Minority Report on the Buses

CCTV security systems could soon spot an assault on a bus before it happens, according to a major research project.The system, part of which has already been tested in laboratory conditions, looks for suspicious behaviour associated with crime. It would be able to send live CCTV pictures to operation rooms, from where controllers would be able to intervene. The Queens University Belfast team say the software could make a significant impact on crime on transport. Although much of the work is currently at the theoretical stage, the team from the university’s newly-founded Centre for Secure Information Technologies predict that within five years their software will be able to profile people as they board a bus.

via BBC

Visualising the 9/11 terrorist network

prefuse - 9/11 Terrorist Network Author(s): Jeffrey Heer, Alan Newberger

These images visualise suspected connections between terrorists involved in the September 11th attacks. The width of the line indicates how strong the suspected link is. People are placed on concentric circles based on the number of links between them and the central person, making it easy to measure the social distance between the central person and any other person.

link

Safe Drinking

Inflatable pubs and bars are now available to buy or hire. No sharp edges and soft walls ensure alcohol induced fighting will no injuries. The pub will deflate if pierced with sharp glass objects, thus creating an enveloping membrane over the troublemakers.

Inflatable churches and other temporary emergency housing are also available>

Nanonoia by Jessica Charlesworth

This project is entitled NANONOIA and was presented at the Proximities workshop in November 2007. In this presentation I will discuss its development by highlighting my process and design decisions and ending with further space for explorations.There are two phases to this project:

PHASE ONE: Influences

First phase addresses my influences, research and initial questions. The second phase further explores the complexities of my scenarios: raising more questions. My initial influence was from an article discussing the current applications of nano technologies in commercial organisations. The article discussed the future impact of hand held nano sensors that could indicate whether the parson you are sitting nxt to on the bus has flu or whether the street you are walking down has a high carbon monoxide count or the salad you are abotu to it has a bacteria that will cause food poisoning. This hyper awareness of our immediate future health raised question of paranoia + future phobias and implication this tech will have on psycho somatic disorders.

This lead to the question what of this paranoia were to escalate and begin to affect interactions within our relationships and environmen?

My visual research: detection + protection. How these products/systems already affect relationships and environments.

Acute sensitivity: what if protection/detection became biokleptic:ie borrow biological processes from immune system and manipulate them to enable physical manifestations into more meaningful signals.

Health supplement provides individual with a sixth sense by boosting and augmenting the immune system.

Could supplement provide individual with a sixth sense? Offering a new code of reference: PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION

Each physical manifestation illustrates the individual’s reaction to their surroundings. Each symbol translates into the individual’s probability of contracting a virus from certain contagions.

These illustrations created more questions: how would this biokleptic acute sensitivity be provided to an individual?

PHASE TWO: Who is the service provider?

This second phase explores further complexities of this scenario. How would a service create further implications to society? The 6sense health supplement that enhances our immune system.

Is the service publicly run, privately invested? Designed various touch points that provide further questions and future scenarios.

Would the service provider offer….?

– Inductions and starter packs?

– DNA tests?

– Tailored treatment + applications

– Could one could learn to read themselves and translate their symbols, a dictionary for themselves

– A manual that offers various tips on what to do in an emergency?

– (code of conduct/charter) (who and how is support structure exist in your life, subscription?)- nicorette style

– Similar to diabetics, 6sense members have own inconspicuous ways to gain access to certain areas and public services. Private members clubs

– Depending on location, provided with various maps identifying nearest quarantine zone (food and water and treatment safe house) (casa segura, humane borders projects)

– Own individual proxemic contingency chart, Indicates minimum distance 6 sense members need to be to reduce risk to disease level.

This service provider and the various products they offer raise further implications in society and the interactions individuals have in environment and between relationships. Does it increase hypochondria cases?, somatic syndromes, obsessive compulsive disorders/phobias

What might be the propaganda poster campaign? E.g. NHS tissue. Underground politeness/terrorist warnings; use your senses

READ MORE about the future of the 6sense health supplement HERE>

‘(Mis)Tanzania: Security, Site, Performance’

Amanda Newall and Ola Johansson – Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts, Lancaster

ABSTRACT:

(Mis)Tanzania is a site-specific tableaux vivant that allows intercultural time, space, and objects to pass through the appearance of the artist. By instantiating the work in Dar es Salaam, right outside a colonial property on Upanga Street, the found site-specific objects, make-up and clothes, which are authentic but not traditional, take effect as modifying factors of identity. One of many paradoxes is that the artist behaves like a Maasai “askari” outside the guarded urban property but cannot be a warrior due to her gender. As the work is crafted and documented it comes alive with the gazes and comments from passer-bys, including curious Maasai men. The tableaux expresses an impossible proximity between site and character, and yet a possible way of making visible and thus seeing the intrasubjective fluctuations of contemporary identity in Tanzania. Hence if the proximities in the artwork are enacted in situ, the insecurities of it is in the eyes of the beholder – wherever you are.

MisTanzania performance notes