<![CDATA[Borderbend Arts Collective - Neural Spike Association]]>Fri, 07 Apr 2023 15:16:53 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Lowdrone: The Transnational Hopper]]>Mon, 09 Dec 2013 00:50:12 GMThttp://www.borderbend.org/neural-spike-association/lowdrone
Lowdrone is a project led by Angel Nevarez and Alex Rivera, which Ruben Ortiz-Torres describes as "a tricked out metal flake and lime yellow candy-colored remote controlled quad copter with an old school chassis that brings style into border surveillance streaming video of the border patrol movements over the actual fence." Will Amazon be selling and delivering the Lowdrone? Don't think so...

Links: 
Lowdrone: The Transnational Hopper
]]><![CDATA[Animal Espionage ]]>Tue, 03 Sep 2013 12:10:54 GMThttp://www.borderbend.org/neural-spike-association/animal-spies
"A swan has been detained in Egypt on suspicion of being a spy. Except it looks – in pictures released by the Egyptian authorities, who kept referring to it as a "swan" – like a stork. Perhaps it was wearing a disguise. The bird, allegedly working for the French government, was captured in a heroic citizen's arrest by a fisherman who spotted that it was wearing some sort of electronic device. Disappointingly, some actual investigation found it was a tracking device used by French scientists studying the bird's migration patterns. So much for a bird playing the next James Bond.

...

"In her book, Frankenstein's Cat: Cuddling up to Biotech's Brave New Beasts, Emily Anthes covers animals that are being genetically modified, either just because we can or to supposedly improve the lives of humans, but some of the most interesting – and alarming – research has obvious military applications. 'We are heading towards a world,' writes Anthes, 'in which anyone with a little time, money and imagination can commandeer an animal's brain.'"

-- from "Egypt's 'spying' stork and other incidents of animal espionage" (The Guardian, 9/2/2013)
"From 1908, pigeons were fitted with cameras
to take aerial photos." (The Guardian)
]]><![CDATA[Alerta Móvil de Contra-Vigilancia]]>Fri, 30 Aug 2013 11:45:22 GMThttp://www.borderbend.org/neural-spike-association/contra-vigilancia
Alerta Móvil de Contra Vigilancia (AMCV) is a project initiated by anonimoColectivo so anyone who has knowledge of surveillance cameras in Mexico City and Cuernavaca can open a discussion about the overuse of surveillance technologies and their impact on the healthy development of public spaces, as well as citizens' rights to privacy and autonomy.

AMCV consists of these two elements: 
  • An interactive application for cell phones that alerts users to the presence of surveillance cameras, as well as to navigate the maps of different cities to locate these cameras.  
  • The project website, whose objectives include: a) Documenting and development objectives of the project; b) Providing a place where the mobile app can be downloaded; and c) Providing a tool to add surveillance cameras to the project database.

Why? AMCV is responding to the presence of overextended surveillance technologies that make the public space a constant representation of power, through the regulation of the spaces between which circulates the subject. Regulation which in turn is not explicit in laws but represented through the social body, their customs and their continued enforcement of compliance.
In this sense AMCV seeks to subvert the principle of surveillance aimed at the individual , by a pointing monitoring technologies themselves the subject of eyes providing technological devices that allow you to exert a counter-surveillance and networking of resistance.

He's how you can contribute to AMCV: 
  • Register as a user and upload info about camera locations, into the embedded map on our website. 
  • Then location of new cameras will automatically be included in the project database. A detailed explanation about how to include info about new cameras into the database can be found in the forum.
  • If you are interested in supporting AMCV more more actively, you can download the project source and works via performing system upgrades. 

http://contra-vigilancia.net
http://vimeo.com/ventolinmono/amcvscreencast
http://vimeo.com/ventolinmono/amcvelectrovisiones
]]><![CDATA[CIA vs. KGB]]>Thu, 29 Aug 2013 22:06:34 GMThttp://www.borderbend.org/neural-spike-association/cia-vs-kgb
This score explores espionage, misinformation, paranoia, intrigue, sound, and silence. It is also partially inspired by Antonio Prohias’ Spy vs. Spy comic strip in Mad magazine (but without any explosives), as well as The Conversation (dir. Francis Ford Coppola). And echoes of Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Kafka, Philip K. Dick, & George Orwell. 

                            Directions
1. The ensemble is divided into three cells. One cell represents the CIA, the second cell represents the KGB, and the third one represents a cell that could be CIA or KGB informants (or some other entity).

2. Each cell will be given a different card to start the piece. That card might have to do with insinuations about infiltration, suspicious activity, misinformation, or something else. 
3. As the piece progresses, each cell will be given more cards, which will suggest sonic directions.

