Today Stephanie mentioned the project HAVIDOL, a satirical take on the pharmaceutical industry by Justine Cooper which opens at Daneyal Mahmood Gallery tomorrow.

Ok, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This semester I’ll be better about writing.

It’s the third week of the semester and I just now feel like my head is back in thesis mode. The question raised lately (and constantly) is what do I want the project to be and who is my audience. Does this project want to be simply a satirical sociopolitical commentary that is intelligent, witty, and subversive? Something that provokes a emotional, visceral response? The answer is yes on both accounts. I think. Where do these two ideas meet? How can a sly, perhaps overly academic satire in the spirit of Horace, Juvenal, and Swift engage an audience, impart understanding, and possibly alter perceptions about surveillance and privacy? How can I engage my three audience groups: those in the defense industry,
art / academic world denizens, and middle America “security moms” and others that constitute the bread and butter of the neocon dogma.

Those questions aside / looming overhead, more questions arise:

Idea: Create a more thuggish, guerilla arm of the P.G.
Why?: To create a Brechtian dialectic from which to approach the issues at hand and allow me the freedom to create more agitprop, dissident media.
What’s the concept / form?: The group, currently named “ipsos custodes” from the Latin phrase “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” or “Who watches the watchers” co-opts the PG name and creates “promotional” works that attempt to instill fear in the same individuals about the surveillance efforts that PG promises will protect them. The PG will then be able to publicly denounce the activities of the “ipsos custodes” while secretly funding their efforts to further the culture of fear created by the nebulous terrorist threat.
Media: Stencil graffiti art, postcard(s), sticker(s), digital still(s) - something quickly and easily disseminated on/offline

Idea: Create a service / product offering that users can sign up for
Why?: Engage those who believe that giving up a little privacy in exchange for a little security, though anthema to Benjamin Franklin’s beliefs, is a good thing and allowing them to take an active role / making them “put their money where their mouth is”.
What’s the concept / form?: Allow visitors to the P.G. site to download a keylogger or other spyware that will report back to the P.G. to gather information about the user’s computer usage habits, either for better or worse. This questions the level of compliance or complicity to willfully bring a surveillance system into the home, the last bastion of privacy. Next step, Orwell’s telescreens. What else can I ask of users? A survey? Boring. Sign up your first born for early recruitment in the War on Terror? Crusader badges for those who sign up?

Idea: The P.G. industrial video
Why?: Provide a video introduction the P.G. and their information gathering and analysis methods.
What’s the concept / form?: On the surface the industrial is seeming legitimate, the script and voice over is on par with other defense contractor speak but the accompanying imagery is highly satirical pointing out the absurdity within the text. Functions similar to the WORD segment on the Colbert Report.