Category: Event Reviews

Event: Data Through Design

I attended an event at the NEWLAB called Data Through Design, which was split in three separate sections, an exhibit viewing, artists discussion, and panel discussion. This event was an independently organized exhibition for data and cartography where they introduced a few artists who have used data in their projects and a panel discussion based on proxies was discussed. I’ve participated in the entire event and gained a lot of knowledge from the events discussion based on what the artists and panelists said throughout the event. This event was a high interest to me because I wanted to gain much more understanding in data collection from online data websites and how it can be used for a design project. I have taken a data visualization course in programming on my undergraduate years and have knowledge in collecting data but I wanted to learn more. Back when I took my data visualization course, I was very amazed in how data sets can be used in a program to determine a solution and get information. Even though I have knowledge in data collection this event caught most of my attention because of its panelist discussion in everything is a proxy. The panel was a discussion about proxies in data models where they are used in the complexity of getting a specific data set that works best for your project or needs. Proxies is everything is their theme in the discussion and this is because proxies are the information of things around us that can be brought together in order to be used in special work for the society. In my understanding the event is teaching the audience to grasp knowledge on data and how data is useful to the people and their works.

At the event I saw an exhibition viewing. In the exhibition there were a couple of projects created by the artists who were in speaking at the event. There was piece of works called temporal views of a bike lane, collision course, cards against hate, and a few more. All of these exhibits have data collection in them that was used to be created. For example, one of the exhibits called cards against hate showed cards that had different information about none hate crime in the week based on religion, race, and other subjects. The artists who created these cards used a data collection to get the information they needed to showcase their work. The artists who created this piece of work spoke to the audience and said that the data sets they used helped them get what they wanted and they agreed that the data collection of information would change the society in many ways.

The event talked about how useful data is helpful to the people and the design projects that are being developed by artists. Data is a big informational source that never ends. You can use data for anything you want. But mostly people use it to find solutions, make life simple for its users, and create a better living for the society. The information within data is very big and you can find about anything on the topic you choose to explore on. I believe that the information within data is useful in many ways and will help the people or users interact with products that use data in a much effective way. There is still a lot more information to be added to data. It is a growing branch that has no limits. Data is big and is growing more and more every day.

Proxies or data collection is a good tool because it helps users connect with information in a faster and smarter way. As Jim Martin and Raik Zaghloul say,

Collection management is profoundly affected by rapid changes in the library profession. While this provides librarians with opportunities to connect users with information, it also demands the ongoing development of new skills (Martin & Zaghloul, p. 313).

Even though I have knowledge in data collection, I have learned a lot by going to this event. This event should go on more throughout the years as technology is developing every day. The event has given me the understanding of how data or proxies is a big solution to the society. I believe that the event changed the way I see data in the way that data not only has been used at libraries, programs, but also on design works like cards against hate. Many of the words spoken about data at the event gave me the expertise on how data collection is used in about almost everything that we can think of.

Reference

Jim, M. and Raik, Z. (2011). Planning for the acquisition of information recourses management core competencies. New Library World, 112(7/8), 313-320. Retrieved from URL https:// doi.org/10.1108/03074801111150440

Link to event: http://2019.datathroughdesign.com/

Posted on by Antonio Peralta 0

How Netflix Learns What You Like

On Thursday, February 28th, NYU Tandon School of Engineering held a live streaming event featuring a talk given by Netflix’s Director of Machine Learning, Tony Jebara. The topic covered was “Machine Learning for Personalization”, which Jebara provided company use cases and solutions for content personalization.

Netflix Director of Machine Learning, Tony Jebara

Netflix, a streaming media-service, is well regarded within the machine learning field for developing impressive machine learning models that incorporate advanced feedback mechanisms to train and improve those models.

According to the Director of Machine Learning, Tony Jebara, every Netflix user’s experience is unique across a range of personalized content. A few examples of personalized content provided by Jebara were rankings, homepage generation, promotions, image selections, searches, advertisement displays, and push notifications.

Content Personalization

Content personalization is a technique leveraged by many companies, across many industries, for the business of either creating content, distributing it or both. Content encompasses everything from online articles to advertisements. In Digital Disconnect, McChesney describes that the popular digital method “personalizes content for individuals, and the content is selected based on what is considered most likely to assist the sale” (p.157).

Entrepreneur lauded Netflix and other media companies who are successfully leveraging machine learning to develop custom experiences but notes a dichotomy which plagues user’s and their preferences. The trade-off between conveniently custom experiences or inconveniently anonymous reintroductions. On one side, users face issues surrounding privacy or unpleasant information dictation.

Opposite to their praises as personalization gurus, Fast Company highlighted some of the negative criticisms Netflix has also received. When companies curate the content users consume, there’s a risk of receiving biased information whether it be political or racial. Berkowitz opens with, “How companies advertise to you says a lot about how they see you” when referring to the racial bias in the algorithms used by not only Netflix, in this case, but many of the other companies working to deploy advanced content personalization algorithms.

“Filter Bubbles”

Regarding the politically charged dictation of content, Castells remarks, “The networks themselves reflect and create distinctive cultures. Both they and the traffic they carry are largely outside national regulation. Our dependence on the new modes of informational flow gives to those in a position to control them enormous power to control us. The main political arena is now the media, and the media are not politically answerable” (p. 34).

McChesney adds how these practices also lead to an issue he considers the “personalization bubble” or what he specifically alludes to as the “filter bubble” (p.157). Users are trapped in an experience they believe to be unique or new but is perpetuated by the same content delivery—just done differently (p. 70).

McChesney references Eli Pariser’s The Filter Bubble: How the New Web is Changing What We Read and How We Think when stating, “Pariser’s Filter Bubble documented how the Internet is quickly becoming a personalized experience wherein people get different results on Google searches for identical queries, based on their history” (p.157).

When Netflix Intervenes

In his talk, Jebara claimed that “prediction is valuable but actual intervention is what we want to understand.” Their algorithms are two-fold—ensuring that experiences are uniquely specific without providing recommendations that are too specific, which may lead to either a negative user experience and a potential unsubscribe from the service.

We’ve all experienced moments of interacting with a digital platform that, over time and with enough data aggregation, begins to recommend content or display ads across devices and sites outside the ownership of the originating platform. If frightened enough, we may have even gone as far as to deleting our browser cookies, adjusting our privacy settings or even unsubscribing from the service.

Algorithm Feedback

Jebara mentioned that a multitude of mixed-method machine learning algorithms are implemented to hone everything from predictive analytics and image curation to user-enforced restrictions and feedback mechanisms.

