This essay focuses on the ideas explored by Tuters and Vernelis (originally devised partially by Broeckmann and Lovink) about the state of locative media technologies, and the true nature of their power in relation to contemporary new media art:
The reluctance of many locative-media practitioners to position their work as political has led some theorists, such as Andreas Broeckmann (director of the Transmediale Festival), to accuse locative media of being the “avant-garde of the ‘society of control’”, referring to Gilles Deleuze’s description of the contemporary regime of power. Broeckmann suggests that, since locative media is fundamentally based on the appropriation of technologies of surveillance and control, its practitioners have a duty to address that fact in their work. Geert Lovink has claimed that the movement instead has turned the media-art conference circuit into a “shopping-driven locative spectacle”. (Broeckmann and Lovink in Tuters and Vernelis, 2006: 360)
According to the above quote, this essay will focus on two presented characteristics embedded in modern mapping and visualization techniques. The firstly mentioned “avant-garde of the ‘society of control’” can be shortly described as all relations of the above to the military and surveillance procedures, and will be critically discussed according to the thoughts of most influencing theoreticians in the field. The second characteristic, as mentioned by Lovink, can be narrowed to all related commercial aspects, and will be judged upon based on a few examples found throughout the Internet.
To begin with, the most important thought about the introduced problem can be found while looking at the work of Bruno Latour. In the beginning of Visualization and Congnition the author mentions both the law enforcement and administration. As he keeps analyzing the “divide between prescientific and scientific culture”, calling it “merely a border”, he states that “It is enforced arbitrarily by police and bureaucrats, but it does not represent any natural boundary” (Latour, 1986: 2).
Other theoreticians such as Russell in his Headmap Manifesto claim even more connections of the recently evolved techniques of mapping to military practice. While discussing it in terms of conquest and control, he claims that “The military has always been actively involved in map making, the Ordinance Survey in the UK is the primary source of civilian mapping data and is the primary governmental mapping organization, until recently it was directly controlled and funded by the military” (Russel, 1999: 10). He also concludes the paragraph with an example from the gulf war: “(…) in former Yugoslavia, the commanders integrated a whole range of spatial mapping technologies, from 3d terrain models to GPS, to enhance their formidable command and control systems” (Russell, 1999:10).
Moreover, Russell while discussing the politics in software, points out two extremely important specifications of mapping: firstly, no guarantee of liberatory use via a direct link to both the military and business corporations, which is followed by the scary idea of social control through information via never-ending ethereal display of ads. As looking at the first aspect, the author claims that “new technology, before it arrives, heralds destruction or liberation depending on whose account you happen to be reading” (Russell, 1999: 15). He follows with explaining that “the internet has been (all at once) an anarchists tool, a military tool, a tool for salesmen and businesses, and in general a communications medium for everyone able to use it for whatever purpose they intend” (Russell, 1999: 15). This sad vision that we have to keep in mind while using mobile aware devices is further explored under the issue of constantly raising corporate domination via social control. His contemplation starts with idea that “LAPD will continiue to win political support for ambitious capital investment programs in new technology” and this will, according to the author, lead to “both criminal and non criminal” being “monitored by both cellular and centralized survaillances” (Russell, 1999: 15). Analogously “If this technology impacts without privacy built-in, all kinds of organisations could not only know your internet browsing habits, but where and when you go (in real time - i.e. where are you now), what you buy and who you see, and from that establish the patterns in your spatial behaviour” (Russell 1999: 16). This domination over technology-mediated experience raises questions of “how do we stop salesmen getting access to our every waking moment irrespective of place and time?” (Russell, 1999: 16).
Brian Holmes presents a very similar perspective on the potential of locative projects while analyzing “swarm cartography” by a Spanish activist group, where in Network Maps, one could state, that he stresses the claims the prime aim of mapping in general. According to the author, this technology’s one side is “(…) a map of power: on a Mercator projection turned upside-down, it shows sea-going migration routes, refugee camps, destination zones, electronic surveillance systems, military installations, internment centers, etc. But the other side traces a complex meshwork of activist groups on both sides of the Straits, showing their interrelations, their meetings, their evolution over time. The aim is not only to represent, but above all to catalyze a future range of possible interventions by autonomous agents (…)” (Holmes, 2007: 5). Even though this example, no matter how noble, the same technology is used by governmental, corporate and law enforcement agencies, filtering even bigger data bases and providing with more accurate outcomes.
Nonetheless, some theoreticians believe that “there are many artists’ projects that map corporate and military power relationships” (A. and M. Kroker, in Diamond, 2010: 224), one should always keep in mind the power carried by mapping technologies, and watch out for hands wielding them. There are some, who try to oppose the dominant corporation, but in many cases they lack resources or get entangles within its concept. Artists’ visualizations in many cases fail to inform, phone applications such as Flook turn out to guide users to expensive shops and restaurants, hardware and software providers gathering intel about the users are all things we should be constantly aware of.
According to the above links of locative media, mapping and visualization technologies in contemporary media art can and should be critically approached as discussed by Tuters and Varnelis, where the unwillingness of most contemporary media practicioneers to strongly bias their work with correct political positioning has led to a situation where the described is driven by both the military and the corporate. This is mainly visible in the analyzed models of contemporary surveillence methods and the ways they are employed, but also by the tracking technology used by the police and military. This breaching of the private sphere may be also found while focusing on the information flow which is directly linked to location aware devices, which one has to keep in mind not to end up in a world covered with mind-molding corporate information.
Bibliography and Readings:
Bruno Latour, 'Visualisation and Cognition: Drawing Things Together', in Michael Lynch and Steve Woolgar (eds) Representation in Scientific Practice, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986, pp. 19-68.
Ben Russell, Headmap Manifesto (1999).
Marc Tuters and Kazys Varnelis. ‘Beyond Locative Media: Giving Shape to the Internet of Things’, Leonardo 39.4 (2006): 357-363.
Brian Holmes, 'Network Maps, Energy Diagrams: Structure and Agency in the Global System', Continental Drift (2007), http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2007/04/27/network-maps-energy-diagrams/
Teodor Mitew, 'Repopulating the Map: Why Subjects and Things are Never Alone', Fibreculture 13 (2008), http://thirteen.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-089-repopulating-the-map-why-subjects-and-things-are-never-alone/
Lev Manovich, 'Data Visualization as New Abstraction and as Anti-Sublime', in Bryon Hawk et al (eds) Small Tech: The Culture of Digital Tools, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008, pp. 3-9.
Sara Diamond, 'Lenticular Galaxies: The Polyvalent Aesthetics of Data Visualization', in Arthur Kroker and Marilouise Kroker (eds) Code Drift: Essays in Critical Digital Studies, Victoria, CA: New World Perspectives / CTheory Books, 2010, pp. 192-243.
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