[Final] Redesigning Privacy

For the final of Designing for Live Performance we were asked to take the show Privacy, debuted at the Public Theatre in New York, choose an interaction and redesign it.

Our group decided that we were interested in approaching the interaction where the audience members were tracked via google maps from their cellphone GPS data.

We wanted to take a slightly different approach by transitioning the Researcher on stage to become a Hacker and show how easy it is to hack the systems and cameras in place to attempt to keep us safe around the city (ex. surveillance cameras). Lindsey Piscitell, Jiyao Zhang, Jeff Park and I partnered up to work on this project, and decided to write a new scene involving the relative ease in which one could hack IPCameras to spy and infiltrate an individual.

Concept Sentences

Privacy is a play about vulnerability.
Privacy is about the power that we possess in surveilling others and how much is left to the discretion of the individual with that power.
The evolution of technology has led to a Pandora’s Box of potential violations into the personal and private lives of the citizens it was built to serve. Publicly, we are at the discretion of regulation on a policy level. Privately, we remain at the whim of those we choose to trust, who have more access to and power over our data than ever before. How do we negotiate the ability to trust with the ability to define your own identity? How can we mitigate the legacy of online profiles that will long outlive our actual lives, and the hold the “powers that be” have over the information we most likely don’t know we’re even making public?

Fuchs’ Response

The world is in the hyper present.
The mood is cold, dark and paranoid – we are at the edge of absurdity.
Time and space are undefined.
Technology drives the world forward.
Moments that are mostly sinister are dominated by stark black, white, and red.
Moments that are more familiar are colored in blue, (or warmer) bright light.

Visual Research

We conducted some visual research to inform our decisions on the mood, content, and context of our piece. You can peruse our Visual Research presentation here.

Our scene

Ultimately, we decided to rewrite a scene from Privacy using face-tracking and surveillance cameras, as we wanted to use a widely controversial issue/technology in 2017. With the proliferation of surveillance tools like nanny cams, Alexa, etc. as well as the increased use of face-tracking technology like FaceID in the new iPhone X, we thought that these issues would help produce a compelling scene that would hit the point home on how vulnerable we are to unwanted surveillance.

Once we had a general idea of what issues we wanted to tackle, we wrote two new scripts for our scene. In order to maintain believability, we decided to use a plant critic as our “target.” In our play, we would increasingly intrude upon the personal life of our “target”, obtaining surveillance footage of her ID, her daily routine, her home, and even her family. In our script, the NYPD Police Commissioner, William Bratton, along with the CTO of Persistent Surveillance Systems, Andrew McNutt, would give a presentation on the latest surveillance technology roaming the city. In the demonstration, things would begin smoothly, but our presenters would slowly begin to lose control of their surveillance technology as the presentation continued. Their presentation would get hijacked by increasingly more personal footage of our “target” guest critic, and the ensuing chaos would demonstrate the vulnerability and danger that any individual could face from this technology falling into the hands of a malignant player.

Scripts can be found here: script A, script B.

Special thanks to Andrew Lazarow, Michael Kripchak, Dominic Barrett, Christine, Danielle Rabbani, David Utley and Kyle Brown

Here is s short compilation of what the live scene looked like:

Redesign Teaser

Automated Video Final - Create a bot that continually creates a random video

Stories from the Casting Couch

The issues of verbal, physical and sexual assault have been so prevalent in the Performing Arts industry for more years than I want to even try to contemplate.  Even with the Harvey Weinstein et al. scandals, this is something that needs to be continually surfaced, acknowledged and talked about because it’s so embedded in this industry. This problem is not only happening to the 'famous' actors and actresses; there is a huge chunk of the industry experiencing some awful assaults too frequently as well.  I worked in the industry myself and had too many encounters or people with power attempting to take advantage of me --- too many that I would like to recall.

I wanted to anonymously collect the stories of the individuals that were willing to share what they have gone through from all sides of the gender spectrum.  I created an anonymized poll and was flabbergasted, but unfortunately not surprised, by how similar each experience was, how so many individuals in the performing arts community have experienced the same uncomfortable situations or new a friend that had.  

I wanted to collect the audition tapes of the individuals that came out against physical, vocal and sexual assault of the actors and actresses that are well known and juxtapose these with the audition tapes of some of the friends that felt comfortable being included in this art piece because of their experiences.

I chose the format of audition tapes because when you walk into an audition, it is such an uncomfortable and vulnerable state you are putting yourself into.  You need to put your insecurities and innermost demons out into the air in front of a panel of people that may not even make eye contact with you --- after the anguish of putting yourself out there, you may be told that you aren't right for the role and you go home feeling rejected again.

With that said, I felt as if the audition tapes were a powerful way to show how we all are vulnerable, and the text that is displayed on top of the audition tape are the similar stories that were provided to me.

