*34C3 preroll music*
Herald: So. The last are the best or something like that. Our next speaker is
here waiting for this massive crowd that will support him to go through his
experience with the FBI. He's gonna share with us the way he informs the FBI about
his behaviors. So it's not just like in cycling or other sports but ... I don't
know what sport you do, Hasan. But these easy sports men in communication with FBI.
Please give a welcome applause ... Yes! Last are the best. Oh sorry ...
Hasan: That's pointing to me. The arrow will start making sense. Really I mean
... How amazing has it been the last few days here, right? It's been this ...
amazingly intense last few days and it's kind of ... You know it's, it's an honor
to kind of wrap this up and I really appreciate you guys hanging out here till
the very very very last time slot. Thank you, thank you for coming. This is ... it
means a lot. I've been hearing a lot about this Congress for many years and
this is my first time here and it's just ... you know, I was just telling some
friends that I consider myself relatively tech literate and then I come here and I
feel like everyone speaking a completely different foreign language that I have no
idea what's happening. And it's not because some of the talks are in German.
It's like literally like some of the subject matter is so specific that it's
so easy to be completely like: What is being discussed? So I'm gonna tell you,
it's something a little bit more ... you know, a little more of a story and kind of
tell you about what I've been doing. So I'm an artist and I get called all sorts
of different things I get ... You know, sometimes I get lumped in with the media
artists, sometimes with sculptor, sometimes with photographers, sometimes I
get called a con artist. But so ... so it's kind of odd being in this, being in
this gatherings. Particularly after some of the other talks that I've been sitting
in on. But let me tell you a little bit about how this thing came about, this
thing with the arrow. By the way I'm at elahi.org or elahi.umd.edu. I'll show you
some of my works but mainly I'll be focusing on this one project which is
called Tracking Transience which I started shortly after 9/11. So let me just
give you a live feed of what it looks like. So this is, this is it. So you can
go on the web and you could follow me at any given moment. And there's this pixel,
this arrow that comes here, which is actually... These days we're so used to seeing
ourselves as pixels on a map. But this project was started 2002 and back then to
see yourself as a pixel was just such an unusual thing. I mean, these days we ...
You know, these days you're driving down the road and there's that little icon on
the GPS, that tells you exactly where you are. Or you know the ... I mean like, you
know, like when was the last time you bought one of those maps at the gas
station? You opened it up ... Do you remember that? I mean, we don't ... it's
just like we just completely lost that. We can't even know how to fold a map back up
anymore. You know, cuz back in the old days you'd have to take out that map and
you'd go: "We're here!" So you'd have to locate yourself to the geography within
that map. These days, you take out that magic phone, you press that little button,
and you become the center of your own map. And your ... the map resizes to you.
So the space of the ... So looking at yourself as a digital space versus a
physical space. You know it's, it's a totally different concept that we're
running into now and for some reason this looks like this got caught up over here.
So let's give it another kick. And hopefully it'll kick in again.
Okay. So, that's, that's, so this is, this is where I started. So the project starts here.
And you know, then this goes through the cycles of everything that I eat and ...
You know, let's see what comes up after this. You know, you can probably see where
this place is. You probably recognize that. So these are all the meals that
I've been cooking at home. And I photograph all of them. It's just kind of interesting.
As now it's like it's so common on Instagram, it's like, you know, if
people think that you know, well, why else would you be using Instagram other than
posting photos of your food? But I help out the FBI with this. So I sent this ...
So this was on Friday December 4th. This was at the corner of Santa Clara and 11th
in San Jose. I got, I bought gas there. This is at the Gimhae Airport in Busan.
This is some tripe, that I've cooked at home. Because I really like tripe.
This is, this is actually the Barack Hussein Obama School in Jakarta, Indonesia,
1st March. This is, this is, ... Sorry, this is going so fast. So every few moments, what
I do is: I take a photograph and I timestamp my life and I send it to the
FBI. And, well you know, it's ... And it's also kind of interesting. Because
these days, the project means something so different. When I first started this
project, people would be like: "Oh no no, don't show up at my house!" And now it's
like - You know, it's not like if you're don't, if you're not on social media, if
you're not connected, like people think of you are some, some weirdo or something.
So what happens here is that this thing of like continuously, continuously
monitoring myself and continuously checking in ... You know, now a lot of
people are like: "I don't get this. This looks like my Instagram feed. What's the
big deal?" But then this concept of self- surveillance or this, this watching
ourselves or monitoring ourselves for the sake of someone else, whether it be your
Twitter followers or in my case the FBI ... I mean, this is something that's
become so commonplace. And each of us are creating our own archives. So a lot of
the shifts that's taking place culturally - I think it's really important to think
about this, because, you know, it's like, like this bed. I mean, you're not really
sure what happened in that bed. You're not really sure who I was there with. Or
you see these like random train stations. There are always these empty spaces.
There's like ... no one's ever there, and every now and then you might see some
people. But they just, they just tend to be incidental to the image.
Which is kind of interesting when you look at like the "no photography" or the
"ask permission
of people that are in there" Which is really amazing to think about. That like
how many cameras are there in every given moment? Actually in this room, right now,
they're at least twice as many cameras as there are people. Because there's one
camera in the front of your phone and another one in the back of your phone. And
who knows how many other cameras in, in all the other devices and everything else
that we are putting in. So we can't really escape these cameras, regardless of
what we do. And so all of these things, all these bits and pieces that I'm
archiving of my life. So every few moments another photo gets put up and it gets
tagged with the geo tag of where it was. Again this is something that's so common
today but 12, 13, 14 years ago this was completely just like: "What are you doing
and why are you doing this?"
