| Symposium
Swipe
- a joint presentation by Beatriz da Costa and Brooke Singer
The current trend to collect
all data on all people has resulted in a phenomenon called the data-self. This
data doppelganger is not an explicit self or even a tangible self, but has real
consequences on our everyday lives. As our data-selves become increasingly defined,
accessible, and trusted, more decisions are made based on these virtual stand-ins
without any notification or much awareness by the subject. Due to the growth of
computer technologies and networked systems, data determines how we live, who
we are, and what opportunities we are allowed more than ever before.
Privacy advocates form the
most vocal and organized group addressing issues surrounding personal-data collection.
While privacy advocates have made important differences, there are other ways
to frame data-collection issues. Sociologists, for instance, shift the focus from
an individual concern toward larger questions of social justice and equality.
Artists, also entering the data-collection discussion, are in a unique position
to promote understanding and debate within communities. A technologically oriented
art practice, furthermore, is capable of temporarily breaking the tight grip of
data surveillance to initiate openings for public dialogue and response.
Specifically Swipe
addresses the gathering of data from drivers’ licenses, a form of data-collection
that businesses are starting to practice nation-wide. Already over forty states
use magnetic strips or barcodes on the backside of drivers’ licenses to
store personal data, and the remaining states are moving towards implementation.
Bars and convenience stores were the first businesses to utilize license scanners
in the name of age and ID verification. These businesses, however, admit they
reap huge benefits from this practice beyond catching underage drinkers and smokers
and fake IDs. With one swipe--that often occurs without notification or consent
from the cardholder--a business acquires data that can be used to build a valuable
consumer database free of charge. Post 9/11, other businesses, like hospitals
and airports, are installing driver's license readers in the name of security.
And still other businesses are joining the rush to scan realizing the information
contained on driver's licenses is a potential gold mine.
Swipe aims
to bring attention to this practice and enable people to see exactly what is stored
on their mysterious strip. Many people are unaware that personal data is even
encoded on their license, and, if they do realize this, they probably do not know
exactly what information is there. Some states simply record what is printed on
the face of the card; other states add a social security number; and some even
go so far as to include signatures, photo jpeg images, digital fingerprints, and
face recognition templates.
Our project illustrates
how this information is used and why businesses crave it. Our hope is to encourage
thinking beyond the individual self ("I do not care if a bar database has
my name and address and time of visit...") toward understanding databases
as a discursive, organizational practice and an essential technique of power in
today's social field. We will trace the individual, specific action of the card
scanning into the abstract realm of the information market that, in time, returns
to influence particular and localized behavior.
With public knowledge there
is a chance for public voices, and ultimately resistance.
Biographies
Beatriz
da Costa
Beatriz da Costa is a Machine Artist and Tactical Media Practitioner. Her current
practice includes robotic installation work as well as public oriented performative
and direct-action projects. She has been working in collaboration with Critical
Art Ensemble since summer 2000 and is currently collaborating with Brooke Singer
and Jamie Schulte on “Swipe,” a three- folded project concerned
with the social implications of driver’s license data collection.
Beatriz has performed and
exhibited work at the Henry Art Gallery in the Seattle, The New Museum in New
York, and Le Magasin in Grenoble, France. Recent shows include ISEA 2002 in Japan,
and the World Information Organization in Amsterdam. She is currently a Visiting
Assistant Professor in the departments of Art and Media Study at State University
of New York at Buffalo. http://www.beatrizdacosta.net/
Brooke Singer
Brooke Singer
is a new media artist who lives in New York City. Her interest in art began as
a teenager when she began taking photographs. During college she studied Russian
language and literature with the intention of one day becoming a spy. At graduate
school, Brooke experimented with computers and the World Wide Web. Her current
projects reflect her various interests in image making, espionage and the Internet.
She is interested in the effects of evolving, digital networks on experience in
the physical, lived-in world.
Brooke is currently Assistant
Curator of Digital Media at the American Museum of the Moving Image in Queens,
NY and teaches computer art at Pratt Institute. She has exhibited at the University
of Southern California's Lindhurst Fine Arts Gallery in Los Angeles, Chicago's
Version festivals, SIGGRAPH 2002 in San Antonio, Texas, São Paulo's File-2002,
and the Biennale de Montréal. http://www.bsing.net/
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Speakers