Under the direction of Birgit Bachler and with input from Marek Tuszynski from Tactical Tech Berlin, creative works were produced that illustrate in an innovative way how our personal data can often become tools of surveillance without us realizing it.
As part of DigiDic, “Call for digital self-defense”, students had the opportunity to pitch their project ideas for the exhibition of the same name at the Volkskundemuseum Graz. In cooperation with the Institute for Media Archaeology (IMA), Elisabeth Schimana and Seppo Gründler supported the students in the selection process as jury members and advisors.
A highlight of the course was the workshop day with Marek Tuszynski, who introduced the students to tactics of digital self-defense. The projects that emerged from this course cover a wide range of topics: they examine the risks of seemingly banal data on our digital devices such as sleep tracking, period monitoring or photo filters and show how this information could be misused to analyze behavior patterns or manipulate identities.
Two of the projects, Floors by Bensu Kaya and Lucas Nuss and Catch me! Because you can by Ellen Dressler, Lara Falkenberg, Leonie Dunke and Julia Kraft, were selected for the exhibition “DigiDic – Aufruf zur digitalen Selbstverteidigung” at the Volkskundemuseum Graz and can be seen there until March 2025.
In Catch me! Because you can, visitors slip into the role of hackers and experience first-hand the dangers of digital surveillance and data misuse through smartphones. Using a simulated smartphone, they collect personal data such as location, walking speed and ambient noise. Once all the information has been collected, the hackers can the owner of the smartphone, the fictitious person Anna, in a virtual attack. The work makes the far-reaching consequences of data breaches almost playfully tangible and raises awareness of the risks of our digital footprints in a striking way.
The work „Treppen Tracking“, on the other hand, reveals how seemingly harmless data such as floor tracking – often collected unnoticed by smartphones and smartwatches in the background – can provide intimate insights into personal lives. The installation visualizes the vertical movements of the two designers over the last 1.5 years and uses neon acrylic bars to represent each daily ascent as a data trail. By combining this floor data with information on time and location, Stair Tracking reveals surprising details and highlights three striking movement patterns as examples.
The project reveals how everyday, trivial data collected by default by most digital devices can provide deep and often unexpected insights into users’ lives. This exhibition illustrates the often hidden mechanisms of digital surveillance and encourages us to think about how we deal with our digital traces.
Further information about the project you can find here.