And ... sorry ... So yeah, and then of course
there's all these toilets because, uh, my FBI agent really needs to know. I figure
the FBI, that ... You know, they want to know my business and I'm very open and I'm
very sharing. So I figure, I'm gonna tell them every little bit of detail,
including the toilets that I use and how frequently and where I go. You know, they
need to know, so! Really, what's happening, you know and, and what I'm
really, what I'm really doing is: I'm, it's, it's a matter of telling you
everything and telling you absolutely nothing simultaneously. It's a barrage of
noise. Look, I know that eventually, you know, machine and AI machine readers and
AI is going to get so, so sophisticated, that at a certain point this idea of
overwhelming the system, it's not going to be possible. This is a temporary fix.
And the reason I chose this fix is, you know, obviously the FBI has a file on me.
By the way, the background story of this is: I got reported as a terrorist.
I guess, I should probably explain on that a little bit. So shortly after 9/11, my
landlords, that I rented this storage space from, called the police and said,
that an Arab man had fled on September 12th, who is hoarding explosives.
Never mind. There were no explosives. Never mind,
it wasn't an Arab man. But you know, that Arab man
would be me. Even though I'm Bengali and we're actually not Arabs.
But it doesn't matter because as far as many people ... You know, they're all the
same over there. They're all kind of fun. You know, that's, it's, it's that mentality
So I spent six months of my life with the FBI, convincing them that
I'm not a terrorist. And after all that they said: "Okay, everything's great,
you're fine", and I said: "Okay, wonderful, can I get a letter saying :
I'm fine?" There's a little problem with that, because have you ever tried to get
something that says: "You're not guilty of something you never did"? So you know,
so ever since then I've been with my FBI agent. I said: "Hey, what can I do? I
mean, I travel a lot. All we need is the next guy not to get the next memo and
here we go all over again. How do I avoid this?" So at that moment he gave me a
phone. He says: "Here's some phone numbers. If you get into trouble, give us
a call. We'll take care of it." So ever since then I would call my FBI agent,
tell him where I was going, send him photos to all of these things, and thus
that's what this whole project started. In a ... I mean back then when I started this
project, shortly after 9/11, I mean, my phone was like those old ... Remember
those old Nokia 6600? Those like super chunky ones and you had to hit the buttons
like a whole bunch of times to send like one text message across? And we should
call them smart phones back then. I mean, they're really not that smart, but
they're kind of smart phones. Anyway. So this process of like sending all this
information to the FBI. I started telling them everything. And also at the same
time by telling them everything I'm also telling them absoutely nothing because
it's just a wall of noise. And in that noise there is some signal and the ratio,
the signal-to-noise ratio, is actually pretty skewed. It's pretty, it's pretty
out of sync in that sense. Because it's, it's difficult for the, for the viewer to
know what they're looking at. So if you don't s–. That website, it's a, it's, it
is an archaic website. I mean, it is completely obsolete technologically, but
more importantly, it's also one of these things, it's, it's intentionally user-
unfriendly. It's not, you know, information is not categorized in a way
where, you know, "oh, I want to see this data this time". It's like, it's just, it
just comes in it, whichever way it, the, the algorithm these days feels like
generating the, the info. So sometimes you might see a taco, then you might see
the next one from Mexico City, then Mexico City might go to like this place
because I took a flight from there to Houston. So you might get some images
from Houston next. And then from Houston you might get some things from another
city in the back and forth. So it actually takes all these pathways various through
it. So in this process I'm really, you know, it's, it's, I'm telling you
everything and nothing in this camouflage. In this, you know, thing of,
like, you know, historic camouflage. Now the concept of camouflage particularly in
digital identity is really important. Because historically, when you hear
camouflage, it's usually meant for, you know, warfare, battle, soldiers. And the
reason we have, the reason, camouflage looks at certain ways, because it was
designed to break the silhouette of the body of the soldier in the battlefield,
in the landscape of warfare. So this is why, you know, certain trees look certain
colors and when you look, you know, it's every place you go, there's a different
war. Each, with each war, there's a different pattern, that, that's used. Now
if you look at the new camouflage, that most troops are wearing, particularly in
the US, where I live, it's all pixeled, it's all pixelized, you know, it's all,
and it's all this, like, weirdly grayish, greenish color. I don't know if you've
noticed that color. But there's no trees that color anywhere. It's because it's
not meant for blending into the landscape anymore. It's no longer meant so the
soldier has to blend into the battlefield. The reason it's pixelized and
it's that grayish, greenish color is because we no longer have a need for the
soldier to blend in to the battlefield, the physical battlefield. But what we want
is the soldier to be, so the enemy cannot distinguish the physical body of the
soldier in the noise and the night-vision goggles. That's why it's that color.
That's why it's that grayish green. So this is a huge step. So we no longer, it's no
longer about the physical presence of the body in the, in the war field, in the, in
warfare. But it's now about the, it's now where the, the digital body, that the
physical body is intentionally camouflaged and mistaken for a digital
artifact. It's that pixelization, that we've forced basically in
warfare. And a lot of work, that I do, with a lot of, a lot of the art, that I
come up with, comes out of warfare and such. And I'll show you a little. But this
is a really important piece, that I wanted to talk to you about. Because this
was taken from one of the earliest samples of what the US Army uses. And it was done
at the, at the base, at Natick, which is the, outside of Boston. This is where a
lot of the camouflage in the US is designed. It's the US Army's fashion
design department. Though they would never call it the fashion design department. But
this is where they design all the camouflage and the, and the outfits. And
so this sample was taken ... At first, it just looks like a modernist grid. Various
photographs and such. But what they really are, is ... I took the old sample
and I blew it out and took out each pixel and replaced each pixel with a photograph
of a historic or current point of conflict. So there's these two images
right in the middle. If you look. The two blue images over there, kind of in the
middle to the bottom, those are in North Korea. Those are north the 38th parallel.
That could technically, north the parallel. So you're actually in North
Korean territory, but at Panmunjom. There's actually six buildings and three
... And all six are built directly across the border. And, you know, it's kind of
unpractical to share half the building with another country. So three of the
buildings belong to South Korea, three of them belong to North Korea. So these were
the South Korean buildings. But physically in North Korean territory. Similar like
that plate of ham that you see right below it, you know, it's a Spanish ham.
