ANIMAL’s Radicals Of Retrofuturism uncovers stories by the technological rebels of the past in vintage media and looks at their predictions in the context of today’s digital world. This week, we take a look at Merrily Paskal’s “Video Soma-Feedback” in Radical Software circa 1972. Imagine. You can have a videotaperecorder at home. You can record sound and […]
Artist Jonathan Keats is distributing long-exposure pinhole cameras, to be installed throughout Berlin and developed 100 years from now. On May 16th, Keats, along with Team Titanic, will let the public place a camera in a hidden location anywhere in the city for 10 euro (about $14). The camera will make objects which are exposed for shorter […]
Artist Leo Selvaggio is attempting a crowd sourced anti-surveillance solution and using himself as a martyr for the cause. URME (pronounced phonetically) will allow its users to “become” Selvaggio to facial recognition software. His technique is simple: paper or 3D-printed (if you’re fancy) prosthetic masks of his face will trick cameras into recognizing him instead of you. […]
In the surveillance video above, we see a pedestrian walking down Coney Island Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, minding his own business, when two snow plows drive by. The first passes without incident, but moments later, the second sends a tidal wave of snow and slush barreling toward the sidewalk, sweeping up our hero and knocking […]
A new report from the think tank New America Foundation claims NSA surveillance isn’t nearly as effective at stopping terrorism as the feds would have you believe. The study, titled “Do NSA’s Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorism?” Of the 225 counterterrorism cases researchers studied, only 7.5 were investigated under evidence obtained by the NSA. The […]
“Innocent until proven guilty” doesn’t mean much when it’s this easy to be “proven guilty.” Case in point: Donald Andrews, the owner of a head shop in Scotia, New York, who was the target of a paid police informant’s bogus drug bust in April. All it took was a sneakily planted crack-cocaine baggie onto the […]
Tomorrow, the House of Representatives is expected to vote on an amendment to the 2014 Defense Appropriations bill, which will determine the Pentagon’s spending next year. The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), would divert taxpayer money away from NSA surveillance of and collection of data from American citizens who aren’t under investigation, a […]
What better way to mark the 110th birthday of the writer behind 1984 and Animal Farm than this? A Dutch art group called Front404 decorated surveillance cameras in Utrecht with pointy little party hats on June 25, because even the eyes in the sky can appreciate the late literary great and his disturbingly prophetic vision of the future. Front404 […]
Not to be outdone by the NSA and the GHCQ, the NYPD is unveiling some scary spying equipment of its own. The Domain Awareness System, a program rolled out last year that compiles information from every NYPD surveillance camera, license plate reader, and radiation detector in the city, will soon be made available for every cop […]
The NSA is listening, PRISM is ruining the internet and surveillance cameras are everywhere. Bummer. Well, we might as well have a little fun. Here’s our fashion spread, as shot through NY subway surveillance monitors. It was fun until an MTA worker — not a cop — asked me, “You know, we can arrest you for […]
