Research methodologies

Steve Rushton - research methodologies semiar

Art in the Age of... Asymmetrical Warfare

Autonomy cube, 2014 / Trevor Paglen with Jacob Appelbaum

The piece stands on the exhibition floor, placed on top of a white stand. It contains a cluster of circuit boards, neatly organised together, cables linking them together, and one cable bundle piercing through the base of the cube, through to the stand.

The total amounts to a height of 116cm, and is described by the gallery as mixed media. That is no understatement. The work is described as a sculpture, and also comes with the artist given tagline^{<a href="http://www.paglen.com/index.php?l=work&s=cube&i=5" title="Artist website">1</a>} meant to be "seen" and "used".

Photographer, sculptor and journalistic investigator. Paglen looks for art to develop ways of seeing, things that help us see historical events of today ^{<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDxue3jGAug" title="transmediale 2014 keynote: Art as Evidence ">2</a>}. He takes concern in the topic of privacy, in some cases very directly, but for the majority of his pictural work, he observes the practical techniques that (american) governmental bodies employ to hide their activities.

Within all of the topics eluded to in [...] Asymmetrical warfare, this portion of the exhibition deals with data processing. It is the closest we get to the software mechanics of this asymmetricality.

The scenographic relation with the James Bridle piece The Fraunhofer Lines is thematic, but passive because of the relatively simple visualization ambition of the prints, whereas the autonomy cube attempts to be active, and work on a few different levels.

The Fraunhofer Lines
006 (MH17 Documents A), 2015
007 (MH17 Documents B), 2015
008 (MH17 Documents C), 2015
James Bridle

Firstly the sculpture itself. The thickness of the plexiglass really gives off a sence of strenght. It looks bullet proof: it is both strong and transparent. This a direct image. A way of saying this computer object is transparent, you can see how it works, and understand it's components, but you can not destroy it.

Then it's functions; the cube creates it's own wifi signal. It distributes an access to the internet that is borrowed from the gallery. Not only this, but it give you the added value of routing your traffic after connection through the Tor network. This is what the artist means when saying the piece is meant to be 'used'.

Tor stands for The Onion Router:^{<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_%28anonymity_network%29" title="Tor Anonymity Network - Wikipedia">3</a>}

Tor is free software for enabling anonymous communication. The name is an acronym derived from the original software project name The Onion Router. Tor directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer network consisting of more than six thousand relays to conceal a user's location and usage from anyone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis. Using Tor makes it more difficult for Internet activity to be traced back to the user: this includes "visits to Web sites, online posts, instant messages, and other communication forms".

So what does this bring us to exactly?

A metaphor for open source
A real symbol of asymmetricality
An activist's banner held up to the world
A tool to convince the visitors
A trust in a self standing apparatus
A call for art enthusiasts to act

The relation between this piece and my work is one of transparency. No hidden parts. In fact, all parts rather be exposed. I focus on processes and applications, and the common ground of trust. The autonomy cube speaks about a previously level playing field. Now this field is being skewed. It aims to display, and act out these points of view, and add a layer of discourse with the sculptural aspect.