Real Time Cities: An Introduction to Urban Cybernetics Project Description

Delete Machine

An Interactive Installation

In several countries, government authorities censor and monitor internet usage, employing increasingly sophisticated means of control. Internet users situated in such restrictive conditions invest tremendous efforts to bypass censorship and reveal manipulated content. Grassroots heroes like e.g. Ai Weiwei became well-known because of their posing provocative questions and their criticism on authorities, which subsequently caused their disappearance - both virtually and physically. However, originally the hero is not elevated into its hero-status by employing Western values and criticism within authoritarian regimes (e.g. China, Iran). Hero in this case does not refer to a specific person, rather hero is a dynamic status manifested through both, appearance and disappearance in internet censorship. Delete machine situates itself in a specific cultural and political context. It is seeking to communicating between different provocative questions, and observing the appearance and disappearance of those heroes contributing to them. Delete Machine simulates the condition of internet censorship in Iran. Everyone, who enganges with it can test to what degree censorship will limit his/her ability to receive answers to personal, critical searches under Iranian conditions. The result is not only the question itself being deleted as a result of imposed

values, but ultimately the person, who poses it. Delete Machine could be considered a way to describe the practices of censorship under authoritarian regimes, which eventually are a deleting process of the individual, whose nature it is to ask questions and seek knowledge. Anne Schmidt, Brad Crane, Ling Fan

How was the data collected? The application searches google for a user input query term. The top twenty results are collected into an array. Each result is then tested through an Iranian proxy server to check if the link is viewable or is censored. A blocked / available array is generated and contains the second layer of data. Why was the data collected? Our polemic is that by censoring data on the internet governments are limiting the availability of a dynamic world view. This limitation is indicated by the willingness to omit or redact search results. Our data is further indicative of what is available versus what is viewable. What is interesting about the data? In this case the data is a direct statement about the policies of a country toward a specific person or topic. This quantification is essential in the understanding of the way countries perceive and understand events both current and historical. The lens which we each view the world, the heroes we hold dear, they all shape the way we think, act, and respond to our environments.

provocative question; to trying to make themselves disappear with a provocative question; To finding a connection between different audiences/heroes. What do they stand to learn? To creating understanding that there is a difference between cultural and political systems; To creating awareness of a self presence in such systems; To explore others questions and presence What sort of control are they offered over the interface that delivers the information? The dataset is entirely dependent on the query search term given by the user and the provocative nature of their attitude toward the installation. How is the question of the magnitude of the data dealt with: limiting the collected data, limiting the dimensions in the data set to be represented, or abstracting the data? Our data is limited by the behavioral tendencies of web use. It is a colloquialism that no one ever looks past the first page of google results. We have doubled this in our set for a dynamic, but usable dataset. In the overall archipelago the dataset would be created for all 10 countries proxy results. This set would be larger but would never exceed 10x20 results. How does the original question to be addressed operate as the benchmark for eliminating unnecessary details in the data visualization? Our data visualization is dependent on

Who is the target audience of the data visualization? Anyone who has a provocative question to ask and is willing to dilute What are the audiences goals when approaching the visualization? To searching the accessibility of a

the user engaging proactively the spirit of the installation. If the search query, for example, is cupcakes, perhaps it is 100% available and the results are uninteresting. In this case our device will respond with a provocation, like Perhaps you would like to see how an inspirational hero in your life is seen in <the country>. How are particular patterns highlighted through visualization techniques in order of their importance? A continuous log of the results is kept by the printing scrolls throughout the exhibition. This analog record can be browsed or just acknowledged peripherally. Is the data of a static or dynamic nature? It is assumed as static, but is dynamic in response to the international policies and politics of the current moment. For example, as the news of the day evolves different things would be blocked in response. In Iran the censorship policies the day before the Green Revolution and the day after were likely drastic. If the data is of a dynamic nature, what happens when it starts to change? How does the audience interact with this live data? How is the data that changes over time unraveled? Repeated or popular searches could be compared over the life of the installation. It would be a serendipitous occasion where the dynamism of the data would be perceptible.

World Map of Internet Censorship (Wikipedia, Jeffrey Ogden, 2011)

Workflow diagram

projector

light

backlighted projection screen smoked glass sensor

Prototype of Delete Machine

Searching and Dissolving according to the amount of censored search results

Twitter stream of all searches

Mapping the search results onto a world map (Zoom-in on regional map)

GOOGLE

Proxy
(IRAN)

Flowchart of Prototype

Circuit of Prototype & Printed Circuit Board

Processing code

Panopticon

Field

Line

Options of Spatial Layout

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