Jebara described their method take rate as a curatorial feedback strategy which tests different personalization experiences on several users to determine which of the content shown resulted in an actual viewing.

This strategy uniquely prefers the measurement of the number of viewers that strategy worked for over the number of viewers a specific piece of content was shown to. Jebara noted this method enables Netflix experts to learn from users by letting them show what content they prefer and in which ways they’re drawn to recommendations.

User Generated Feedback

This is a major shift from their previous user experience of providing users with the ability to ranking rank content using a star ranking system. Overtime and through observation, Netflix realized they couldn’t rely on that ranking system as a source of truth for which content users ranked highly versus which they’d prefer to watch. Jebara added users were not truthful in their telling of which content they preferred. Shifting away from user interaction to user observation has enabled a greater foundation for developing recommendation systems.

Conclusion

As content personalization algorithms advance, consumers will become a more passive actor in teaching content personalization algorithms. Every attempt at restricting interaction with such algorithms will lead only to yet another loophole identified by machine learning experts. How those companies manage those algorithms and exploit those loopholes are examples of the digital power dynamic which exists between the content generators and the content consumers.

References:

Berkowitz, Joe. “Is Netflix racially personalizing artwork for its titles?One writer’s experience with Netflix’s title art has us wondering whether the company is quietly using race in its algorithm for visually recommending films”. Fast Company (2018). https://www.fastcompany.com/90253578/is-netflix-racially-personalizing-artwork-for-its-titles

Castells, Manuel. The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture. Wiley-Blackwell (2010). https://lms.pratt.edu/pluginfile.php/876462/mod_resource/content/1/manuel_castells_the_rise_of_the_network_societybookfi-org.pdf

Chmielewski, Dawn C. “Netflix’s Use of Artwork Personalization Attracts Online Criticism”. Deadline (2018).  https://deadline.com/2018/10/netflixs-artwork-personalization-attracts-online-criticism-1202487598/

McChesney, Robert W. Digital Disconnect. The New Press (2013): 63-171.

Wirth, Karl. “Netflix Has Adopted Machine Learning to Personalize Its Marketing Game at Scale: Here’s how you can humanize marketing strategies”. Entrepreneur (2018). https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/311931

Posted on by tlinzan 0

Preserving our Digital Afterlives

This morning, as I was scrolling through Instagram, I came across an interesting post by Oroma Elewa, a Nigerian-born visual and performance artist, writer and director. Under the Instagram post, Elewa captioned “Please make this go viral. Don’t love and follow me secretly. Show me you care. Do not let me be erased. This is very painful.” Elewa was addressing a viral quote she had originated in 2014 on her personal Tumblr that has been repeatedly falsely misattributed to Frida Kahlo since 2015: “I am my own muse. The subject I know best. The subject I want to better.” If you Google that quote, you’ll find hundreds of images, articles, products, and social media posts attributing it to Frida Kahlo. In the comment section, people who followed Elewa through her journey as an artist on social media, supported her while others were skeptical. Frida Kahlo, an iconic artist and figure in popular culture and an inspiration to all women of many different backgrounds, didn’t say those words–but, who would believe that Elewa originated the quote?

As a young rising artist, Elewa was inspired by Frida Kahlo’s actual words: “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.” Although this is an issue of the spread of misinformation and the blurred lines of ownership and authenticity in the online world, Elewa’s fear of erasure brought to mind Michele Valerie Cloonan’s concept of the paradox of preservation and the transient or ever-changing manner of one’s digital remains. Cloonan wrote that “it is impossible to keep things the same forever. To conserve, preserve, or restore is to alter” (235). Frida Kahlo is not alive to disprove that she ever said Elewa’s quote. With endless digital copies of her image being attached to the quote, how can we manage to support Elewa’s claim? How can Elewa make sure her work lives on without the fear of being erased, silenced or altered in the digital world? And most importantly, how can we protect and preserve our digital afterlives?

The Digital Afterlives Symposium was held at Bard Graduate Center in honor of Professor David Jaffee who was the head of New Media Research. Prof. Jaffee was instrumental in introducing and creating a new direction for the Digital Media Lab at BGC. After his death, not only was his legacy as a leading historian missed, but he also left behind a plethora of files and media pertaining to his personal and professional projects throughout his life. The topic of the symposium came about while his late daughter and a few of his colleagues started a project to archive and preserve Jaffee’s work. This endeavor has led to the exploration of finding innovative ways to protect, prolong and preserve our digital afterlives and the impact technology has on the sustainability of our digital projects as well as the privacy and accessibility of our personal information.

Technology has become an extension of our physical world. As we increasingly develop and interact with technologies, we end up with a constant re-experiencing of the past. At the symposium, Abby Smith Rumsey, an independent scholar, spoke about her research paper on how memory creates identity and how humans create artificial memory through the use of digital technology. Our transformation from an analog to a digital environment has made us reliant on digital technologies to preserve memory and be reminded of the past. And there is a moral weight of dealing with a person’s memory, especially if the person can be immortalized in the digital world. In her presentation called, “Death, Disrupted,” Tamara Kneese spoke on the proliferation of “dead users” in the online world, particularly in social media. Social media is so embedded into our lives that it has become a space for ritualized mourning, memorialization and perhaps immortalization as personal profiles transform into actual shrines after users’ deaths.

But, not everything lasts forever in the digital world. Rosenzweig pointed out that the “life expectancy of digital media [can] be as little as 10 years, [and even so] very few hardware platforms and software programs last that long” (742). Platforms will eventually disappear over time. MySpace, Orkut, Friendster and OpenDiary are all remnants of the old digital environment. Inevitably, we have to address the issue of digital decay. In her presentation at the symposium, Robin Davis, an Emerging Technologies and Online Learning Librarian at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, proved the fragility of the digital world through her case study on the lifespans of digital humanities scholarship projects that were created in 2005. She found that only half of the 60 DH projects she studied were accessible online 10 years later. In some cases, she found that other projects had a shelf life of 5 years due to issues with hosting and the lack of funding while a couple of web projects were even taken over by fraudulent companies. Davis reiterated that digital scholars need to build a preservation plan into their projects and consider the longevity of their choice to create content for the web.

So, ultimately, our digital remains will disappear, but can individuals maintain and manage their own digital data in the hopes of living on as information after death? Is it possible to save everything? Rosenzweig wrote about “the fragility and promiscuity of digital data,” which requires yet more rethinking–about whether we should be trying to save everything…” (739). The debate over whether it is worthy or not to preserve everything was also discussed at the symposium. Overall, all of the speakers agreed that we do not have the proper tools or policies in place to be able to. And also that it is important to preserve more ephemeral data now in order to understand its significance in the future.  

