Surveillance
only borders people who had experienced it.
I
work there as a gallery assistant, and it allowed me to have abundant time to
understand what the exhibition is about.
I
once connected to the “public wireless” at the briefing section for us assistants,
and afterwards I simply turned off the wifi on my phone. I wasn’t aware of the
option to forget the network. A few days later, on duty, I was sitting near the
stairs, a few meters away from the
Transparency Grenade by Julian Oliver, which was placed right next to the
entrance. There were no visitors around and so I got on my phone and start
Telegram-ing my close friend. I received a notification of an Instagram-like
yet I ignored it as I was in private talks, then I heard footsteps echoed from
the entering point. I looked up, put my phone behind me and said hi to the
guest. Thereupon I realized a slight change on the monitor of the Transparency Grenade. There was a
new image shown on the screen (which before was only texts). It was a fairly
familiar image to me. I gazed on that for a while and as I finally figured out
what it was, it was a serious wtf-moment. I checked my phone immediately. The
wifi was left on since I leave home, and it had automatically connected to the
“public wireless”. The image that popped up is the profile picture of whom
liked my Instagram photo earlier.
But I haven’t run the Instagram app on
my phone…
But I haven’t run the Instagram
app on my phone…
But I haven’t run the
Instagram app on my phone...
It
was mind-blowing and all of a sudden I truly appreciate Telegram sends messages
encrypted.
Although
I knew already by then how the piece works, it was desperately shocking and spooky
when it hits me beyond my expectation. Terrible thing.
Yesterday
I toured a group of S5 students, and turned out that they liked a lot the grenade
piece. They connect to the corresponding wifi actively and crowed around the
set up for more than twenty minutes. At the beginning it was fun enough to
browse Instagram photo on such a big monitor. Soon some boys pushed the
boundary by going on to a porn site, most of them in the group laughed. Later
on some class photos of their form appeared and eventually wiped out the sexy
images on the screen, followed by a bunch of selfies. Those were supposed to be
the photos lying quietly in their own phone album, according to their surprised
little shouts. They were having great fun there, which seemed ridiculous to me.
I
remembered the say in George Orwell’s 1984,
“ignorance is strength”. The line was a political slogan after all, it makes its point clean and concisely, just like the well-polished artwork at the
showcase. We all see the stuffs, and likely read the words too, but rarely do
we extend our minds to think about the people behind, about those who made the
system and those who monitor.
Of course ignorance is strength, a strength for them who are already in power.
As
a matter of fact, surveillance could only be a concern to people who had actual
experience on it. Perhaps there aren't much people could do to help the less-conscious ones, before another rousing, obvious and impactful "civil crisis" strikes.
P.s. when even the pictogram of the don't touch sign doesn't ring a bell on people (most of the visitors in general), how could a complex idea like surveillance become a matter of concern ?
