FANGØ is a defense weapon against surveillance capitalism. Disguised as a mobile phone charger, it operates as a microcontroller that takes control of the smartphone in which it is plugged into. Making random searches and liking random posts on popular social platforms, it aims to deceive data brokers and disrupt the data capturing process. FANGØ takes its name from the acronym ‘FANG,’ derived from the names of the pioneering companies of what is now known—following Shoshana Zuboff—as ‘surveillance capitalism.’ Just like industrial capitalism turned nature and work into commodities, surveillance capitalism turns experiences that occur in the private sphere of a person into commodities that can be bought and sold. Thanks to algorithmic processes that remain largely unseen, users’ moves and decisions are preempted and economic profit is produced for the companies. The aim of FANGØ is to disrupt the mechanics of surveillance capitalism by adding noise to the captured data. This renders any prediction based on falsely extracted data useless and therefore also without value.
FANGØ is an art and a DIY open project. The code and the 3D model are freely distributed.
FANGØ a Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google Obfuscator / Martin Nadal (ES), Photo: Martin Nadal
Credits
Thanks to: EMAP/Onassis Stegi 2020/2021, Deutscher Künstlerbund NEUSTART Modul D 2022mur.at 2023