According to Cloonan, “preservation must be a way of seeing and thinking about the world, and it must be a set of actions…[it] also has broader social dimensions, and any discussion of preservation must be include consideration of its cultural aspects” (232). Like Cloonan, Rumsey said that the primary issues of digital technology preservation are not just technical but are in light of larger political, economic, and education issues of our world. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook and libraries as well as government agencies need to put more effort into creating preservation programs. They also do not have the right capacity or policies of dealing with the ramifications of digital remains. If Verizon Media, the owner of Tumblr, were to step up and protect Elewa’s words from being misquoted as Kahlo’s, would it have stopped the proliferation of companies and individuals attributing the quote to Kahlo?

At the end of the discussion, Rumsey left us with a parting message–it is important for us to remember that there are people behind these machines or technologies. People program and create software and applications so that machines behave in a particular way, so it is only up to us to change how we use and think of digital technology. Technologies have no built in moral bias other than what we program them to be, but it is has become an expansion of who we are. The material and digital world are a connected space now. Therefore, we must take responsibility over our digitized selves.

References

Cloonan, Michele Valerie. “W(H)ITHER Preservation?” The Library Quarterly, vol. 71, no. 2, 2001, pp. 231-242. The University of Chicago Press, www.jstor.org/stable/4309597

Elewa, Oroma. “Elewa’s quote.” Instagram, 18 Mar. 2019,

https://www.instagram.com/p/BvG_v1YDnGT/.

Rosenzweig, Roy. “Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era.” The American Historical Review, vol. 108, no. 3, 2003, pp. 735-762. Oxford University Press, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/52956

Posted on by Olaide Ajomagberin 0

Event Attendance: Designing the Connected City @ Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

By: Michelle Kung
INFO 601-02 Assignment 3 Event Attendance

Cities like New York are notorious for congestion and pollution. It often takes the same amount of time to walk somewhere as it does to drive somewhere. But big tech companies are reimagining urban mobility with connected and autonomous vehicles (AVs). On the 25th of February, 2019, leaders in the field of autonomous vehicles or driverless cars came together at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum for a panel discussion. Moderated by Cynthia E Smith, the curator of Socially Responsible Design, the panel consisted of Sarah Williams, the director of Civic Data Design Lab at MIT, Ryan Powell, the head of user research and UX design at Waymo (Google’s self-driving car project), and Jack Robbins, the director of urban design at FXCollaborative. With diverse backgrounds, the three panellists debated topical issues engendered by AVs.

A World Unknown

One thing that the three panellists agreed on was that no one really knows how technology will impact mobility in urban spaces. The field is still new and concepts have only been tested on limited scales. Jack Robbins called this ‘a new era of mobility’. Indeed, we have no idea how the way we move, not just within cities but across the country, is going to change. All we know, and all leaders in the field know, is that autonomous vehicles will be the biggest drivers of change.

Heaven or Hell Scenario

Jack Robbins illustrated two opposing scenarios: a heaven scenario and a hell scenario. In the heaven scenario, after autonomous vehicles have replaced standard vehicles. There will be fewer vehicles on the road, fewer vehicle miles travelled and more spaces freed up in cities for other things. Without the need for parking (i.e. temporary storage of private vehicles) within the city, there is a tremendous opportunity for the creation of more green spaces and open spaces which will increase the liveability of any congested and densely populated city. On the other hand, in the hell scenario, there will be more vehicles and more vehicle miles travelled. Autonomous vehicles will be on the road driving around with or without passengers, which would be terrible for inhabitants of cities as well as the health of the planet. 

Will companies deliver on their promises?

Companies developing autonomous vehicles are of course promising everything detailed in the heaven scenario. But Jack Robbins cautioned event goers against trusting these companies too much.  After all, the way they make their money is incompatible with the promises they are making. For example, Google sells advertising but is promising increased road safety, mobility equity, easy parking, transit support, and less traffic. But how? By gathering an increasing variety of information on humans and on built environments.

Human Behaviour is Information as Thing

Waymo, Google’s driverless car company, purports to take a human centred approach to create a ride hailing service. Their primary goal is physical safety. In order to achieve this, Waymo collects an incredible amount of data on people and human behaviour in order to program the world’s most experienced drivers. According to Ryan Powell, 94% of road accidents are caused by human errors and Waymo’s aim is to eliminate this altogether. Waymo has managed to collect the data of behaviour patterns of adults, children, and cyclists in order to teach their fleet of driverless cars how to react safely in each scenario.

On the surface, treating human behaviour as information as thing is not at all revolutionary. Psychology, anthropology, and a whole host of other social sciences have studied the behaviour of humans for decades. But the monetisation and capitalisation of this information on such a large scale is new. Speakers in this talk were more interested in talking about the information regarding the space and infrastructure of a city than information about the people living in them, which is slightly alarming.

Public Space as Private information

A huge topic of debate in this design talk was the importance of the public nature of public space. Speakers Sarah Williams and Jack Robbins both challenged Ryan Powell on Waymo’s current practices of keeping information about the public space private.

As Waymo gathers more and more information on public spaces, their data set becomes more valuable. Sarah Williams advocated for city governments to leverage their power to ban companies like Waymo from operating in their cities to negotiate data rights. Both Sarah Williams and Jack Robbins argued for the importance of public governing bodies to step up and play a more active role in this sphere rather than passively hoping for technology companies to do the right thing by citizens. Autonomous vehicles pose real dangers in deepening and widening the digital divide, privatising public data, and decreasing equitability in cities. It is up to cities to set boundaries, guidelines, and regulations so that data collection and ownership of cities contribute to the public good and can benefit the many rather than the few.

Conclusion and Reflection

This design talk was fascinating and helped me conceptualise the new forms of information this emergent technology creates. The panel discussion really encouraged me to think more deeply about the data rights of citizens and city governments. It is already inconceivable, the amount of data big software companies have on our digital behaviour. It is entirely unimaginable, for the average user, what information companies developing autonomous vehicles will have on our behaviour in physical environments once AVs become more mainstream.

In the meantime, it is clear that city governments need to catch up to big tech players in order to ensure that public spaces are protected, new infrastructure built is adaptable to unforeseeable changes, that cities become more liveable in the long term for all its inhabitants, not just a select few.

References

Buckland, Michael K. “Information as Thing.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science42, no. 5 (1991): 351-60. doi:10.1002/(sici)1097-4571(199106)42:53.0.co;2-3.