And being a good Muslim, I really do enjoy my Spanish ham. But this was, this
was photographed in Guernica, the site of a brutal massacre. Shortly ... you know,
so similarly, so each of the, every single one of these images, they might
seem like these generic or bland images, but they're all historic conflicts or
current conflicts. There's, there's an image in the, in the upper right hand, in
the upper left hand corner, right there, and it's, it's of an office building with
just a flag with three stripes going across. And this is like a quick world
affairs quiz. Which country has, has a flag that goes three horizontal stripes
across, the top and bottom are red, and the middle one is green? Any guesses on
this country? Three stripes, red, green, red. Lots of confused looks,. Huh? ...
It's, it's a trick question. The country doesn't exist. It's a, it's Transnistria
or at least the Russians call it Pridnestrovia. And it's a breakaway
republic of Moldova, it's a tiny little sliver of land between Moldova and
Ukraine. Maybe about 20, 30 kilometers wide and maybe about 200 kilometers long.
This tiny, tiny, tiny sliver ... no one ... They have it, well, by the way, they
have their own military, they have their own passports, they have their own
currency, they have their own judicial system, they've their own everything. Like
a country, except no one recognizes them as a country. But if you need to go buy 20
cases of AK-47s, this is the place to go. So this is, this tiny piece of land, this
tiny piece of land, that no one recognizes, is really where a lot of the
destabilization of the world comes from. So I went over there and then of course I
would tell my FBI agent: "This is where I was going, just loitering." He was like:
"What are you doing over there?" So I said: "I'm just hanging out, just seeing
what's going on." Anyway. So again, all of the, every single one of these images,
there's bits and pieces of these types of source ... But I want to go back at the
state of warfare and talk to you a little bit about that. So, I live in the US. And
you know, it's we're, you know, currently at the war on terror. Actually the, the
real name is the Global War on Terror. And this was a drawing that I did for a
project a few years ago. And there's a, there's a congressional document. So
there's this document, that the US Congress keeps, and it's called the
"Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad", this time was 1798 to
2006. This gets updated every year. And interestingly enough, when you look at
this document, it's ... everything is just the facts, everything is, you know, in
1838, you know, Marines chased pirates onto a Caribbean island. Well, when the
Marines landed on that Caribbean island, we invaded that country. Any time you send
your troops on to another country soil without that country's permission, you
have invaded that country. So everything from like, you know, Marines chasing
pirates to a Caribbean island all the way to World War One, it's all just one,
everything's just listed as one instance, just straight down like ... And this, and
it's just, goes on for pages and pages and pages and pages and pages and, you know,
so and then you look at it like: "Wait. When, when did, when did the US invade
Florida?" Well, that was when it was Spanish territory, this is a, you know, before
that became part of United States similarly, you know ... So when you look
at it, all the white X's are all the invasions, that the US has undertaken
between 1776, which was the year of the independence, to World War One. All the
gray X's are World War One to Vietnam. And all the black X's are Vietnam to today.
The number of invasions, that the US troops have undertaken between 1776 and
World War One, roughly equate the same amount as World War One to Vietnam. And
the number of invasions from 1776 to Vietnam roughly equate Vietnam to
today. In the last 100 years, in the last 117 years, since 1900, there's only
been five years, where the US has not been at war. Interestingly enough, we've
only declared war 11 times in history. Since independence of the country, the US
has only formally declared war 11 times. Yet of the all the years, that we've ever
been an independent country, like there's only like 20 or 30 years, that we haven't
been at war. And most of those are pre 1800. And then... So since
1900, there's only been five years. And you can see all of these dots. So one of
the reasons that I wanted to create this document, is that I had this proposal,
that I wanted to do for this, uh, this museum in Spain. And I was talking to
curator and I said: "Hey. You know, it would be really great, what if we set up
a wall of like bulletproof glass in the gallery. So we'll just, it's like, as
people are going around the museum, we just set up a huge bulletproof, huge
sheet of bulletproof glass with a really faint drawing of the world. And we'll
have got, we'll have a guy with a rifle in the back and he'll shoot bullets at the
audience. But the, but because there's bulletproof glass, it'll stop. And I mean,
I knew that there was just no way they would go for it. But to my surprise, they
said: "Let us talk to some security people and we'll get back to you about this."
And I was really surprised. So in the meantime, we did some ballistics tests.
So check this out. Look at, look at, I mean, like, that's what it looks
like. I mean, it's just beautiful when ... I mean, just the way, like, when
basically, when bullets hit bulletproof glass. It's not really glass, it's just
very dense plastic. And the heat of the bullet comes in at such velocity,
that the plastic melts just ever so slightly and then just swallows the bullet
back up and it freezes back up, so slightly liquefies and then solidifies.
This is what happens inside your body, when you get shot. Except your body
doesn't just, you know, absorb the bullet and just refreeze together. It's just
like this really scary looking thing of just looking at that, that blunt trauma,
that immediate point of when that bullet hits. This is what happens. So we
did some ballistics tests and we went through some ideas and then, and then of
course, as I expected, they said: "No, you're crazy, there's no way we're doing
this." But they were willing to send this out to, to off-site. And we built this in
these fabricators built this off-site. And of course then there was these other
problems of, you know, if we build this in the US and send it to the museum, I mean,
you know, when it comes into Europe, does it get imported as artwork or does it get
imported as, well, possibly firearms because there's actual real gunpowder in
it? There's a lot of problems. So in order to deal with the customs issues
of it, we figured, you know, what, let's just ship it,
let's just have it built in Spain. And then, as we were about to build this, we
realized: There was a little pesky Spanish law, that requires you to be at least 25
meters away from the intended target. You can't discharge a weapon in less than 25
meters of its intended target. Now of course I wanted this piece to be gigantic.
