This past December a dozen artists, activists, and researchers converged at the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University for a book sprint. Led by instigator Addie Wagenknecht, the all-women cadre convened under the collective moniker Deep Lab, and set out to “examine how the themes of privacy, security, surveillance, anonymity, and large-scale data aggregation are problematized in the arts, culture and society.” Although these topics are central to the work of most of its constituent practitioners—Kate Crawford, Jillian York, Ingrid Burrington, etc.—Deep Lab is best considered as kind of a force-multiplier where the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
And so very many parts were produced, so digging into this body of work is a bit of an excavation unto itself. The best place to start is the documentary video that was released yesterday. In it, several core team members broadly frame the state of the corporatized internet, our reliance on its underlying physical infrastructure, the state of civil liberties, the paradox of ‘data ownership’ in an era of oversharing, and post-Snowden surveillance culture. A tour of a server farm, enthusiastic crowds fawning over consumer electronics, slow pans across screenshots of social web services—against this backdrop of network topology our narrators pick apart its many contradictions. It’s refreshing and unfortunately quite rare to hear this analysis from a feminist perspective, and the commentary is accessible, broad, and incisive.
Drilling down much deeper into the thematics touched on in the documentary video is Deep Lab’s compendium. Arranged as a patchwork of commentary, screenshots, and exercises, the book reads (and views) as a series of cross-sections that slice and dice digital culture. Chapter-to-chapter the reader is required to do a fair amount of work in assembling their own grand narrative, but close attention and careful consideration are rewarded. Some standout moments include a co-opting of the The Nashravaran Journalistic Institute’s censorship techniques, a street level survey of NYC that attempts to ‘spelunk the network’ through urban markup, and a polemic and call to arms against ‘data parasites’.
To toss some fuel on the fire during the book sprint and introduce the public to their team, the lab’s member gave a series of talks, all of which are archived on Vimeo. I advise you start with Maral Pourkazemi’s fascinating overview of activism and surveillance on the Iranian internet as a reminder that conversations about ‘the network’ have drastically different implications under different political regimes. Secondly, check out Jen Lowe’s introspective talk, where she pointedly self-identifies as an artist/designer who is “thinking about how to become more dangerous” rather than carry water for corporate interests or remain silent and complicit while larger superstructures solidify. Lowe’s provocation may well double as a Deep Lab mission statement and it bodes well for further activities by the group (a lecture series is slated for NYC later this year); furthermore, it is a challenge we could all benefit from taking to heart.
Deep Lab members: Addie Wagenknecht, Allison Burtch, Claire Evans, Denise Caruso, Harlo Holmes, Ingrid Burrington, Jen Lowe, Jillian York, Kate Crawford, Lindsay Howard, Lorrie Cranor, Maddy Varner, Maral Pourkazemi, Runa Sandvik
STUDIO for Creative Inquiry
Documentary by Jonathan Minard
