Subverting the Power Structure in the Surveillance Assemblage: Blue Sky
Symposium:
- ISEA2011: 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art
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More presentations from ISEA2011:
Session Title:
- Critical Approaches to Mainstream and Consumption
Presentation Title:
- Subverting the Power Structure in the Surveillance Assemblage: Blue Sky
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
My paper explores the potential of digital media arts technology to disrupt and resist apparatuses of control in surveilled commercial spaces. Networked technologies create electronic surveillance systems that are used to monitor and track people in commercial spaces. Although the consumer culture in these spaces appears complicit with the potential power in the surveillance assemblage, the leveraging of digital media arts technologies offers opportunities for the subversion of the power structure in the digitally networked surveillance assemblage.
My paper identifies opportunities for changing consumer culture so that people can challenge the commercial spaces’ potential power in the electronic surveillance assemblage. I offer examples of digital media art performances that operate in liminal places, moments of disruption, and sites of resistance. However, these opportunities are not bounded by the confines of commercial spaces. The strategies of resistance against power structures in electronic surveillance systems that I identify in my paper can be extended to other private and public spaces.
