1,570 days, 2,407 entries ...

Newsticker, link list, time machine: HOLO.mg/stream logs emerging trajectories in art, science, technology, and culture––every day
● 05/04/2024
“Our challenge has been to find a way to disrupt this banality visually, to reframe the material landscapes of surveillance in ways that pull this infrastructure back into focus.”
– Geographer Colter Thomas, discussing “Infrastructures of Control,” his exhibition documenting the length of the U.S. border with Mexico. In an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) interview, Thomas and collaborator Dugan Meyer reframe the border as a “patchwork of infrastructural parts—technologies, architecture, policy—that only looks cohesive from a distance.”
EFF
● 02/04/2024
“I wanted to have you on and Apple asked us not to do it. They literally said, ‘Please don’t talk to her.’ Like, what is that sensitivity? Why are they so afraid to even have these conversations out in the public sphere?”
– Political comedy titan and returned Daily Show host Jon Stewart, telling U.S. Federal Trade Commission chair and antitrust lawyer Lina Khan about his former bosses interfering in his short-lived current affairs program on Apple TV+. Launched in 2021, The Problem with Jon Stewart was cancelled after only two seasons due to ‘creative differences.’
YouTube
● 21/03/2024
“Apple selectively restricts access to the points of connection between third-party apps and the iPhone’s operating system, degrading the functionality of non-Apple apps and accessories.”
– U.S. Attourney General Merrick Garland, describing the iPhone and App Store as an anti-competitive walled garden. “Apple has held a dominant market share not because of its superiority, but because of its unlawful exclusionary behaviour,” he says in a speech announcing sweeping antitrust action against the tech giant.
U.S. Department of Justice
● 11/02/2024
OUT NOW:
D’Souza & Staal (eds)
Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes
Law scholar Radha D’Souza and artist Jonas Staal present their climate tribunal project. Drawing on their 2022 Amsterdam hearings (against the Dutch government and energy multinationals) and subsequent stagings, the duo make a case for climate justice.
Framer Framed
● 10/01/2024

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) launches the Street Level Surveillance Hub, a resource for learning about invasive technologies used by U.S. law enforcement. The website contains accessible intros to cell-site simulators, gunshot detection systems, predictive policing, and other troubling technologies, and identifies related civil liberties concerns. “Understanding this panopticon is the first step in protecting our rights,” says EFF Policy Analyst Matthew Guariglia.

EFF
● 29/12/2023

In anticipation of the Steamboat Willey (1928) version of Mickey Mouse entering the public domain in 2024, Matthew Plummer-Fernández’ hack of the cultural icon, Every Mickey, resurfaces on X. First shown in 2015, at the British-Colombian artist’s solo show “Hard Copy” at NOME, Berlin, the 3D-printed composite of found 3D models “circumvents copyright by being a compilation,” Plummer-Fernández explains on X. Compilations constitute “an exception in copyright law for the creative compiling of other works.”

X / Twitter
Z
● 28/12/2023
“Copyright only works above a certain threshold of importance. That’s something you learn as an artist. Your voice doesn’t matter.”
– Artist and experimental filmmaker Robert Seidel, on how little leverage artists have against data-hungry AI companies compared to major institutions like The New York Times, which sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement the day before Seidel’s talk at the 37th Chaos Communication Congress (37c3)
CCC
● 08/10/2023

At the New York trial of disgraced FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder Gary Wang testifies the crypto exchange used a random number generator to create fake daily deposit values for an ‘insurance fund’ to reassure investors. Calculated by taking an arbitrary number around 7,500 multiplied by the platform’s daily volume and divided by a billion, the greatly embellished fund “was intended to protect FTX and its customers from losses due to unprofitable liquidations,” says Web3 critic Molly White.