And then you could only imagine, that this, the price of the bulletproof glass,
as it gets larger and larger and larger. So we eventually agreed that it'll be 4
meters by 2 meters. Except at that scale, each of these dots, each of these bull–,
each of these targets then become like 3 millimeters or 4 millimeters in diameter.
Now I don't know how many of you do shooting or target practice or any of
that. But try to hit 330 dots that are about 3 to 4 millimeters in
diameter from 25 meters away, one after another, without missing them. That's
actually practically impossible. So I was like: How do we do this? And then the
museum fortunately hired three former Olympians to do this. It was just
unbelievable, watching these guys. And of the 330 bullets, that are there, 326 of
them were exactly on center. The four that were off, were no more than five, five
millimeters, and I'm convinced I just drew them wrong. Those four, I mean, it's
just, it's just unbelievable. But you, but you can see what happens. So in the
middle over here, this is Central America, we have hit, we have invaded
Central America so many times. That as you keep hitting these bullets, these
physical, these bullets, just eventually the bulletproof glass just shatters and
gives away, I mean, it so, it causes a literal wreck. So it's kind of
interesting, looking at this, this very abstract concept of, of these invasions,
these political, these types of political policies, that we have, and what the
physical manifestation of that, what that does in a map. But what does that do to
the physical geography? So I'm really interested in this idea of geography body,
data body, this physicality and the virtuality and how these two come
together. And this. So similarly, uh, I've been, I've been doing a lot of these
things about warfare and such. And I want to show you this project. This is a
project that I've been working on in, in Hawaii recently. And you know, Hawaii, I
mean, who's gonna turn down a job in Hawaii? It was pretty unbelievable,
getting a chance to do this project. And so, when you go to, when you
in... Hawaii is a really interesting, at least in American policy
and American political and cultural perspectives, Hawaii is a very unique
place. Because Hawaii is the ultimate manifestation or the ultimate, like,...
embodiment of what we in, in the, in the US we have this term called "manifest
destiny", which was a term from the early 1700, actually the late 1700s, in the
early history of America, where we decided to start in the East and the
Atlantic and expand all the way across the ... That we will manifest the
country and the whole land will become ours. This is the birth of the US. This
is the idea of how the country was, was given birth to. Now, Hawaii is a really
interesting situation in this perspective because now, you know, we've started on
the Atlantic coast, we've conquered, conquered, conquered,
conquered, conquered, got, went all there over to the end. We've gone to the Pacific
Ocean. And now we've crossed the Pacific Ocean. And now we've gone to this middle
of this, this rock in the middle of the, of the ocean. And now we're at the top of
the mountain. So we've actually, like, you know, then all that, then ... The
interesting thing is: Hawaiian culture, when you go to the peaks of each of the
mountains, every, every of the mountain peaks are sacred. Interestingly enough,
when you go to each of these mountaintops, they're all, well, there are almost always
US military or some sort of government or some sort of science. But, of course, for
many ... And now, granted, I know, there is some amazing stuff being done. But
there's a lot of also very shady, you know, like it's military stuff being
done. And it's also this thing of like going up and then now with these
surveillance devices, these telescopes at the top of each of these monitoring and
surveying and measuring everything out in the West and out in the sky. And you
know, so we've gone through the West, which is also a really interesting thing
about the history of landscape in America. Let me show you, let me show you
a couple of these images of the top of this place, which is just, it's just
beautiful going up there. I mean, it looks like Mars. And a lot of the Mars
tests were actually done up there because ... I mean, it's just amazing.
Like you're looking down at the sky and there's these like satellites everywhere.
I mean, it really does look like a Martian landscape. I'm really interested in this.
Okay, so let me show you these projects. I've been really interested in watching
the watchers of this thing of ... like ... And what happens when you aestheticize
surveillance. I mean, obviously, this is a major issue for a lot of us. And a lot
of the conference topics here, talks about privacy and what to do and how to
stop mass surveillance and things of that type. But when you hear the word
"surveillance imagery", what do you think of? What are you thinking? Just imagine:
a picture, "surveillance imagery". What does it look like to you? And for most of
us, we generally probably think of like, you know, like, what CCTV or surveillance
camera images look like. Usually grainy, pixely, no, gritty, sometimes black and
white. You know, with this audience, we already know data storage is cheap. I mean, this data
storage, I mean, you could buy a terabyte drive for like 30 bucks. So data, you
know, it's, and it gets cheaper and cheaper every day. And the capacity gets
larger and larger. So it's not necessarily an economic issue. But it's actually more
of a cultural issue. And, and I'm proposing the fact that when you hyper-
aestheticize a surveillance image, your brain no longer reads it as surveillance.
Your brain rejects the image when it's too aesthetically pleasing. You read it as
landscape or you read it as, read it as landscape photography. And, and many of
the, in the case of landscape photography and many of it is, the history of it is
based on landscape painting. So it's really that, that gritty graininess that
actually gives us the, the emotional attachment that this is a surveillance
image. Because when it becomes, when it doesn't have those characteristics, when
it doesn't have those qualities, it becomes a photo or a video. So in this
case, I just, I was really interested in what happens when, when you hyper-
aestheticize that. And imagine if you had x-ray vision. Imagine you had x-ray
vision. You could see right through this wall. What would you see on the other of
this wall? Well, this image, which actually looks like a window pane. They're
actually six very large monitors and this is, this functions as a see-
through wall. So you could actually see through this wall. And just so, it just
so happened that on the other side of the, of the wall from this exhibition space
was the Baltimore Police Department. So I loved the idea of being able to watch the
police watching me watching them. And when you notice that there's that, next in
the blue light there's a little surveillance camera on top of their
dumpster which really doesn't make any sense to me why they would need a
surveillance camera over their dumpster. But I just love this image of just this
constant reflecting back and forth and watching and watching and watching back.