Posted on by Michelle Kung 0

Data Through Design – Panel Discussion: Everything is a Proxy

“Data Through Design – Panel Discussion: Everything is a Proxy” was a part of the Data x Design exhibition and NYC Open Data Week. It provided a platform for the audience to learn more about artists’ creative process. The event created a unique opportunity for live communication with exhibiting Data x Design artists about their design experience based on open data. The objective of this event was to encourage students to create new methods of map-making, develop a deeper understanding of life in the city and provide a wider knowledge of NYC’s open data. The event was held in the New Lab – Brooklyn Navy Yard. It was an open space where every visitor could test the functions of any interactive exhibits.

One of the sponsors of this event was Pratt Institute Spatial Analysis and Visualization Initiative. SAVI is a geographic information system-centered research and service that uses mapping, data, design, and visualization to understand and empower urban communities. They enable students to make data-driven maps and visualizations to solve real-world problems.

Let’s take a look at some of the projects:

  • NYC Trees Soundscape

The authors of the project used a combination of six data sets to create an imitation of sounds on the streets of New York. Viewers can choose a route on an interactive map using a touchscreen and listen to the audio that simulates the environmental sounds in this location.

  • Cards Against Hate

Based on the annual “NYC Reported Hate Crimes” dataset, the project presented cards demonstrating the number of actual hate crime incidents with the real stories. The main goal of the project was to bring more attention to investigation of hate crimes and bias incidents in the US. Also, the authors hope to provide deeper insight into the nature of hate crimes among different social groups.

  • Exhausted New York

To design the installation, the artist researched the air quality index and compared it to the asthma rates among New Yorkers. Based on this information, she concluded that invisible problems of air pollution is one of the biggest in NYC. The aim of Exhausted New York visualization is to demonstrate how polluted the air that we breathe is.

Data-driven events are a great way to engage students in the creative process and encourage them to apply their digital skills. All projects were based on open data sets and the participants ’own experiences. All the artists used indigenous knowledge as a background for their projects. The artists analyzed the relevant issues for NYC and found a unique solutions. They offered fresh ideas to solve urban problems such as traffic jams, train delays and long lines. Open data sets help to present a­­ccurate and relevant information in physical space through digital visualization. With each project, data become more emotional. This process displays the application of the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom model by Ma Lai (Meanings of information: The assumptions and research consequences of three foundational LIS theories). The authors of the projects turn the data into up-to-date city management, optimized delivery and service routes, and efficient strategic planning. 

The artists analyzed statistics and data correlations in their field of study to create the projects. Research that they conducted helped them investigate the specific issues of the city from different sides and create a unique solution as a result. Digital tools and open data allow artists to be able to say what they want to say. The process of interaction between the artist and data illustrates ideas from the “Human–information interaction research and development” article by Gary Marchionini.

In the process of working on their projects, the participants encountered some difficulties. Some of the datasets were incomplete and they had to read between the lines to fill in the gaps. In addition, artists had to take into account the historical, economic, and social contexts in which they used the data.

At the last part of the event, we discussed the issue of data education for high school students. Everyone who participated in the discussion agreed that in the next 20 years the curriculum will include data handling subjects to teach children to analyze and protect data.

To create their projects, participants worked on data, analytics, mapping, design, and visualization in collaboration with different departments of various universities and sponsoring organizations. Cooperation and team work helped create an enviroment where faculty and students could share ideas across disciplines to make government services more accessible, efficient and responsive to the public needs.

Before attending the “Data Through Design – Panel Discussion: Everything is a Proxy” event, I thought that open datasets were difficult to understand and they couldn’t be applied to solving modern urban problems. After participating in the discussion, my opinion about open data changed. I realize that it is a great sourse for innovative projects that could change our environment.

More information about the event is available on the website.: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/data-through-design-panel-discussion-everything-is-a-proxy-tickets-57713713270#

INFO 601-02 Assignment 3: Event attendance by Elena Korshakova

Posted on by Elena Korshakova 0

Representation and Power on Wikipedia

Jewish Museum Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

Introduction

On March 3, 2019 I attended the Jewish Museum’s second Wikipedia Edit-a-thon co-presented with Art+Feminism. In celebration of Women’s History Month and the final day of the exhibition Martha Rosler: Irrespective, the event included a gallery walk-through with catalog designers Mika McGinty and Rebecca Sylvers, and assistant curator of the Jewish Museum, Shira Backer. The event was open to the public and aimed to offer an opportunity for people to learn how to edit and create Wikipedia articles in an effort to improve representation of cis and transgender women, feminism, and the arts on Wikipedia.

Martha Rosler: Irrespective

Martha Rosler: Irrespective was a survey of Martha Rosler’s work over her five decade-long career. Rosler’s work is dynamic and continually evolves and reacts to the social and political issues of today, yesterday, and tomorrow. Her work largely addresses matters related to war, gender roles, and urban gentrification, and throughout her commentaries runs a reflection on feminism that doesn’t shy away from the feminine. As a result, it would be hard to categorize Rosler’s work according to any one theme. People often describe Rosler’s work as “deeply political”, “feminist”, “intentional”, “outward”, and “intersectional”. Rosler fondly describes her own work as “hamfisted”.

The event kicked off with a walkthrough of the gallery led by Shira Backer, Mika McGinty and Rebecca Sylvers. The three designers gave unique insight into the processes of exhibit curation and art book formation – where they meet and where they diverge. They stressed that the book and the exhibition were not made to be one-to-one; they could emphasize different projects due to the constraints or capabilities of the two methods. In other words, the book was an opportunity to cover pieces not highlighted in the exhibition and vice-versa.

The exhibit tried to convey Rosler’s dynamism. There was a fully set dinner table with a voice-over of a woman discussing domesticity and the expectations of French women; a selection of five videos that examine the representation of women in pop culture and American imperialism; a large prosthetic leg swinging from the ceiling to a jaunty rendition of “God Bless America”.

It is interesting to consider the challenges in showcasing and preserving dynamic and ephemeral art like Rosler’s. Rosler continually changes and adds to her work, often including participatory elements to her pieces and installations. As a result, some questions the designers had to consider include: Is the first iteration the most important?; Is repetition valuable?; Does chronology take precedence? But no matter how hard someone tries to accurately preserve some creation, there is no absolute concept such as ‘permanence’. As Cloonan proposes, “the paradox of preservation is that it is impossible to keep things the same forever. To conserve, preserve, or restore is to alter” (Cloonan, 2001). For that matter, it seems to be Rosler’s intention to create ‘mortal’ work. Work that shifts, changes, and ultimately dies. It allows us to question preservation, even our own mortality.   