For this assignment, we were to create a random, automated video bot using Python, a coding language, to create a video that would never be the same no matter how many times it was run; the content would always be different. This posted video is one example of many that I have already created. The only component that is consistent in every video created is the beginning countdown and last static frame. I don't think there's a need to post all, but this example should give you the idea of what I'm trying to say.

With the realization, after receiving the results from my survey, it didn't matter what quote was displayed over which actor's face because all our experiences are all so similar! This is the scariest part of the piece to me, but again, it doesn't surprise me.

I want to bring more awareness to this issue.  This isn't something that is new with the newly highlighted Harvey Weinstein scandal.  The origin of 'Casting Couch' speaks for itself: “The term casting couch originated in the motion picture industry, with specific reference to couches in offices that could be used for sexual activity between casting directors or film producers and aspiring actors.”

For things to change, pieces like this need to keep coming up.  I hope you enjoy my little art piece made with love and code.

Stories from Casting Couch, Run no. 1

Stories from the Casting Couch is a randomly generated, juxtaposed audition tape video collage of actor’s stories uniquely created each time the code is ran to highlight to issues of assault in the Performing Arts Industry.

Stories from Casting Couch, Run no. 2

Stories from Casting Couch, Run no. 3

Stories from the Casting Couch is a randomly generated, juxtaposed audition tape video collage of actor’s stories uniquely created each time the code is ran to highlight to issues of assault in the Performing Arts Industry.

[FINAL] Speculative Futures, Immigration to Mars

Colonization of Mars ---> Immigration to Mars

To narrow my project focus for the final presentation, I decided that I wanted to assume that the human race has already established and colonized Mars and that I was acting as an individual which was recruiting people from Earth to immigrate to the planet.

Here is my process to get to where I ended up in the final:

1. Documented Research
2. Progress at Midpoint of Project
3. Daily Practice Audition Tapes

Final

After learning about Speculative Design, I was very interested in creating my final around the topic of Speculative Futures. Additionally, after presenting my daily practice audition tapes (#3 above), I got some positive feedback to consider moving this project into that direction. At first I was reluctant to do this, but in the end I decided that it was something I enjoyed doing and wanted to explore this potential way of presenting my commentary on immigration to Mars.

With that said, I researched the techniques of army and cult recruitment to create a character that I would play in the room for the final presentation--- I called myself Lt. Chris Stanley.  The presentation was Lt. Stanley speaking at an info session, trying to convince the students in the class that the move to Mars was something that they should seriously consider.  I focused on the opportunities that this planet has and encouraged them to submit all data about themselves so that they could be considered in the selection process. Obviously, the motivation of the Mars Department of Homeland Security is not only to maintain the human race by moving humans to another planet, but also there is definitely a push here to gain more information about our citizens.

Here is the deck for my final presentation

To be considered to be selected to go to the Premium Planet, The Silicon Valley In The Sky, aka. Mars,  the individuals would have to give up their agency to the Mars Department of Homeland Security in the following ways (only the elite/individuals that scored well would be selected to immigrate to Mars):

1. Video Interview or In-Person Interview for Psychological Analysis
2. 65 page questionnaire about your personal background and current life
3. Social media access
4. Genetic Information

As for #1 on the list, 'fit' individuals would be psychologically analyzed by AI and Machine learning as to whether they would be chosen to go.  Based on our current face tracking technologies, I was able to gather the following information from the faces of the following audition tapes that I created:

Simply based on this psychological analysis, neither of these individuals would be selected to immigrate to Mars. Truthful < 80% doesn't look that great, does it? However, this is very problematic because of the biases we are already aware of in Machine Learning and AI.

Regarding #3 above, in current immigration practices at the airport, people are asked to unlock their phones so that the border officers can look in to their social media profiles for concerning posts. Here are just a couple of articles about this:

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/business/border-enforcement-airport-phones.html
2. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/4/15551492/aclu-us-customs-and-border-patrol-aaron-gach-phone-search

With that said, if the Mars Department of Homeland Security asks for this information to immigrate to Mars, it shouldn't seem strange, right? ...

As for the last request (#4 Genetic Information), I think this is the most alarming part of this commentary piece.  Can you imagine if this was a prerequisite to supply to come into a country? Are we moving in this direction? It might very well be the case when people want to move to Mars...

It's hard to say if anyone from the class would have actually moved to Mars and was convinced from my info session, but I think they got the point that there should start to be a real discussion about the following points:

• Who will get to go to Mars?
• Who will be the people that get to choose who gets to go to Mars?

---

Alternative Idea

There was one aspect that I wanted to include in my presentation that I ended up cutting out because I wasn't sure if it would land well.