And in the image you couldn't tell, you know, whether it was, whether you're
looking at a photograph or whether you're looking at a video or whether you're, you
know, it's just every now that you see some blurry lights move by or some of
these figures. But really, you know, if you look at a lot of what machine vision,
a lot of the software, I mean, you know, like, you know, you see those things on
the TV with all those people looking at those monitors. And that's, no, that's,
that's like the movies or that's like they used for like fundraising. The real stuff
is all machines looking at this stuff. And it doesn't actually look that sexy at all.
So I love this idea of actually taking this image and, you know, seeing
what can happen when it's aestheticized. Now similarly, you know,
what happens when the form is aestheticized? This is the very
similar project at another location. But this is what you would see through the
wall. And when you see this, I mean, your brain completely rejects this as a
surveillance image. But this is exactly what happens right on the other side over
there. So thinking about the idea of aesthetics and what surveillance looks
like and at least, you know, growing up in an American context, you know, so
a lot of the history of American photography comes from American painting
or landscape painting. And the history of a lot of our landscape painting comes from
the Hudson River School, which is the Northeast and, you know, up north of New
York City and up the Hudson River. These gorgeous grand vistas, often of these
really large, you know, wide viewpoints, of these very like subliminal, very like
spiritual type of imagery. This very godlike imagery. Which is kind of
interesting because in the way it is like trying to replicate this eye of God. Or if
you want to look at it from the perspective of surveillance, in which we
generally tend to think of surveillance as a very post 9/11 or a very 21st century
concept. I mean, most of us did not use the word surveillance, say, you know, 20
years ago, 30 years ago. That word was not as common. It certainly has become
incredibly common in our vocabulary very recently. But even though we tend to
think of surveillance as a very post–, a very 21st century concept, this is
something that's been embedded in our history, in our brains for thousands of
years. Particularly when you look at those early paintings. And then God as the
original surveillance camera. You behaved because God was watching. So it was very
easy to replace this being above with a camera above. And that becomes so
normalized in our daily lives. I mean, think about it. How does Santa Claus know
everything about you? I mean, we were taught this since we were at such an
early point in life. We've ... So this normalization of surveillance, this
normalization. And also this, you know, and ... You know, we don't think, we
never use the word surveillance when we're talking about God. Again you know, this
aesthetics, the hyper- aestheticization or maybe, if you want to
call, I mean, this is not exactly a statusization. But, you know, in
the idea of thinking about it. So, again, this relationship between the watched and
watcher. And, you know, another similar project and one that looks like when
you break that frame of looking at ... of the format of surveillance and when you
aestheticize the format, not only the imagery of surveillance, but also the
format and how the surveillance is presented. I mean, we rarely, we would
never, we wouldn't even think of this as a surveillance camera image. But that is
exactly what this is. That's another similar piece. I just want to show you
the context of this one. Because I want to show you, but talk a little bit about
the project that's going on on the right. And this image is ... So they look like
these landmines. But they also look like satellites. I'm really interested in this
idea of like circumnavigation. I'm really interested in these things of, you know,
conceptually this project is telling you earlier about. This is about telling you
everything and nothing simultaneously. But in a similar way, I'm also really
interested in this concept of Magellan and circumnavigation, where you go far enough
to this side, you end up in the other. You circle around the whole thing. Does
that make sense, a little bit? So in the, you know, sometimes some people are so far
to the left, that they're actually very much to the right and vice versa. So
there's this, the circular reasoning that keeps coming back and forth. And I'm
really interested in this thing and ... This could be a landmine, but
this could also be a satellite. It's, there's these types. And then also at the
same time, like, this was, this is an earlier project. But they also look like
selfie sticks. But then there's these, like, all these things coming out with
these, like, these monitors sticking out of each of ... This is pretty iPad. Well,
actually this installation was done later. But I mean, now it's like these
tablets are like so common. And they're so everywhere. But what ... These are 72
monitors and all the images that I've shared with the FBI and said to my FBI
agent, these are all being shown on all these monitors simultaneously. And you
could get an idea of what you're looking at. So in the same sense this project was
... This is only a part of ... This one's... This one's about,
it's about 28 feet. So that's just about 8 meters, 8 and a half meters tall, this
piece. And it's basically every photo that I photographed and shared.
But they're all printed in these huge pieces, in these huge, vinyl banners. And
the actual photos, each photo is about this little. But, you know, there's like
thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of them. So when you look from
the back, all you see is these vertical color stripes. Interestly enough, well,
what they, the other thing that ... I don't necessarily disclose this in public
and I put the *[unclear]* but you're really looking at all the images shot on Sunday, all the
ones on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and so on with the seven days.