The curators were evidently aware of their role as history-makers and story-tellers. They cautiously discussed Rosler’s work on her behalf, careful to distinguish between their own interpretations and Rosler’s intentions. In addition, the curators revealed that they frequently worked directly with Rosler. It is important to note that they worked with a contemporary artist who was able to be active in her own storytelling. However, regardless of their efforts, the curators ultimately could only tell a single story of Rosler – their own version – and not Rosler’s whole story.

Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

After the exhibition there was a Wikipedia training course led by Carlos Acevedo, Digital Asset Manager of the Jewish Museum, followed by an open-editing session. The goals of the edit-a-thon were for beginners to learn how to edit on Wikipedia, to improve citations of women artists, and to expand biographies of women artists on Wikipedia (Acevedo, 2019). No prior editing experience was necessary in order to participate in the event. The museum also provided a number of laptops for guests to use. For an event that aimed to increase editing accessibility and improve women’s presence on Wikipedia, providing laptops and promoting a “welcoming spirit” was significant.

The Wikipedia edit-training considered the power and responsibilities that editors have. For example, it was emphasized that articles should be written from a neutral point of view. This is arguably impossible. However, the effort to avoid overly opinionated articles and original thought in edits is a fair endeavor considering the point of a system like Wikipedia is to collect and share existing knowledge as accurately as possible.

Event Stats
  • 25 people attended
  • 2 complete articles created
  • 36 articles edited
  • 145 total edits made

Representation & Closing the Gender-Gap on Wikipedia

Gender bias on Wikipedia is not limited to the underrepresentation of women and nonbinary people on the site, but is also reflected in the fact that a vast majority of editors are cis-male. For that matter, the edit-a-thon was not only an effort to improve coverage of women on Wikipedia, but also an effort to help close the gap in contributions made by women. According to Art+Feminism, a Wikimedia survey showed that less than 10% of Wikipedia’s editors identify as cis or trans women. Moreover, editors who identify as women are far more likely than men to have their edits reverted (Acevedo, 2019). Therefore, encouraging women to participate in editing projects and creating more opportunities to do so are important efforts that may help improve coverage of cis and trans women on Wikipedia.

In Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory, Schwartz and Cook describe the power of archives to shape and direct historical scholarship and our collective memory. They beg archivists to consider the power they have to essentially write history, to privilege and to marginalize. These concepts of power and privilege are not specific to archivists. This power is shared by all who document, curate, store, and share information. The curators of Martha Rosler: Irrespective were aware of this power and therefore worked to acknowledge it. Correspondingly, the Wikipedia training course clearly considered the power held by editors and the source itself.

Just as history has been written in favor of the patriarchy at the expense of women, future of representation of women and other marginalized members of society lies in reclaiming power over the documentary record and the institutions that share information. By recognizing the inherent power in archives, museums, Wikipedia, and other memory-institutions, and using that power to tell and support each other’s stories, cis and trans women can hopefully close the gap in gender representation. As an open access and open source, Wikipedia may be the place to start – the power is literally in our hands.

By Tina Chesterman

References:

Acevedo, C. (2019). Jewish Museum Wikipedia Edit-a-thon co-presented with Art + Feminism. [PowerPoint Slides]. Retrieved from: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1F6s9logWLiRTrX9l5Tt9E4GW2VTauLbhSRZBgRQj8QE/edit#slide=id.g51b9607e8b_0_122.

Cloonan M.V. (2001). W(H)ITHER Preservation? The  Library Quarterly, Vol 71, No. 2.

Schwartz, J.M. & Cook, T. (2002). Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory. Archival Science 2.


Posted on by Tina Chesterman 0

(A Little) Messiness, (Some) Clutter, and (Ongoing) Revelations(s)

Viégas and Wattenberg, presenting in the clutter

As introduced by Miya Masaoka (Director of the Sound Art Program at Columbia’s School of the Arts and coordinator of the Artists Using Data series), Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg are “pioneers in data visualization and analytics” who have “shaped the field” and crafted tools and interactions that have been “used by millions of people.” (A similar description is on their collaborative site.)

Working to a more succinct description, their business cards would formally present them as members of Google’s PAIR (People+AI Research) initiative and Big Picture team. As simply defined by themselves at this presentation, they are scientists and artists — a dichotomy that would give many pause, but is no doubt a complementary pairing for many in the field.

While the work of such individuals inevitably links or crosses from one title to another, their presentation on March 8, “Messiness, Clutter, and Revelation,” focused on their work outside of Google, wherein they have explored new ways to use and investigate data, even as they set constraints within which to play with it. In that spirit of limiting parameters (and an eye to brevity), this review will contain itself to their work and philosophies as shared at this event, “an informal talk” in a mid-renovation space — a fitting format and environment for a presentation that ultimately moved toward the playful and iterative natures of both data exploration and artistic expression.

Viégas and Wattenberg essentially took turns presenting a small selection of work, individual and collaborative, all initially produced between 2003 and 2012, but timeless in their foundational role for the artists and others. Collectively, they defined an arc where the titular elements contributed to insights for the makers but also produced pieces of art — or at least design that moonlights as art.

This is evident, perhaps, in a project like History Flow (2003), explored initially as a ‘scientific probe’ in response to the then-new(ish) Wikipedia now residing at MoMA. This elegant visual investigation tracked the editing of Wikipedia entries, including the back and forth of dueling ideologies on matters adorable and political. In sharing examples of internet favorites such as ‘cat’ and hot-button issues like ‘abortion,’ the patterns of editing and relative passion in each is unmistakable. Yet, when asked if a visualization that compared the different kinds of impassioned debates had been attempted to establish a pattern, Wattenberg responded with a simple “No, but someone should do that.”

“Using data to know things” and questions of technological limitations or permutations were explored in The Art of Reproduction (2011); specifically an understanding of “How the internet is lying to you” through the varied representations of a single artwork that can be found online — from the decaying gold of Klimt (26 Danaes) to the deceptive black-and-white of Mapplethrope (8 Kens and Roberts). Which is the true reproduction work? Or aren’t they all?

This compilation of a single vision or a larger ‘truth’ from a messy table was also evident in Flickr Flow (2009),  a commission that sought to visualize the city of Boston, starting with the particularly ‘dirty’ data set of Flickr images tagged simply as “Boston Common.” The duo let those limitations and what they brought guide the form, stating: “Let’s work with that messiness; see what we can find.” The result is an elegant abstraction of ribbons that looks nothing like (but also, somehow, very much like) Boston year-round. In the process of its creation, it investigates what we as a society have preserved.

Other works explored how we search (Web Seer, 2009) , how “the alien mind” thinks (Thinking Machine, 2003) and how music might be visualized (The Shape of Song, 2002), with the last cited as ”an example of clutter yielding something useful.”