The Block
● 06/10/2023
“If you’re driving under the influence you can have your license revoked. These are the kinds of measures we need to see.”
– Space lawyer Michelle Hanlon, endorsing the $150,000 USD fine levied against American TV provider DISH by the Federal Communications Commission for failing to move one of its satellites into a safe orbit. Hanlon and other experts herald the first ‘space junk’ fine as encouraging, given the dangerous mass of (2,000 and counting) dead satellites orbiting Earth.
MIT Technology Review
● 11/09/2023
“As U.S. et al. v. Google goes to trial, the echoes of the landmark federal suit against Microsoft, a quarter-century ago, are unmistakable.”
– Tech journalist Steve Lohr, reminiscing the last major American antitrust trial (1998). Once again “a tech giant is accused of using its overwhelming market power to unfairly cut competitors off from potential customers,” Lohr writes, noting Google is not quite as audacious though (a Microsoft exec famously planned to “cut off Netscape’s air supply”).
New York Times
● 22/08/2023
“Today’s sentence should serve as a warning to other corporate insiders that insider trading—in any marketplace—will not be tolerated.”
– Southern District of New York Attorney Damian Williams, on former OpenSea executive Nathanial Chastain’s sentencing of three years probation, the forfeiture of his ill-gotten gains, and a hefty fine as the first person convicted for digital asset insider trading. During the 2021 crypto boom, Chastain bought NFTs scheduled to be featured on OpenSea—and sold them for 200-500% profit when they were.
U.S. Department of Justice
● 23/07/2023
“If IKEA sues us, I’ll be thrilled.”
– Artist and designer Zoë Blair-Schlagenhauf, hoping a lawsuit is brought against the guerilla artist in residence program she and Mary Boo Anderson created for a Greater Los Angeles Area IKEA
Hyperallergic
● 07/04/2023

Hearings begin at the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC): Extinction Wars at the Gwangju Museum of Art (KR). The Netherlands Pavilion at the 14th Gwangju Biennale, this second iteration of lawyer-activist Radha D’Souza and artist-researcher Jonas Staal’s CICC invites attendees to sit in as “prosecutors and witnesses from various social movements and activist organizations testify to the role of states and corporations in perpetuating climate war crimes” through April 9th.

Framed Framed
● 21/12/2022
“Quantum computers might one day have the ability to push computational boundaries, allowing us to solve problems that have been intractable thus far, such as integer factorization, which is important for encryption.”
– H.R.7535 – Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act, a bill passed by U.S. Congress sponsoring IT, intellectual property, and software development “that can be easily updated to support cryptographic agility” if codebreaking quantum computing becomes a reality
Congress.gov
● 25/11/2022
OUT NOW:
Jonas Lund
By Opening This Book
Each copy of Jonas Lund’s edition of 100 sealed books holds the key to a unique web experience. By opening the book, however, readers agree to contractual terms that, much like opaque internet fineprint, remain the the Swedish artist’s secret.
Rrose Editions
● 27/04/2022

Are the aesthetics of an immersive installation intellectual property? According to recently surfaced Los Angeles court documents the answer to that question is maybe. Spurned by similarities between a pair of their works and installations at the Museum of Dream Space (MODS) in Beverly Hills, teamLab are suing for copyright infringement. The prolific Japanese studio claims motifs from “Transcending Boundaries” (2017) and “Crystal” (2015), have been copied by exhibition designers at the American venue. The case may set an interesting legal precedent, as “streams of light and water cascading down the wall onto the ground” is not exactly ingenious—but immersive installations are big business now. Either a summary judgement will be issued in a few weeks, or the case heads to trial this summer.

Artnet News
● 19/11/2021
“The science is now clear that decapods and cephalopods can feel pain and therefore it is only right they are covered by this vital piece of legislation.”
– UK Animal Welfare Minister Lord Zac Goldsmith, on the extension of the country’s Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill to include lobsters, octopus, and crabs. The bill, however, will not affect any existing legislation or industry practices.
GOV.UK
● 06/08/2021
“This is the first major case of weaponizing personal data, shared by shady data brokers. I have been warning for years that there would be consequences for failing to protect Americans’ personal information.”
– U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, sponsor of the “Mind Your Own Business” act, and other privacy-focused legislation, on the recent outing of a high-ranking Catholic priest as a Gay bar patron based on Grindr location data obtained through a grey market reseller
Left, Right & Center
● 02/03/2021
“We hope this will accelerate the transition towards more durable and repairable product design … it is crucial, both in terms of environmental and consumer protection, to be able to repair and keep devices for as long as possible.”
– iFixit Communications Manager Dorothea Kessler, on new laws stipulating that new washing machines, hairdryers, refrigerators, and displays and televisions sold within the EU must be repairable for a decade. Her next target: smartphones and laptops.
TechRepublic
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