Failure to enroll: Making Black lives in/visible through anonymizing technologies

Failure to enroll: Making Black lives in/visible through
                     anonymizing technologies

                                     Kellie Marin
                                   Ph.D. Candidate
                     Department of Communication Arts & Sciences

“One immediate thing seems clear: 2020 is a pretty good year to cover your face.” Marlinspike, 2020

Black Lives
Matter
& the
surveillant
security
state                           Donut Operator, 2020

              Jarrus, 2020

                  Cohen, 2014

“Failure to Enroll”
1)“Dark
   sousveillance”

2) Tactics of resistance
  a. Disrupting the (white)
     surveillant gaze
  b. Collectively “dark”
  c. Reclaiming spaces for Black     Whittaker, 2020
     humanity

                                                       Pipkin, 2020
3) Future research

“Dark Sousveillance”

“Sur” → above
“Sous” → under
                     “Possibilities for fugitive acts of escape,
                     resistance, and … productive disruption that
                     happens when blackness enters the frame.”
                     (p. 64)

                     “Tactics employed to render one’s self out
                     of sight, and strategies used in the flight to
                     freedom from slavery as necessarily ones of
                     undersight…. it is a site of critique, as it
                     speaks to black epistemologies of
                     contending with antiblack surveillance.”
Mann et al, 2020
                     (p. 21)

                                                                      Browne, 2015

Disrupt the (White) Surveillant Gaze

                            Quinn, 2020

Collectively “Dark”

Posted at Capital Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ)   Scott, 2020
in Seattle, WA.

Opening up Space for Alternative Realities

                             Wan, 2020

Paolo
                Cirio, 2020

The Future is
   Blurry
                              Andrew Maximov,
                              2020

Works Cited
Simone Browne. Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015).
Robert Cohen. Cited in Mary Emily O’Hara. “Subject of Iconic Photo, Found Dead.” NBC News. May 5, 2017.
         Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ferguson-protester-edward-crawford-
         subject-iconic-photo-found-dead-n755401.
Sylvia Jarrus. Cited in Kashmir Hill. “Wrongfully Accused by an Algorithm.” June 24, 2020. New York Times.
           Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recognition-arrest.html.
Steve Mann, Rhonda McEwen, David Naylor, John Griffiths, Kristen Bos, Amir Adnan Ali, and Beth
         Coleman.“Priveillance™: Equiveillance, Covidized Surveillance and Dark Sousveillance.” McLuhan
         Centre Working Group. Accessed on December 7, 2020, http://priveillance.com/.
Moxie Marlinspike. “Blur tools for Signal.” Signal. June 3, 2020. https://signal.org/blog/blur-tools/.
Donut Operator. “Kyle Rittenhouse Shooting Breakdown: Murder or Self Defense?” YouTube. August 28, 2020.
         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbsOIoqcit4&bpctr=1602442421.
Everest Pipkin.“Image Scrubber.” Accessed on March 16, 2021. https://everestpipkin.github.io/image-      scrubber/.
Jeremy Quinn. “What We Missed.” Public Report (June 16, 2020): 4.
         https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ee7c06d4acec60af675e978/t/5f746ed80b9e3770a6af4b22/16
         01466075342/Report+1.pdf.
Toby Scott. SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images. June 16, 2020.
          https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sign-setting-out-rules-for-non-black-
          photographers-is-seen-news-photo/1220598073.
Julian Wan, “A young Woman Wearing a Mask and Black Lives Matter t-Shirt Marching in a #Black Lives Matter
          Public Demonstration in Cincinnati,” Unsplash, May 30, 2020,
          https://unsplash.com/photos/wmGzz2RtA-g.
Zack Whittaker. “These Free Tools Blur Protesters’ Faces and Remove Photo Metadata.” TechCrunch. June 6,
         2020. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/06/protesters-blur-faces-anonymize-photos/.