The presentation culminated with Wind Map (2012–). Also in MoMA, this piece was the most clear presentation of the pair’s iterative approach to data visualization, a case study that showed explorations from the abstract to the psychedelic, with the ‘final’ version resulting from the addition of a single line of code to an earlier iteration. Starting with the simple, seemingly ethereal (and almost Ono-esque) question “What does the wind look like?” and the desire to “make complex data easily accessible,” they created — they would have us believe unwittingly — a practical and emotional tool.

The resulting real-time visualization was picked up by meteorologists and combined with other data in weather maps, but also caused Louisiana residents in the path of Hurricane Isaac to reach out to the artists as they tracked the storm in real time. It was also picked up by school teachers and other scientists who used it to teach and to study their own passions. None of these were intentions; they were all unexpected results.

The unexpected results of Wind Map

Indeed, through almost all of the works presented, Viégas and Wattenberg seemed to speak to the utility of data, while often deferring to others in taking on that utility. They were readily willing to accept their work in a continuum where others (for example) could then take the code and build something new or explore another facet, as the two moved on to a new subject. They were driven not by “What can this do?” but by “What happens if we do this?” and seemed to view the usefulness of a project like Wind Map with the same wonder that they viewed the initial question of “What does the wind look like?”

Here any observer could be forgiven for a little ambivalence. The work done by Viégas and Wattenberg is — to those who enjoy visualizing data — smart and well crafted. The pieces in MoMA deserve that recognition. They do make one think — but mostly about what can be built upon their efforts.

For those looking to draw the line, this may fall too much on the ‘art’ side. The pair seem decidedly more interested in the baserate questions over the relational ones. (McGrath 160) Before making things, they certainly aren’t asking where the project will be “in ten, twenty, or even fifty years,” and the word “persona” had no place in the conversation. However, they do “value ephemerality and even magic” and seem to believe that “Not everything about a project must be rationalized or demystified.” As seen in those Wind Map explorations, they’re not afraid to “Make a useless [drippy, psychedelic] or disinterested version” of a project. (Sayers)

Looking to Miriam Posner, the pair’s work (again, as presented here) shies away from a critical engagement. They seem content to pose questions and make tools that others may then utilize — but the investigation stops at form and leaves impact to others.

To directly contrast Viégas and Wattenberg with some projects that Posner admires: How does a colorful visualization of Boston compare with Jacqueline Goldsby’s Mapping the Stacks that aims “to describe and arrange collections related to African American History in Chicago?” How does the composition of “8 Kens and Roberts” in the Art of Reproduction compare with David Kim’s ‘Data-izing’ the Images: Process and Prototypes, wherein Kim used the visualization to question the photographer’s categorization of his Native American subjects? Both speak to us about perceptions and ‘lies’ — one through form, the other through culture. (Posner)

Of course not all visualization (or art) must address the bigger issues — and even Posner knows this. Sometimes it just gets the conversation going, placing the data most clearly in front of those with the itch to investigate further. (And it’s another false dichotomy to decide we have to somehow judge one of these approaches over the other.) In the continuum of development, the world needs people who play in the messiness and clutter, those who ask questions, tinker around and leave something half-built on the workbench. Ultimately this research and discovery become tools of their own for those who want to build higher.

– Michael Kelly, Info 601, Professor Chris Alen Sula

References:
• McGrath, Joseph. (1994). “Methodology matters: doing research in the behavioral and social sciences.” Original paper.
• Posner, Miriam (2016). “What’s Next: The Radical, Unrealized Potential of Digital Humanities.” Keystone DH Conference, University of Pennsylvania, July 22, 2015. http://miriamposner.com/blog/whats-next-the-radical-unrealized-potential-of-digital-humanities.
• Sayers, Jentry (2018). “Before You Make a Thing: Some Tips for Approaching Technology and Society.” https://jentery.github.io/ts200v2/notes.html

Posted on by Michael Kelly 0

The Feeling of Technology

What makes us feel?

From a biological perspective, it is proven that nerves located at integral parts of our bodies help us interpret external stimuli that come in contact with our body. The amygdala in our brain is a limbic structure that helps us process emotions and is a component that makes humans unique. The way our bodies have evolved have made us into analog creatures that react well to external stimuli in the natural world and this in turn has helped us become highly adaptable to earth’s different environments (Norman, 2008). From a technological standpoint, what happens when we begin to try to build machines to be more like us? What happens when we want our machines to then replicate our innate emotions or our psyche, to perform for us?

These were questions that I thought of when I was attending UXPA’s Emotionally Intelligent Design Workshop on February 16th. During this workshop, Pamela Pavliscak, a specialist that studies the relationship between our emotions and technology, asked us to partner up and design an app or piece of technology with human emotion in mind. We were required to use two themes as the basis of our invention. For myself and my partner, we had to create a dating app for people that are single. To help us create our invention, Pamela offered examples on how the tech industry has already began using forms of emotion, like our gestures and tone of voice, to implement design features that help build programs that react to us. Their reactions to our emotions will then prompt the machine to respond in a way that’s human, but not quite.

An example of this is SimSensei, a virtual human interviewer, which was created as a means to help health care professionals make more informed decisions on their patients based on their responses to the virtual interviewer. SimSensei is represented by a virtual human named Ellie, who is programmed to conduct interviews that help “…create interactional situations favorable to the automatic assessment of distress indicators, defined as verbal and nonverbal behaviors correlated with depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder” (DeVault et al, 2014, p. 1061). Essentially, by creating a virtual helper like Ellie, people at risk of certain mental health disorders can feel they can open up to her, and in turn they can receive the right treatment. Patients are often misdiagnosed in the medical field so I think SimSensei has the right programming to flag warning signs of a particular disorder (keep in mind that it is mainly being used in diagnosing mental health issues).

In my honest opinion, it almost feels like Ellie has been programmed to trick patients into thinking they can trust it. During the course of an interview, the patient is being monitored, and every question Ellie asks is to create a response from the patient, either through speech or through facial changes. Here is a YouTube video that will help you see what sort of questions Ellie is programmed to ask to during her interviews and the type of facial tracking the machine uses.

Another great example offered to us is Toyota’s 2017 movie on a futuristic vision of how some cars may be developed (access it here ). The car featured in this short movie is a concept model, along with the AI named “You-ee” that is built into it. We see aspects of the car’s AI offer advice, act as “wing-man”, and my personal favorite – give positive reinforcement. During the workshop, only the clip from 5:45 to 6:34 was shown. Seen in its entirety, we get a glimpse into what an emotionally intelligent system can do for us. By giving something like “You-ee” human-like qualities (like its ability to make a joke out of Noah’s messy hair), it allows us to view the car as an extension of ourselves. More importantly, I think having a dependable AI is something that will allow individuals to flourish and establish better ties with their human counterparts.

