#alltheworldsfuture

[harrison2015cofa1002]

For the collective publication, I decided to specialise more so on the role of censorship and classification in the media and information systems in the future. I’ve especially been looking at the legislation that has been passed which give governments the power to govern and control.

This experiment has derived from ‘The Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace’, however takes an alternative view on the freedom of cyberspaces. I made this speculative legislation ambiguous in nature, so that it did not reveal any contextual information about the period of time our group is hypothesising about. This was achieved by constantly referring to the country as the state, never putting an official date on the legislation, and using an abstract and unseen watermark.

This speculative legislation is derived highly from contemporary Chinese Internet Censorship legislation, however focusing more on how the government, or whatever form of power that would control in the future, would aspire to govern a space in which individuals can be anonymous and their actions are separate from their physical self. This legislation is quite totalitarian and advocates the State having absolute power over the users. I plan on also creating a news article or some other form of socialist propaganda to balance out these claims, thus avoiding the dull prediction of a futuristic world in which the government has absolute control. Because even in society today, their is a constant battle between hackers and those trying to govern the internet, and it is reasonable to assume that this will also be the case in the future.

[harrison2015cofa1002]

Online UNSW terrorist threats, an example of the power individuals have from setting their mind and conciousness free from their physical body, while also demonstrating the methods the government used to counter this break in the law.

On October 12th, individuals on the website 4chan, anonomously made threats about plotting a terrorist activities in UNSW. This information was leaked to the public as seen in the first image. The graphic and distressing content was available for everyone to see for the entire duration of the security threat, however only now when I tried to look at the website again, it had become blocked.

This demonstrates the power individuals entail in a post human state when they are free from physical consequences. Additionally, the nature of this threat showed the government responded in a physical way (through sending police to the UNSW campus), however in an online space it took several days or longer for them to hide the graphic content.

This reveals the changing nature of governing in a contemporary time, and following social trends, it’s easy to speculate at a future where the government may lose control of monitoring and controling. Or the government may use this situation as a sense of emergency and have a totalitarian crack down on all forms of online rebellion. This has been demonstrated in China with their strict legislation and policies, prohibiting users from accessing sites such as Facebook.

[harrison2015cofa1002]

Australia - Stupid Laws

Come browse our extensive collection of unbelievable stupid laws in Australia

I’m interested to see how the law will evolve in the future, especially in regards to the monitoring and controlling of people in a posthuman state.

The law is supposed to evolve with humanity, as changes in context need to result in a change of legislation outlining what actions are prohibited and in what ways humanity can benefit society. This link shows a few outdated laws irrelevant to Australian society.

What I want to explore more, is how the government is supposed to control an abstract post human state such as the internet. In websites such as 4chan, individuals have no identity, and often through hacking what they say and do online can not be tracked. This relates heavily back to the declaration of the independence of cyberspace, as the laws traditional means of controlling and reprehending individuals are no longer constant.

Moving forward I am going to investigate the multidimensional nature of this situation. This will involve learning how individuals will use this abstract space to rebel from control, and how the government plans to evolve to control a space such as this.

[cofakaylee1002]

Publication

So Lianna and I are working together for Assessment 3 and we’re taking a collaborative, hollistic approach to the publication! We both have pretty similar ideas on ‘All the world's futures’. We believe that the state of the future is our choice and have decided to explore how the future will be negatively and positively effected by the choices we make now! 

[harrison2015cofa1002]

Facing the question of what content should be included in a publication which depicts the media and information sources of the future, I decided to conduct an experiment of determining what I actually look most online.

This experiment highlights the mundane and ineffective research and productivity in 24 hours. The websites jump from ambiguous google searches such as “the future art” to a creepy amount of views on facebook photos, and sadly resigning to “family guy full episodes”

This experiment gives solid insight into how easily humans can be distracted from their tasks and how pop-ups and advertisements can take people off task. For the pdf, I’d like to mimic this aesthetic through constant pop ups and distractions in the media you are trying to intake. This should create a non-linear and disruptive viewing of the publication, which through following online trends, seems to be the most contemporary way of absorbing information.

[harrison2015cofa1002]

 A major aspect of the future I want to explore, is the way humans will be governed and controlled in the future. The declaration of independence of cyberspace, written in 1996, shows an insight of how humans wanted to break free of the shackles of government at the beginning of the era of the internet. From 1996 to modern day, this form of rebellion has constantly occurred through the use of anonymous users, which essentially removes the human consciousness from its body, and creates a zone of consequence free expression.

In this declaration, the writer John Perry Barlow claims that “cyberspace does not lie in the governments borders.” and that the governments concepts of “poverty, expressionism and identity do not apply as they are all based on matter and there is no matter here(the internet).” This rebellious proclamation deprives the government of the right to intrude into cyberspace and promotes the rights of the users. The repercussions of this declaration is evident through extreme cases of cyberbullying and anonymous terrorist threats made online.

In a space where the body and the conciousness is seperate, it is interesting to hypothesise how the human race will be governed. In our predictions, we want to explore post humanism on the edge between absolute technology and humanity. Drawing of this example there are a variety of ways humans may be governed, or potentially break free of sovereignty.

To take this idea further, I intend on researching ways in which governments have been able to control a space which is not theres, and the success and failures of rebellions trying to break free of the shackles of government. In the future this space has potential to have any level of control over them.

[harrison2015cofa1002]

‘My body is browser friendly’. This webpage artwork is a prime example of a non-linear structure of the internet, and the flamboyant design modern technology and information currently has.

Through the style of retro-futurism, this website contrasts older images such as the bulky computer and ancient symbols such as the head of Julius Ceaser, with a futuristic design that implements a galaxy like background and flashing bright colours in the borders. This juxtaposition is used effectively to highlight the drastic changes in information and internet culture over the past 20 years.

I believe drawing of this design for our pdf should create an aesthetic that confuses the audience and makes the audience nervous about what the future holds. The best way to describe this would be if someone from the 1960′s was to go onto websites such as Reddit or 4chan today. The style, humour and content is completely unrelatable to that period of time. The design alone would be enough to confuse the individual from comprehending what is happening. I believe we can extend art and design on websites currently even further to make the audience feel out of place.

[jessicaxiyu-blog]

Update: This was taking after receiving the assessment task brief in paper. 

In our Group( Austin, Vivian and Jessica). We met and discussed some ideas on how we can approach and articulate our ideas in a creative way. The temporary concept we are focusing on is “ Desire for completion. and We are thinking of using Indesign to do interactive PDF pages.  We wanted to apply our used themes( Collaboration,Desire & Rebellion) from assessment 2 together to use build up an idea for “ ALL THE WORLD’S FUTURE”.