September 01, 2006
Smart Urban Intelligence [S.U.I.]
fictive service in the very near future
"Computerized surveillance" in the contemporary society is, regardless of the distinction of government and of corporation, essentially and inextricably linked with "services" or "convenience," and it takes the form of "comfort" within the logic of consumer society. S.U.I. is a caricature of the situation in the very near future. With a mixture of realness and fiction, it somewhat exaggeratingly indicates the situation, which is now occurring and has possibility to occur from now on, in connection with surveillance that explicitly or implicitly exists in our computerized consumer society.
It is a "fictive service in the very near future." Reading actual data in a real smartcard for a railway ticket, which is now very broadly used in Tokyo area, it displays the history in the card in the form of motion video and of visualized route map in real time. At the same time, the bot as "the agent of the service" automatically analyzes the history in the card, and speaks the result to the user.
Basically the bot speaks about the following things.
1. Card holder's "living place."
2. Card holder's most "favorite place" to visit, and the related intrusive recommendation.
3. Card holder's records of "returning home," of "staying out overnight" etc.
4. Card holder's very shortsighted assumed "profile."
5. Something not worth bothering about each station in the history.
6. "General information" about the card.
---etc.
For the bot, the datum is the only real thing, and he analyzes, interprets and evaluates it with his arbitrary and biased view. As the simple "mock AI," the bot speaks about the actual data in the card, extremely shortsighted presumptions, fictive things, the real fact related to the card, and so on.
I hope people become more aware of the growing situation, that is "administration of individual body by the RFID technology," and of the problems it potentially contains through this work.
By Ryota Kimura [Related: The SWIPE Toolkit]
Now in CyberArts2006 exhibit at Ars Electronica 2006, 31. August - 8. October
O.K Centrum fur Gegenwartskunst, Linz. [via Regine on we-make-money-not-art]
Posted by jo at September 1, 2006 12:40 PM