Learning about the different types of emotion-based systems that are already on the market reminded me of Phoebe Senger’s remarks on AI being “..autonomous agents, or independent artificial beings” (Senger, 1999, p.10). We can, at this point, say that Ellie is a step away from being an autonomous agent. Although SimSensei is only currently being used to help doctors diagnose mental health patients, won’t this tool eventually be programmed to perform the the diagnosing by itself and then also administering treatment?

After reading Senger’s article, I now understand how the effects of implementing emotion into our programs can push our machines to the next level. Ellie is programmed with a voice and is made to be able to connect to humans so that we can better understand our own species. We will always be building towards the future, but we always want to keep our connections to one another close to us. After all, humans are empathetic and this quality will be incorporated into the things we create. “You-ee” a perfect example of how the relationship between human and AI can potentially be a harmonious union.

At the end of this workshop, all the groups presented their designs and prototypes. My partner and I decided to create a dating app that required all users to scan a full body image of themselves and display it on their page. Since I’ve never used a dating app before, I was never subjected to the cruel reality of them. According to my workshop partner, dating apps can make finding a partner relatively uncomfortable and weird. Therefore, by implementing a way to circumvent the feeling of discomfort and dishonesty, we believed having your entire self displayed is a great way of creating a more open dating world. But you may ask at this point: “Where’s the portion of your app’s design that makes your prototype emotionally intelligent?”.

And I will answer: “We’re not at that point yet”.

References:

  • DeVault, David et al. (2014). SimSensei Kiosk: A Virtual Human Interviewer for Healthcare Decision Support. 13th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2014. 2. 1061-1068.
  • Norman, Don A. (1998). The Invisible Computer: Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer is So Complex, and Information Appliances are the Solution. MIT Press. Chapter 7: Being Analog
  • Sengers, Phoebe. (1999). “Practices for a machine culture: a case study of integrating cultural theory and artificial intelligence.” Surfaces VIII.


Posted on by Tiffany Chan 0

“Advancing Racial Equity in Your Library” Event Response

For the Event attendance, I am reviewing the webinar entitled, “Advancing Racial Equity in Your Library: Case Studies from the Field,” presented by the Race Forward Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) on October 10, 2018.

The two speakers were Gordon Goodwin from the Government Alliance on Race and Equity, and Andrew Harbison from the Seattle Public Library. To help capture the intention of this talk, the goal of GARE was provided as, “to develop the capacity of libraries to make racial equity a priority within our libraries, cities, communities, and national associations.”

The topic of racial equity is a hot one being discussed in the information world, yet it is also a problem that has not been properly addressed still. With libraries being the sole free and accessible information and cultural center for most communities, racial equity needs to be made a priority. Children from poor and under-privileged areas are relying on technology and aid from public libraries more than ever to receive the same quality of education and opportunities as the more privileged communities.

If racial equity does not exist in libraries, it just adds to the problems the socially excluded face in society. Public libraries need to understand the magnitude of what social exclusion can do to a community. John Gehner points out that there are severe consequences to the, “negative perceptions affecting the way that professional librarians approach those who face social exclusion for many different reasons,” explaining what happens when libraries and their staff do not support equality.[1]

Realizing the importance of racial equity, specifically in public libraries, Goodwin and Harbison get right into it. Goodwin begins by laying out the goals they wanted this webinar to help achieve, which was first and foremost: to inform and to motivate the audience into action. I believe this is the purpose behind most, if not all, seminars and webinars dealing with social issues, specifically those about the information world. They are tools to educate and spread awareness for certain topics that are typically ignored, and motivation is the key to enacting change. Goodwin states right away that he wanted to, “Motivate listeners to take action, and how exactly to do that.”

The rest of the objectives for the talk were to understand the critical need for libraries to focus on race and improving equality for all communities, to learn about the ideas and tools that support racial equity, and how libraries are applying all of this to increase access and improve life for the patrons and staff of color.

Next the definition of racial equity is given as, “Closing the gaps so that race does not predict one’s success, while improving outcomes for all.” It is pointed out that race plays an important factor in determining how well someone does in life. Race helps to determine the barriers or blocks that people of color face in their life. Goodwin states that with improved racial equity, libraries can become places that help eliminate those barriers, and help to reduce race as decider for the success of an individual.

Putting race in front of equity targets the strategies for improving the quality of life and reduction of barriers that people of color face. Goodwin wants people to have an understanding that race does not separate humans beyond the superficial level of appearance, and that the practices and enforcement of laws within American society are still discriminatory, despite having removed the legality of segregation and racist discrimination. The cultural institutions we have still contribute to outcomes that disadvantage people of color, and that an awareness of this is an important first step in the right direction.

Briefly, Goodwin acknowledges the equal importance addressing the inequities faced based on gender, class, and disabilities. The intersectionality of these issues is key, as race plays a role even within the context of gender, class, and disabilities. He then continues onto the topic of how to begin achieving racial equity.

Thinking about issues of race and racism, Goodwin states a common tendency to focus on individuals, to immediately think about who is racist and how. It is better to focus on the institutional basis of racism, that changes within the structures of society are more important than individual cases or people. We need to be asking what roots of racism and prejudice exist within the foundations of our government and institutions, our groups of systems that determine how society functions. This will provide more equitable outcomes. Goodwin claims that, “achieving racial equity requires us to target strategies to focus improvements for those worse off,” and that there’s a need to, “Move beyond service provision to focus on changing policies, institutions and structures.”

Going into the history of libraries, and how during the creation of these institutions, people of color were not allowed any access. The roots of many laws and policies made at this time are still prevalent. Thinking about what laws and policies may still be negatively affecting certain communities inadvertently today can begin to address what changes need to be made. This means that there are rules that can unintentionally hurt certain people, such as the targeting of low-income groups that prevents people from participating fully.

Along this vein of thinking, there are also invisible or unknown prejudices ingrained into people by the institutionalized racism of our society that can be very harmful, as this prejudice leads to racist actions that can negatively impact people of color and the opportunities they receive. The example provided for this was a white librarian being more helpful to white patrons, waving their fees more often, and providing them with more renewals or leeway then they do for patrons of color. Collecting the data on the impact of practices and procedures on people of color is important in finding out what changes need to be made the most.

