Saving FBI the trouble of tracking...once tracked,artist offers website tracking of himself

[Gloria]

As heard today on Radio Netherlands.......
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/thestatewerein/otherstates/tswi070810elahi

External link to the location map and cam picture....
http://trackingtransience.net/


Saving Big Brother the trouble

produced by Ashleigh Elson

10-08-2007
Click to listen to the programme

When we hear the word "surveillance", most of us think of spy cams or phone taps. We imagine sneaky technology wielded by secret agents and aimed at Russian spies. James Bond sort of stuff.

But with the war on terrorism, surveillance has become part of daily life.

Hasan Elahi
Hasan Elahi is all too familiar with surveillance and unwarrented suspicion.
In the US, there's been much debate about the government's right to monitor its citizens, read their e-mail, and see their library records.

Wrongly accused
One US citizen, Hasan Elahi, is all too familiar with surveillance. But he's not a terrorism expert. He's an artist.

"Back in 2002, I was reported as an Arab man that fled with explosives. On September 12. I found out about this as I was returning from an exhibition overseas. And basically for the next six months I had to sit there and justify every moment of my existence to the FBI.

This experience has changed my way of thinking and my way of living and this has become my new body of work."

Art reflects society
And in this "new body of work," Elahi has taken it upon himself to record everything he does. He's spying on himself, as it were.

"During this experience, I told them everything. I don't know if they wrote it all down or not. But I thought: I can be much more thorough than the FBI ever could be when it comes to watching myself. So I thought I'd save Big Brother the trouble and just watch myself."

In order to help Big Brother out, Elahi has programmed his telephone to show on the website www.trackingtranscience.net. Via that site, anyone, anywhere can see what he's doing and where all day everyday. As an artist, he sees his new mode of working as pointing out how suspicious we are of each other.

"It basically says we don't trust each other."

And having been wrongly suspected himself, that lack of trust is something that Elahi suspects to be unwarranted. His experiences only support his opinion all too well.