I was still going to present the final as a recruitment info session about immigration to Mars, but what I wanted to start off with was to present each individual in the room with a pill (the demo pill that I would hold would look like this with the LED active),

Tracking Capsule

and I would expect each individual in the room to consume their pill.  In the pills that I would be handing out to the room, they would simply be filled with sugar and to make it seem more real, I would inform them that the LED tracker would, in fact, light up once it was in the stomach fluid. Since this is a Speculative Future, I would inform them that this tracker would remain in their system for 1 week and the Mars Department of Homeland Security would be collecting these trackers at the end of the week.  These trackers would give us the information of the following:

1. Genetic Data
2. GPS Data (where did you go in the last week? Your psychologist? Spa? Are you taking care of yourself?)
3. Heart rate (Are you doing Cardio in your weekly routine, etc.)

Along with taking this pill, we would ask for the 65 page questionnaire and social media access.

If people in the room didn't take the pill (remember, it is just a sugar pill for the demo) they would be asked to leave the room (I was then thinking of streaming my presentation out into the hall so that those students could see the presentation, but if this was a real case scenario, the people that aren't willing to give up all their agency right there and then, they would be asked to leave the premises.) I thought the idea of pressuring the individuals in the room to give up their agency right there and then, might be an interesting experiment, but as I mentioned, I decided not to do this.

For those that decided to take the pill, I would have given an altered, but similar presentation to the deck linked above.

Interactive Nonfiction Canon

Even before taking this class, I used this interactive, web-based documentary, The Space We Hold created by the National Film Board of Canada, as inspiration for the 360/VR film work I created this summer at Adobe. I was looking for web-based stories that did a really good job using interaction in their story and this is one that stuck with me.

The Space We Hold bears the audience witness to the testimonies of three former “comfort women” who were among the 200,000 girls and young women kidnapped and forced into military sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during WWII.

Without having to mention it, these stories are difficult to hear and the  strength these women have to share their stories is truly incredible.

The story introduces some of the victims of militarized sexual assault in the traditional documentary style at the beginning documentary. As we continue into each individuals story, which they warn are difficult to listen to, the filmmakers ask for consent as to whether or not you feel comfortable hearing the tales:

I appreciate this approach because it wants each viewer to feel safe in this experience.

As the stories are told, you have to hold the spacebar down continuously so that the story will continue.  This really enforces the viewer to be attentive and focused on the story --- I believe this was very well done.

If you ever release the spacebar the story pauses:

Some moments were very hard to hear and internalize, but having the ability to remove my finger from the spacebar, at any point, to have a moment of pause, to reflect that I was hearing was an amazing opportunity to offer.

If the stories were too hard to hear, the creators gave the viewer the choice to stop listening. If the "I choose to stop" button was pushed, you were brought to a screen that reassured you that it was alright to stop, and that others have done the same.

Additionally, the creators offered some of the reasons provided by the viewers that couldn't continue to ease the mind of the viewer that has chosen to stop watching

I think this is very powerful that the creators give the agency to the viewers to not continue to watch if the content is too tough for them.

At the end of the documentary, the creators encourage the viewers to post a response to the documentary, which are populated in a point cloud that the viewer can hover and see what others commented.

I feel that The Space We Hold is an exceptional example of an alternative documentary that not only addresses a difficult and extremely important story to tell, but also supports the viewer by not forcing them into an experience that may not feel ready to be a part of.

I appreciate that there is compassion for the story tellers and for the story receivers.

[progress] Colonization of Mars

This is the location where I have been keeping record and notes of items of relevance for my final project.

Just the idea of colonization of Mars makes me nervous. Why? Because I feel like there are so many issues we have made here on Earth that can certainly propagate on another planet if we aren't careful.  Are we going to make the same issues on Mars that we have to the environment here on Earth? Will we have the same segregation and class problems there as well? These are the topics that make me concerned.

When I think about this project, I continually go back to the question of, "How will we decide who gets to go to Mars and who will make that decision?". SpaceX and Mars One are two corporate giants that are funded by investors that have an agenda for this jump to Mars.  Are they going to be the ones that decide? Will the government decide? And then I turn the question around to myself and ask myself the same question, "Who would I put on Mars?" and I can't say that I have an answer.  Will it just be the rich that get to go? Will it be the new Silicon Valley if Elon Musk and SpaceX gets there first?

I made some audition tapes of some potential candidates that might be some of the people that end up living on Mars for the rest of their lives. I'm not sure I would say that I would want any of them to go, especially based on a simple video.  How much information would we need to receive from a person to say, "Yes, you can go to Mars."? What traits, qualities, personalities, etc, would help a person get to move to Mars and which ones would prevent them?

This question fascinated me.

Because I couldn't find an answer for the person I would send to Mars I have been toying with the idea of creating and application package that would have a multi-page questionnaire and DNA sampling kit so that the government/company that is permitting you to help colonize Mars has all the information needed to make the decision if you should go or not. Additionally, since I've enjoyed making videos, I was contemplating making a TV advertisement/sales pitch about the kits explaining the reasons for them and their ease of use (similar to the 23andMe video but more corporate in feel).