Implementing a racial equity initiative is the proposed solution for effectively changing things at the root of the problem, not just address individual blame or racism. Harbison begins polling the online audience on how many of them represent libraries that already have such an initiative. Case studies are gone through, providing evidence on what these initiatives have been able to successfully achieve and what impact on racial equity they have had. This wrapped up the webinar in an ideal way, as the first objective was to motivate action. Examples of how institutions executed that call for action and created a better society with better opportunities and a more equal treatment of people of color in places so relevant to the social exclusion and information access gap provide the best motivation for the audience, as they are able to see that this action works.

[1] John Gehner. Libraries, Low-Income People, and Social Exclusion, p. 39.

 

-Brianna Martin, Sula Info 601

Webinar can be accessed here: http://www.ala.org/pla/education/onlinelearning/webinars/ondemand/racialequity

Slides provided to accompany presentation found here:http://www.ala.org/pla/sites/ala.org.pla/files/content/onlinelearning/webinars/archive/Advancing-Racial-Equity-in-Public-Libraries_final.pdf

References:

John Gehner (2010): Libraries, Low-Income People, and Social Exclusion, Public Library Quarterly, 29:1, 39-47.

 

Posted on by Brianna Martin 0

Symposium Review: “The Uncomfortable Archive”

 

 

I attended a New York Archives Week Symposium at the Center for Jewish History on West 16th Street on Friday October 16th entitled “The Uncomfortable Archive.” The symposium, co-sponsored by the CJH and the MetLife Foundation, was open to the general public and aimed at bringing together archivists, librarians, museum professionals, scholars, and researchers around the subject of difficult and “dangerous” information in the digital age. Of particular interest to me was the early afternoon program entitled “Uncomfortable Powers: Archiving Dangerous Knowledge,” which promised talks ranging from cloistered Soviet-era archives, presidential records, and Wikileaks.  

Omission and Obfuscation in the Private Soviet Archive

Katherine Tsan presented the first talk, “Omission and Obfuscation in the Private Soviet Archive.”  It was structured around her research into the coded messaging that survived this highly-censored historical epoch.  Tsan outlined the difficulty facing the contemporary archivists responsible for interpreting these incomplete records, which were obfuscated in order to circumvent the draconian provisions of Soviet-era oversight. Archives were state-controlled this way until 1991, meaning abbreviations, incomplete names, and code words were the norm in information files.

Tsan discussed the dual concerns when focusing on Soviet-era projects.  She highlighted the ethical conundrum involved in archiving writings and information that were purposefully celf-sensored. Tsan also discussed the dilemma posed by Putin’s current-day deep-freeze of national archives, which show strong evidence of private citizens blotting out images and cultural memory. Tsan questioned if historical preservation should probe beyond these intentions or approach them from an ostensibly globalist, progressivist slant? Putin’s unwillingness to fund archival activities is in line with Soviet effacement, indicated by the complete lack of KGB archives and the concealment of Russian presidential archives.

Tsan’s talk echoed concepts of power and the archive that we read in Schwartz and Cook’s article Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory. They write: “The point is for archivists to (re)search thoroughly for the missing voices, for the complexity of the human or organizational functional activities under study during appraisal, description, or outreach activities, so that archives can acquire and reflect multiple voices, and not, by default, only the voices of the powerful.”1 The near-totalitarian aspects of Soviet rule should be examined in the archival renegotiation of history. However, the key challenge here is how archivists can locate missing voices in a historical period in which they were silenced and redacted? 

Tsan’s talk also recalled Drabinski’s article Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction. Drabinski notes that “Queer theory also found roots in a postmodernism that challenged the idea that truth could be final.”2 Is there a possibility for a more thoroughly accurate and truthful picture of Soviet Russia given the degree of suppression and censorship prevalent in that era? Or is the fact that so much of Soviet history was censored the truest depiction of its archival history? Would further excavation create a muddled history? These are intriguing questions posed by Tsan’s presentation. 

Watergate, Covfefe, and presidential records

Katherine M. Wisser followed with her presentation, “Watergate, Covfefe, and presidential records.”  Wisser, an Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Archives/History Dual Degree Program at Simmons College in Boston, conducted an entertaining talk which contemplated the implications of presidential records. Presidents Nixon and Trump were Wisser’s primary examples as she grappled with the debate over whether or not presidential records constitute the private personal property of those individuals in office.

The Presidential Records Act of 1978 served as Wisser’s primary  point of orientation. She chronicled the various ways in which the executive branch has handled this Congressional decision, which mandates the preservation of Presidential and Vice Presidential records and states public ownership of said records. Various Executive Orders have been issued since the Act’s inception that have variously limited and broadened the scope of the PRA.

Wisser was quick to point out the Trump administration’s valuing of  secrecy over transparency. She highlighted this by discussing Trump’s proclivity for tearing papers to shreds, which has resulted in government officials taping said documents together to avoid egregious violations of the PRA.

SID Today and SID Tomorrow: Releasing an Archive of Leaked Government Documents

The final talk was given by Tayla Cooper, Digital Archivist at The Intercept.  The Intercept is home to the Snowden Archive, which archives the internal newsletter of the NSA’s Signal Intelligence Directive (SID).

According to The Intercept’s website: “SIDtoday is the internal newsletter for the NSA’s most important division, the Signals Intelligence Directorate. After editorial review, The Intercept is releasing nine years’ worth of newsletters in batches, starting with 2003. The agency’s spies explain a surprising amount about what they were doing, how they were doing it, and why.”3 In August 2018 alone, The Intercept published 328 separate documents from a source inside the NSA . These documents covered a range of topics, and summarized “how corporate the agency had become and rallied other frustrated spies to his cause; about the NSA’s environmentally-driven spying; and about some of the virtual private networks the agency cracked into, and why. Other highlights from this release, which covers the first half of 2006, touch on Iranian influence in Iraq, the attitudes of NSA staff toward the countries where they are stationed, and much more.”4

Cooper discussed the labor involved in redacting elements from these documents when sent to the NSA for review. Cooper also talked about  how organizations like The Intercept work to counteract what she described as “surveillant anxiety,” in which no amount of data is ever seen as offering a complete picture of governmental activity. She concluded by stating that this anxiety is something that can not be quelled, a dispiriting endnote that also served as a rallying cry.

 

Sources:

  1. Joan M. Schwartz and Terry Cook, “Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory,” 4.
  2. Emily Drabinski, “Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction,” The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy 83, no. 2 (2013): 94-111. doi:10.1086/669547.
  3. https://theintercept.com/staff/talyacooper/
  4. https://theintercept.com/snowden-sidtoday/

Posted on by Jarek Miller 0