Abandoned NSA Listening Post

While looking at the design for listening posts and surveillance architecture, I came across these abandoned NSA stations in Berlin. This NSA Listening Station of Radar Domes on “The Hill,” was rumored to be a part of the global ECHELON intelligence gathering network. Other rumors include tunnels beneath the spy complex and others suggesting that by 1954, 1,200 calls could be recorded simultaneously, filling up more than 50,000 reel tapes. After the station was closed following the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was left abandoned and the equipment removed, the derelict buildings and radar domes still remained.

The images are quite beautiful and resonate an archaic feeling of the bygone state of monitoring, power and control.

Abandoned NSA Listening Station on Devil’s Mountain, Berlin.& More Surveillance Architecture: An Old Listening Post From The Cold War – Architizer.

Space Replay: Echoing listening device

Royal College of Art have created a mysterious floating spherical object that drifts through public spaces recording conversations and plays them back when there’s nobody around. the video is quite haunting in its nature as it meanders through public space, and the reactions of people are quite entertaining! Essentially, a form of hacking public space.

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/88992597″>Space Replay floats hauntingly through spaces echoing its surroundings</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/dezeen”>Dezeen</a&gt; on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

The Aesthetic of Surveillance

A look at some images in terms of the future aesthetic of surveillance and monitoring, illustrating my design intentions of spaces, potential structure and material.

Surveillance and detection concepts [Additional Post]

Surveillance and detection concepts already in operation, or under development:

• A group of smaller surveillance drones called NAV (nano air vehicles) or MAV (micro air vehicles) already have been commissioned:  mapleseed drones; sparrow drones by 2015, dragonfly drones to fly in swarms by 2030, and eventually a housefly drone.  And if the reconstruction of nature doesn’t pan out, nature itself can be hijacked using electrical impulses to create cyborg surveillance insects being studied at major universities.
• Nano sensors for use in agriculture that measure crops and environmental conditions.
• Bomb-sniffing plants using rewired DNA to detect explosives and biological agents.
• “Smart Dust” motes that wirelessly transmit data on temperature, light, and movement (this can also be used in currency to track cash).
• Nano-based RFID barcodes that can be embedded into any material for tracking of all products . . . and people.

 

Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems

Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems is a project of DARPA, a unit of the United States Department of Defense, with the goal of developing tightly coupled machine–insectinterfaces by placing micro-mechanical systems inside the insects during the early stages of metamorphosis. The primary application is surveillance.

Remote controllable insects and their artificial robotic imitations are currently being promoted as covert spies. The development of tiny electronic control systems and miniature cameras has opened up a world of stealthy insect drones capable of slipping unobserved into military command and control centers

DARPA Minds Eye Program

The program’s focus is the development of smart cameras that can actually think for themselves.  These systems will not just watch us but will also be able to analyze visual data-sets and assign significance to that data.  The program’s focus is the development of smart cameras that can actually think for themselves.  These systems will not just watch us but will also be able to analyze visual data-sets and assign significance to that data. via » DARPA Kicks Off Mind’s Eye Program Alex Jones’ Infowars: There’s a war on for your mind!.

 

 

Surveillance state: Concluded video

The ‘so-far’ finished product of surveillance video in the future city. My intention was to  illustrate the convergence of all harvested information from the mesh network into the towers database and analytics program. What I would like to do next is include some of the glitches in the network and how the city workers are attempting to disconnect or protect themselves against the pervasion of the towers surveillance systems.

Surveillance State: Work In Progress

An extract from a video I’m currently working on illustrating a potential city where ‘tags’ of personal information are collected and stored in a converged infrastructure. The footage is my own which I recorded on a visit to London. To develop this further, I would like to include the possible methods of protection and glitches in the system where people have sought to protect themselves from the surveillance state.