4. Also certain individuals from each cell will be given cards sealed in envelopes. 

                                                            -- by Dan Godston


The Chicago Scratch Orchestra performed "CIA vs. KGB" at the Empty Bottle in June 2012. Click here to find out more. 
]]><![CDATA["OK, Mr. FBI man..."]]>Tue, 27 Aug 2013 22:32:30 GMThttp://www.borderbend.org/neural-spike-association/clarence-jones
"...I would get on the phone, and I would say, 'OK, is everybody ready now?' ... And I'd say, 'OK, Mr. FBI man or FBI woman, do you have your pencil ready? Do you have your pad ready now? Because we're gonna start this conference call.'

"And Dr. King would say, 'Clarence, why don't you stop that? ... They have much better things to do than to listen to our conversation.' "
Of course, Jones had the last laugh — and even now, 50 years later, he laughs as he recounts the conversation. "I said, 'Oh really?' And I was proven right."

-- from "Clarence B. Jones: A Guiding Hand Behind 'I Have A Dream'" by Michelle Norris (NPR, 8/27/2013)
]]><![CDATA["010" by Bernardo Piñero ]]>Tue, 27 Aug 2013 14:54:17 GMThttp://www.borderbend.org/neural-spike-association/010
010 is a video installation in Buenos Aires' IQLab which consists of two video-human scale sculptures facing each other. Separated by approximately one meter, each of which is atop a tripod. On top is a glass sphere. Each sphere contains a mini digital projector, which projects an eye onto a surface, which is enabled because each surface area has a transparent circle on the front. The projected video image is a detailed image of a human that flashes intermittently.

Occasionally the signal blurs, and with it the image of the eye. That's when the other eye blinking as the image looking restabilizes and repeats. 

Since gallery goers can move freely around the room, someone could stand between these pairs of tripod eyes, thus interfering with projected images.

Click here to find out more about 010 by Bernardo Piñero.  
]]><![CDATA["Flower Girl" Mural by Banksy -- Up for Sale]]>Thu, 15 Aug 2013 11:48:51 GMThttp://www.borderbend.org/neural-spike-association/banksy
“I think he came at 4 a.m.,” Mr. Rosenberg recalled. He checked his security feed for evidence of the elusive artist after seeing the piece the next day. “I went right to my cameras, and they were completely blank,” he said. His tech specialists were stumped: another Banksy mystery.

The mural, “Flower Girl,” showing a girl peering up at a security camera sprouting out of a stock, remained a source of local fascination for years, along with a similar piece on a wall at an adjoining car wash. “Garden Girl” depicts a girl with a watering can looking over a stem sprouting an antenna. That piece remains.

-- from "Owner Who Plans to Sell a Banksy Mural Steps Forward" by Melena Ryzik (The New York Times)
above: photo from "Banksy 2008 street mural
goes up for auction" by Sandy Cohen
]]><![CDATA[George Orwell's Birthday Party]]>Thu, 15 Aug 2013 11:04:47 GMThttp://www.borderbend.org/neural-spike-association/orwells-birthday
"By putting these happy party hats on the surveillance cameras, we don't just celebrate Orwell's birthday. By making these inconspicuous cameras that we ignore in our daily lives catch the eye again, we also create awareness of how many cameras really watch us nowadays, and that the surveillance state described by Orwell is getting closer and closer to reality," Thomas voor 't Hekke and Bas van Oerle, the two men behind FRONT404, wrote on the project's website.

-- from "Surveillance Cams Get Party Hats for Orwell's Birthday" by Marshall Honorof (livescience.com)
Two Dutch artists decorated CCTV cameras for George Orwell's birthday. Credit: FRONT404
]]><![CDATA[Neural Spike Association]]>Thu, 15 Aug 2013 11:03:53 GMThttp://www.borderbend.org/neural-spike-association/nsa
This Neural Spike Association media gallery will include artistic contributions (literature, images, videos, new media, sound art, music, field recordings) that pertain to the theme of surveillance. 

Some apects of this media gallery will be included as part of "NSA: A Surveillance Throwdown," an Eight Annual Chicago Calling Arts Festival event. 

Borderbend welcomes proposals, regarding contributions to the Neural Spike Association media gallery. If so, please send us an email and let us know what you have in mind. 
NSA: A Surveillance Throwdown

Friday, October 11 (9 p.m.)

Multikulti
1000 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Chicago, IL  60642

$7 suggested donation
"NSA: A Surveillance Throwdown" involves artists and community activists responding to surveillance. Time for a party throwdown, Orwellian style—with fiction and poetry readings, musical performances, and more. The program includes:
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