But what's also happening is, you know, the color bars, the test bars for
color calibration of monitors, you know, it's like ... So, one of the things that
happend, I'm sure you must have had, I'm sure, you must have had this in
Germany. But in the US we used to have a thing called the Emergency
Broadcast System. And the television show would stop and would go *peeep* This tone
would come out and these color bars would come on the screen and it would say "This
is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. Had this been a real emergency,
you would have been instructed on what to do." So this thing of impending doom,
this thing, if something is, something bad is about to happen or something bad could
happen. And because something like that could happen, we need to be ready and we
need to be prepared. This thing of like, you know, being ready for these things. So
I'm really interested in that, in this idea of, like, what happens when
you use that tone or when you use that color and you borrow that thing? But at
the same time, it's the very same system that broadcasters use to calibrate
signal. So this thing of signal, you know, and if you think about it. On a
daily basis, we generate so much digital information. How much of it can be, how do
we calibrate that? So in a way of giving a nod to that, that's where this
piece comes out of. So and then this one led to the next one, which ... This has
been making the rounds throughout the place. So this was at ZKM a couple of
years ago here. And then, now this has been floating around Eastern Europe. And
these are, you know, they look really small on the, in the photograph. But this
is the same piece, but lit up from the back. I'll show you another photo of it
so you can get a better idea of this piece. So you're seeing every little bits
and pieces and all of these things coming together. So they're about three meters
tall, each of these slabs. And and they're lit up from the back. So
and then this is a body of work that I'm dealing with. So this thing of, like,
you know, libraries or archives. And we all have them. We all create personal
archives. I mean, if you look at every single photo you've ever shot, I mean,
which you probably have a record of. You know, so when you have all of these, so
what, you know, so we're all keeping our own private archives, you know, I have my
own private archive that I'm doing as a parallel archive to the FBI. But, you
know, it doesn't have to be for the FBI. I mean, we all ... maybe in this room, I'm
sure everybody here has been watched by the government. And there's
probably a few people from the shady organizations in this room right here
anyway or certainly at the conference. But what you're looking at here is every,
maybe one of those images. And then there's this pretty grainy black-and-white
image on top. And it looks like every other industrial rooftop. It looks like
it's a roof top of a building. And you can see the, the fans and the exhaust and
the vents. And then at the lower right there's these like golf ball looking
things. And most buildings don't have those. This happens to be the rooftop of
the NSA. This is... So really you know, and I kind of look at
it like the NSA and you know - us, we're kind of in the same business. We're
kind of on the information business. Except, you know, they like to keep
theirs to themselves and I like to give it out to everybody. So, you know,
we operate a little differently in our business. But we're kind of in the same
business. So I decided to put this piece out. And really, this thing of like, you
know, so, you know, in a lot of ways they're kind of like selfies. But they're
not really selfies, because when I photographed these things ... So let's go
back to this for now. So, you know, when I'm photographing this, I mean, I could
have taken the camera and I could have photographed you right now. But
instead there's this very anonymous looking thing. I mean, like, you know, if
you've been in this room, you know, that this could, we
know where that is. But in the same way, there's these like really like, you know,
so the camera is not pointing towards me. But the camera is pointing outward. And
that's what's really important here. And there's thousands and thousands and
thousands of these. I know. So the selfies, it's become a common thing. And
it's no shame in, you know, saying you like the selfies. I mean, here's
President Obama trying to make the look at selfie stick and selfies look pretty
respectable. I can't use the new guy. I can't just bear to see him. So I
have to go with this guy. I have to go with Obama. Because, you know, it's
important. But, you know, he's making that, so when he's taken that image, what
happens? Now when you look at the image, this is what, this is the image
that we're seeing. That's, that's up on my website right now. And as soon as I leave
this room, there'll be a new image that'll pop up and then when I get to my hotel,
you'll see another image. And then when I get to, you know, wherever I go eat
tonight, you'll see another image. But anyway, so, you know, every few moments I
timestamp to change it. So when we're seeing this image, but really this is what
the, this is what the computer is seeing. And this ... Some of you, and I'm sure
you know about this, but for those that are not aware of it, I mean, you know,
when you look at the Exif data – I use *[unclear]* which is an Exif reader to extract what
my images are or what the data that's behind it – so you can see what the image
is. That was shot right there, in that location. I mean, we know that because
that's how our apps know. Would you like to check in from here? That's how it knows
the location. So location services, that's pretty simple. And that's all the,
the metadata that's going ... But the here it's where it gets really
interesting. The fact that when you look at the altitude of this image,
the altitude is 186.061643, sounds about right for Leipzig? For this area, 186
meters of altitude? Yes? No? I mean, I'm assuming it's correct because that's what
the phone is telling me. But similarly, what's really interesting is, when you
look at the image direction. So, I mean, we know the latitude, longitude, that's a
given. The altitude, that's a new one. Because an image taken on the ground, sea
level, on the ground level will look very different than an image shot on the 20th
or 30th floor of a building. Because the barometric sensor inside the phone will
put a different altitude number in there. So we know, that this image can also,
if I were to shoot this image from the roof looking down, that image probably
will be about a 188, 189, 190 meters. Because of the distance of this. The other
part, that's really interesting, is the image direction. The camera was tilted at
a 163 degrees from North. 0 being North, 90 East, 180 South, 270 West. So slightly
south. The camera was pointed slightly south-ish. Which is exactly what that
camera's pointed. Now, why does this matter? It was only a few years ago that
we were thinking: "You mean, Google is going to drive up and down every single
road and record every single street?" Yes, basically the only thing, that's
holding them back in certain places, is the country's laws or the local things.
Aside from that, not only they drive up and down every single road in every single
city in every single country that they can. They do this repeatedly, year after
year, after year, after year, after year. Some places they'll put, you know, like
in Venice, they'll have like someone on a boat that goes through. On certain
pedestrian-only islands, there'll be someone carrying a backpack of those
Google cameras around. So it wasn't that long ago that this concept, that Google
would catalog every possible outdoor space was seemed so far-fetched. It's only
a matter of time before we collectively photograph every indoor space and we
catalog every single indoor space and we photograph all of it. And sooner or
later, this database, we, through this database of every indoor image with all
the metadata, we can restitch every interior space. We could recreate every
interior space. Similarly, you know, then, you know, when you look at your frequent
locations. I mean, you know, do you look at me that's like, you know, exactly what
moment you've come on, what minute you walked into a place, what minute you've
walked out of a place. I mean, you know, how does your phone know that you've
taken, you know, 8934 steps today? I mean, it's counting every single one of
them. It knows, you went three, you know it, you've done five flights
today, because it knows that your altitude changed from here to here to here. And it
knows every second you've done all this. I mean, this is kind of crazy. So,
you cross-reference all of this data. I mean, and short of basically
giving up our phones. I mean, this data is being collected and it's gonna happen.
