Tuesday, September 28, 2004

CALL: Gathering of the Tribes Magazine - Sousveillance

Deadline:  February 1, 2005

A Gathering of the Tribes (tribes.org) magazine seeks submissions for a special issue focused on the evolving Sousveillance art movement. We are looking for contributions reflective of how the arts are affected by monitoring and surveillance (socially pervasive computing) that are affecting human liberties. Defining the public space and identifying the opportunities for expression that public spaces afford needs to be contrasted with the importance of defining freedom and privacy in this era of instantenous access to information. From consumer data fed to advertisers via creditcards, to collecting information to ‘protect’ us from terrorists, to the monitoring of books we buy or borrow, the fact is that information collection systems are ubiquitous and converging with bio-informatics data mining, facial recognition, and even personal DNA data systems. Our world is closing in and the opportunities for autonomous creative expression are declining along with it. Reestablishing power and control over our own lives may come from a creative appropriation and understanding of how surveillance systems are integrated into the social environment.  Sousveillance is one potential avenue towards achieving this goal.  Surveillance, meaning to watch from above, can be countered by developing the art of Sousveillance, a phrase coined to describe the act of watching from below.

http://sousveillance.org/tribesissue/ (full call for submissions)