control

Topography of the Information Warfare

Vladan Joler (RS)

Governments, political actors and companies are now experimenting with more sophisticated ways (harder to detect and document) of exerting internet control and disturbance in the information flow. The aim of this analysis was to explore (and visualize) some of the forms and methods of interventions that various political actors or power structures have been using to control and conquer various online spheres. Here we mostly focused on hidden, indirect actions, interventions by unknown actors, companies without visible ties to government officials, political troll armies and troll lords and “artificial” entities. This map is based on a 5-year internet monitoring process and over 400 different cases of violations documented and analyzed by the Share Foundation. Though different methods represented in this map are observed in our local context, we believe that they are also being used worldwide in similar forms. This map is an attempt to interconnect most of those issues into one map, one possible narrative, one possible reading of those processes.

Project Alias

Bjørn Karmann (DK), Tore Knudsen (DK)

Our relationship with technology is formed by how we interact with it. However, commercial smart products for the home tend to treat the user as passive consumers. Especially smart home assistance has shown design patterns that limit the possibilities of interaction and agency from the user perspective, even in the most private and personal sphere—the home. Our interaction patterns are highly determined by the designers of these products, and with Alias, we are interested in how this power relation can be redefined, especially when it comes to privacy. The exciting future that “smart” technologies can give us often comes with conditions that diminish our privacy and the feeling of being in control. With Alias we want to challenge this condition and ask what kind of “smart” we actually want in the future.

NAMAHAGE in Tokyo

Etsuko Ichihara (JP), ISID OPEN INNOVATION LAB. (JP)

In Japanese folklore, there exists a beast-like deity called the Namahage. NAMAHAGE in Tokyo seeks to reconstruct and implement the NAMAHAGE system in a modern city. It translates and reinterprets for the urban context the ritual's functions, including maintenance of rural community through mutual surveillance, initiation into adulthood, and reinforcement of family bonds.