It's going to get archived. I mean, you know, there's plenty of, you
know, but at these... that these phones are just like, it's inevitable. And we're
not going to give up our lives without them. So you cross-reference all of
these. And very quickly it creates a complete picture of the owner of that
device. Now back in the old days, you know, you'd have to, you know, the
intelligence agencies would waste all of this energy or follow people around. I
mean, you know, it wasn't that long ago. It happened right here. I mean, you'd have
people following other people around. You'd have databases. And you have
archives on other archives. This record- keeping, this massive amount of analog
record-keeping, was not, this is not far-fetched. This happened very
recently. Now, why should they go around, do that today, when they can
just go to one of the companies and say: "Hey. You don't want you give it to us?"
Now we know, you know, of course here's, you know, Tim Cook saying: "No, no, we
don't, we don't give our information to the NSA, we don't do that." We know a
little differently, you know, I mean, remember these? These are from Snowden. I
mean, this is obvious. Look, it doesn't say, when we ... well, it does not say,
when the NSA intercepted each of these dates, when prism collection began for
each provider. They're being called providers here. The reason they're being
called providers is, because these are the companies, that are providing the
information to the NSA. So while Tim Cook can say that he doesn't, you know, well,
while he can say, well, he can say all he wants about he doesn't, you know, that
they don't involve themselves, we know otherwise. This is proof. So, you
know, so my whole thing is like, hey, you know, if the tech companies, if these
organisa..., if these large multinational tech companies can provide this
information, why can't we do this for ourselves? Why can't we just put this out
there? And what and why not just put everything out there, whether it's
relevant or not? And why not just mud up the whole system? So, you know, I'm
really interested in this idea of like creating our own archives. Do you know
this building? This is the AT&T data center in San Francisco at the corner of
2nd and Folsom. This is a project that they call Hawkeye, which is actually
AT&T's internal code name for this data center. And shortly before 2007, about a
little over 10 years ago, there were, there was a whistleblower though, that
came forward. It was in room 641a of this building, which... Basically, what
happened is: The NSA approached 16 telecom companies in the US and said: "We'd like
to copy your data stream." And 15 of the 16 said: "Sure, help yourself, you know,
make yourself at home." There's only one company, that said: "You know. We're not
really sure the legalities of this. Can you come back with a warrant and tell us
what you're looking for? And we will provide it to you, if you can tell
us what you want." But you know, you had, you had 15 of the 16 just say:
"Yeah, go ahead." So what basically, what happened in, in 2007, not like, who
knows, what it is now. But in 2007 it was estimated, that there was 213 terabytes
of phone records in this building. Every phone record of every domestic call in the
US was archived. And then of course there's multiple data centers. This is
just one of many. Now who does that phone call belong to? You know, when you're
calling grandma. Does that phone call, does that information and that phone
call, does that belong to you? Does that belong to Grandma? Or does that belong to
the phone company and they're licensing you a one-time use of it? We don't, I
mean again with this... Who actually owns this data? So I was really
interested in this and keeping it record. So, I know, you know, while AT&T's
keeping records, which is my mobile phone provider in the US.
Similarly, I'm keeping my own records. And this is all my, this is my log files
of all the people that come by on my website. And you can see all of the folks.
Let me show you a little bit cleaner version. And you can see all the
lovely happy people, that come by, like, the terrorist screening center of the
Central Intelligence Agency or the, you know, the National Geospatial-
Intelligence Agency. I don't know why they come by. I mean, I, I'm glad that they
like art. I'm glad we have patrons of the arts in, in these organizations. Because,
you know, I mean, like, they come by frequently enough. I'm not really sure
what they're doing. But I'm glad, I'm glad they like what I do. But, so, I
really have to thank one particular person for making my art career possible.
And that would be Dick Cheney. Because if it was not for Dick Cheney, I would not
be here talking to you. None of this would be possible without Dick Cheney. I mean,
really, I mean, you know, he's really responsible for a lot of things that have
happened recently. So thank you, Dick Cheney. If you're, if you're listening,
which you probably are, because you know everything and you are, you know, you have
your people. Anyway. So a few years ago, I said, well, about 2010 I moved to the, I
start–, I took a job at the University of Maryland, which is in College Park. When I
say Maryland, most people assume we're in Baltimore. Because that's the main city
in Maryland. But we're actually closer to Washington DC. So you can see, so there's
College Park, that's, that's where I work. This is the FBI headquarters. This is the
CIA. This is the NSA. You triangulate the three, it ends up on my campus. So it's
only appropriate, you know, it's, and plus, you know, we have this budget
problem in the US right now. So I'm, like, helping them out. It's like, you
know: "Guys, can I help you, guys? Can I help you out by moving in like right next
to you, so you don't have to waste your resources?" By the way, vice.com ranked
us "The Most Militarized University In America". We're number one. And then
we're not number one at football or anything. It takes a while for that sort
of stuff. But most militarized, that's pretty easy. We can do that. Let me show
you a little bit about ... So it's an amazing place. DC is, Washington DC is a
great place to be. Problem is, real estate is really, really, really expensive. Like
housing is really, you know, it's a company town. I mean, like, why else would
you need to live there unless, you know, you're working in government? So while,
you know, real estate prices in other parts of the country go up and down,
Washington just keeps going up and up and up and up and up. So, you know, it's been
good. But then I found this piece of land in St. Michael's. Now if you look over
here, it says, the average listing price in the zip code, which is the, the postal
code in that area, is 797303 dollars. This was back in 2010. You know, 800000
dollars at that time average. And then I found this piece of land for only 74000
bucks. I was like: "I want this. I want this. I want this. I'm gonna ..." I know,
it's like I need to do something. And it's about an hour and a half away from
work, which is a bit ... But, you know, it's possible. Anyway, so this is where
the house is over there. It goes further up. So it's a piece of land, it's a
beautiful place. I mean, you see the nature and all that. It's that weird
oblong shape over there. You see that little driveway with the nice trees and
that house in the water? That belongs to this guy.
