a critical forum on surveillance and social control  
CITY STATE...  
 
flow / capture / control / rupture
 
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## MELBOURNE (AU) ## Sat July 20 2002
 

CITY STATE is a public event to create critical paths of understanding and responding to surveillance technologies.

CITY STATE goes beyond the continual silence of governments, industry and conservative privacy organisations to map the different ways surveillance is reconfiguring social space, power and the ways that we live.

< check out program below >

Forums include:

- Our surveillance societies
- Electronic bodies, CCTV
- Spies, September 11 and Militarisation
- Interventions

Workshops include:

- Biometrics Industries
- Police DNA Tactics
- Counter-surveillance
- Work regulation

Participants include:

- David Lyon (Queens University, Canada) - author of 'Electronic Eye' and 'Surveillance Society'
- Jude McCulloch - police activist and author of 'Blue Army'
- Roger Clarke - data surveillance and information privacy
- Jenny Hocking (ANU)
- David Sutton
- Many more participants

Preview the abstract of David Lyon's CITY STATE presentation

WHEN: July 20th 2002 - Melbourne - 10am for 10:30am Start (finishes approx 5:30pm)

WHERE: Horti Hall: cnr Lygon and Victoria Streets, Carlton (opposite Trades Hall)

COST: $10/$5 by donation.

 


 
CITY STATE PROGRAM - July 20th - Horti Hall
 
10.30

Introductions and welcomes

 

10.45

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: OUR SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY
David Lyon

There has been a widespread tightening of surveillance in the aftermath of the 9-11 'terrorist' attacks. According to David Lyon these responses are a prism that put several things in perspective - including the new relationships between nation-state and everyday surveillance, and the blind reliance on high-tech surveillance industries despite the failure of high-tech security systems already in place. Whilst their ability to curb terrorism is questionable, these new developments in surveillance erode the civil rights of citizens who will be even more profiled and screened. How can we struggle beyond the panic of 9-11 to make these mushrooming surveillance systems more democratically accountable to ethical scrutiny?
15 minutes discussion

 

11.30

Break / Tea - Coffee

 

11.45

PANEL: ELECTRONIC BODIES
Roger Clarke, David Sutton, Dean Wilson

In this panel, Roger Clarke discusses the use of datamatching and profiling technologies. David Sutton considers the modern reality of living among data phantoms. The rise of data surveillance has changed the politics of information collection by states and corporations as our data can be used to predict, shape and even control our future actions. Dean Wilson reflects on the current state of play with CCTV in Australia and discusses the questions and process of public disclosure on these issues.
30 minutes discussion

 

1.00p

Lunch

 

2.00p

PANEL: SPIES, 9 - 11 AND EVERYDAY LIFE
Jude McCulloch, Jenny Hocking, Angela Mitropoulos

9-11 has dramatically altered the terrain of surveillance technologies, laws, and practices. In this panel, Jude McCulloch considers the expansion of the military and policing existent in everyday life before and after 9-11. Jenny Hocking looks at the relationship between the state and terror since 911. Angela Mitropoulos discusses surveillance as less a collection of technologies which might infringe upon the private spaces of its citizens lives, than the surveying of movements of bodies in and through heavily partitioned spaces, including the geopolitical enclosures of the nation-state.
30 minutes discussion

 

3.15

WORKSHOPS

  • Nik Beuret gives an introduction to various counter (and countering) surveillance strategies and techniques.
  • If police asked you for your DNA, would you give it? Should you? What happens if you do/don't? This workshop with Jeremy Gans also considers Wee Waa as a DNA case study.
  • Biometrics are the measure of one's biological traits which are supposed to define identity. The Biometrics industry claim they produce surveillance technologies which can measure various aspects of the individual (face, palm, retina) in order to make a positive identification. This workshop with Sam De Silva and Gavin Sullivan will explore the implications of biometrics surveillance.
  • From spy agency to secret police - proposed new powers for ASIO. Find out from Damien Lawson
4.00

Break / Tea - Coffee

 

4.10

PANEL: INTERVENTIONS - CREATING PATHS THROUGH THE GRID
David Lyon, Jude McCulloch, Paula Abood, Compound Eye

The final plenary considers ways in which we respond to or intervene in the processes and technology of surveillance, and possibilities to create paths through the grid. David Lyon and Jude McCulloch rejoin the panel bringing their knowledge of events organised around the world resisting surveillance. Paula Abood speaks about community responses to racial profiling in Sydney, and the Compound Eye talk about what motivates their week long performance and multi media work during City-State.
30 minutes discussion

 

5.30

Close of conference

 

CityState Art Interventions
July 15-20 2002, Melbourne, a fragment of CITYSTATE. : a survey of the countless cameras that scan us represented to the city in new ways [5.30 pm 19 July cnr Bourke & Swanson St] the latest Big Brother evictee turns their desire to be watched into a desire for revenge - follow their lead as they out the electronic eyes across the CBD [throughout the week] and video art installation in the Horti Hall foyer on July 20.
   
 
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