, T. Behrndt","doi":"10.24908/ss.v19i4.15124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v19i4.15124","url":null,"abstract":"This story of Natalija is inspired by Evgeny Zubkov’s artwork titled Russia 2046. The piece depicts an old woman feeding breadcrumbs to drones. We imagine that where the drones are now, there once were birds. What are the relations of these various actors and how can we understand this change? For us, the image of Natalija encapsulates the relationships we as humans can form with non-living creatures, the spaces we share and the practices we engage in. Furthermore, it brings into question the separation lines of post-human and non-human life in an age of learning machines. This story as a whole depicts a future where technologies, in this case self-adapting drones, are introduced into an environment but, as time passes, are left to a state of neglect. In the story, the devices learn to interact with their surroundings, leading to contact and interaction between drones and human. While the story is imaginative, there are several reference points to surveillance research, particularly to questions relating to space/place (how is space under surveillance being produced?), agency (what kind of agency surveillance enables or supports; how is surveillance perceived by the user/target?), and technology (what are the varying contextual roles surveillance techniques are able to take?).","PeriodicalId":47078,"journal":{"name":"Surveillance & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42025627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
What will our surveillant futures look like? This piece prods at this nebulous question by taking an exaggerated look at what would happen if we continued down the pathways to a hyper-datafied society that valued optimisation and quickness above all else.
{"title":"Surveillance from the Third Millennium","authors":"Y. Au","doi":"10.24908/ss.v19i4.15121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v19i4.15121","url":null,"abstract":"What will our surveillant futures look like? This piece prods at this nebulous question by taking an exaggerated look at what would happen if we continued down the pathways to a hyper-datafied society that valued optimisation and quickness above all else.","PeriodicalId":47078,"journal":{"name":"Surveillance & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46900931","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this imagined future, a jaded and anxious history teacher takes her fourteen-year-old students on a virtual visit back to 2020. Along the way, 1984 keeps surfacing. The references are both explicit and implicit: the protagonist’s name is Win and her off-stage other half is Julia; the first and last lines are a play on Orwell’s oft-cited opening sentence; and Ari is a fan of David Bowie’s 1984-themed Diamond Dogs album. But whereas Orwell (and Bowie) saw a dystopian future devoid of privacy, Win, Ari, and Jay inhabit a world where Orwell’s vision isn’t an imagined future but a nightmarish past. As a result, however, they have to struggle with issues of trust and vulnerability.
{"title":"2020","authors":"S. Molitorisz","doi":"10.24908/ss.v19i4.15170","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v19i4.15170","url":null,"abstract":"In this imagined future, a jaded and anxious history teacher takes her fourteen-year-old students on a virtual visit back to 2020. Along the way, 1984 keeps surfacing. The references are both explicit and implicit: the protagonist’s name is Win and her off-stage other half is Julia; the first and last lines are a play on Orwell’s oft-cited opening sentence; and Ari is a fan of David Bowie’s 1984-themed Diamond Dogs album. But whereas Orwell (and Bowie) saw a dystopian future devoid of privacy, Win, Ari, and Jay inhabit a world where Orwell’s vision isn’t an imagined future but a nightmarish past. As a result, however, they have to struggle with issues of trust and vulnerability.","PeriodicalId":47078,"journal":{"name":"Surveillance & Society","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43668270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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