*slight laughter in the audience* So, and let me take you around the
neighborhood for a little bit. So this is, this is his gate. This is his
driveway. He drives up this way. He has a five car garage. Two of those
garages go back pretty deep. This is swimming pool. We're gonna hang out here
over the summers, hang out, you know, we'd gonna throw some parties. This is his
front room. This is his kitchen. This is where he sleeps. And this is where we're
gonna plot world domination. We're gonna hang out and eat yellowcake up there. So
this is the place. I'm hoping to build this. This is what I was trying to
build. But the listing just kind of disappeared. It literally just
disappeared. And I'm convinced it's, so, you know, it's like he kind of does that
to people, too. I'm glad he just did it to the listening and not to me. But, you
know, it wasn't withdrawn, it wasn't sold, it just like disappeared. So these
days, it has become like this really conceptual project, where I'm actually
painting them. And then I'm photographing the paintings. So this is what I'm
actually showing. So, you know, it's... So, okay. Here's my thing. So,
look, here's a man, Dick Cheney, with not only are you dealing with the former vice
president. You're dealing with the former, you deal with the former CEO of
Halliburton. Like every ... This man has every motivation to be secret. This man,
money is no object. And yet, if I can show you, where he sleeps and where he eats
and where he swims, I mean, what can he know about us? I mean, I'm completely
self-trained in this. I'm not even, I'm not even like, you know, I'm not even like
that, that tech-savvy in this. I mean, I just kind of, just like duct-tape things
together to find things, whatever I needed. But what do entire companies and
corporations and countries, that really have the motivation to dig through our
information, what can they get about us? So I'd like to leave you with this, that,
you know, we really need to come up with a different idea and a different
interpretation and a different meaning of what privacy in the 21st century means.
This is no longer, we can no longer afford to use the same definitions
of privacy that we used 50 years ago. Or a hundred years ago. Or 200 years ago. Or
even just five years ago or even just last week. We need to have a much more
adaptive and open idea what this means to us. And for each of us, this will mean,
mean something differently. So I want to leave you with that. And thank you very
much and I'm happy to take some questions.
*applause* Herald: Thank you, Hasan.
Hasan: Thank you! Welcome! Herald: It's a fantastic adventure to be
always on the run and at the same time, actually, yeah, they're running for you
now. Hasan: A little bit. They come by. You
know, I try to be friends with them. Herald: Yeah, that's good.
Hasan: You know, they're not, they're actually not that, they're not very, they
don't like, they don't want to be friends. They just like, they just like to watch
from a distance. Herald: You think that Dick Cheney will
allow parties at your house? Hasan: I'm trying. Yeah. We're gonna have
a shooting range in the back Herald: Like it's good.
Hasan: Yeah, it'll be a lot of fun.
Herald: I'm looking forward. Hasan: Do you have a question?
Q: Yeah, thanks for the talk. You mentioned ways that you are ... kind of
anticipated things that now we kind of take very common. Is there any way in
which your art practice has evolved or responded to having a newer, younger
generation of students year over year in your classes, for whom Instagram or selfie
sticks might be just second nature to them?
Hasan: Yeah. You know, I think it's really interesting watching how people of
different generations react to this. Because, you know, I think a lot of it
also has to do with the way we communicate. I mean, there was a very
specific generation that would write a letter. And then you had a generation
that would write, you know, that would call. And then you have text. And then
you have people that write you over email. And you have people that will only text
you. I mean, we were seeing that and we're, and, and we're actually living in
that right now. Because we actually deal with certain different types of people
that only deal with different modes of communication. So I really think in, that
it's ... The interesting thing is though that time is compressed. Because we've
only had people that communicate over writing for hundreds of years. Then we
would have people that only communicated and phoned for maybe 30 to 50, maybe a
little longer. And then, now we only have that like in the last 5 years we've had
this. And then now, down to like one year. So who knows what the next method will
be? But I really think a lot of it has to do with this adaptation. I think a lot of
the things really interesting is this idea of like, like migration and, you
know, the whole immigration topics are some real hot topic politically right now.
But I think we also need to think about this from a digital perspective.
Because, you know, we turn, we tend to use the word digital native a lot. But we
never actually use the word digital immigrant. But yet that's all of us in
some way. I mean, very few of us... I mean there, yes, there are
certain, there is a certain generation that is 100% digital from day one. But
for most of us, at least of a certain age, we are all digital immigrants. And I
think that, that type of shift, I think that type of understanding of it, I think
it has an impact and particularly in terms of dealing with
learning and dealing with education, you know. At what point is it a natively
learned skill versus a naturalised, a migratory type of an action. So. Hopefully
that answers that you're talking about, yeah. Do you have another question? ...
Yeah? Q: Just ... have they ever asked
you to stop? Hasan: No, no there's no law against
talking too much. Because if there was a law against talking too much, we'd all be
in trouble. But you know, but this is interesting. Because they're very much
about, there ... It's very much a one-way direction. They're not about,
they don't editorialize, they don't provide opinion. They only take
information. They ask you questions and they take information. So you could answer
them with one word or you could answer them with millions. And I've just decided
that I'm gonna keep talking, keep talking to them. I'm a relatively, you
know, I think cooperative person. I'd like to be helpful, you know. But really, what
it is, it's really, it's, defiance through compliance. It's
this level of aggressive compliance. And at a certain point, I try to be so
helpful, that I'm completely not helpful at all.
*slight laughter in the audience* So thank you, thank you for the question.
*applause* Herald: Thank you very much. Is there, is
there ... Oh, there's a question from the internet!
Hasan: No, oh, okay. Nobody else? Okay, great.
Herald: Is there an FBI agent in there to have a drink, maybe?
Hasan: Yeah that'd be great. Yeah yeah. Herald: Why not? Yeah.
Hasan: I'm sure, I'm sure there's people from some government organization at this
place. So, you know, let's get a drink later together.
Herald: Okay, let's have one. Thank you very much!
Hasan: See you guys. Thank you so much, thanks.
Herald: Don't forget to help us all to clean this all up.
*34C3 Music*
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