GVSU's Curatorial Terms of Service Exhibition at UICA

Terms of Service Sub-story I

Terms of Service is an art exhibition curated by a group of undergraduate students from Grand Valley State University’s Curatorial Studio. The exhibition runs from April 1-17 at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, MI. Showcasing the work of fifteen artists, Terms of Service explores themes of identity, individualism, and the conditions people face as a result of our increasingly surveilled lives. With every online action being converted to data that is then indexed and mined, individuals are willingly sharing fragments of their private lives. Two of the pieces in Terms of Service that share a unique relationship are Dumpster Drive and I Know Where Your Cat Lives. These pieces specifically explore the dangers of a lack of privacy. In both programs, an individual’s information is made available to others consensually.

Justin Blinder's Dumpster Drive http://projects.justinblinder.com/Dumpster-Drive-1 allows a user to willingly share their files with others, but if a person were to share a photo of their friends and share it through the dumpster it is very likely that another user could take that photo and Photoshop it or upload it to their own controversial website all without the consent of the people in the photograph.

Owen Mundy's I Know Where Your Cat Lives http://owenmundy.com/site/i-know-where-your-cat-lives does a very similar function, but in a discreet way because the program takes photos of cats that are uploaded onto the web and tracks their metadata to share the location of the photo or the cat. Mundy's program is taking photos that were consensually uploaded onto the Internet for people to access even though the user who uploaded the photo was not asked permission to be identified on this program.

Both of these artworks reveal the delicate boundary of privacy, ethics, and consent. These two do follow the terms but they do so in a loose manner, which allows for misuse and brings awareness to some of the problems with sharing on the Internet.

"Two of the works that will be featured in our show Terms of Service, are Dumpster Drive and I Know Where Your Cat Lives. I think these two pieces show some of the dangers of the lack of privacy on the Internet. They are both programs that make a person's information available to others and in a way shares their information consensually." quotes Hallie Hofman, one of the Curatorial Studio students.

This is just one example of the many connections that can be made between the artworks showcased at the Terms of Service exhibition. The Terms of Service exhibition is also participating in Art.Downtown April 10 at the UICA.

Terms of Service Sub-Story II

Terms of Service is an art exhibition curated by a group of students from Grand Valley State University’s Curatorial Studio. The exhibition runs from April 1-17 at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, MI. Showcasing the work of fifteen artists, Terms of Service explores themes of identity, individualism, and the conditions people face as a result of our increasingly surveilled lives. ScareMail and Scanning are two particular pieces in the exhibition that explore the social and political implications of government and airport surveillance on the human body.

ScareMail https://bengrosser.com/projects/scaremail/ is a Gmail extension created by Benjamin Grosser. This piece is particularly interesting because it examines surveillance on a level that is out of a person’s control. Scare Mail also provides a way to take a small vengeance on the NSA and their efforts to examine all emails without permission for potential threats. When installed, this extension provides an opportunity to fill an otherwise harmless email with words that trigger the NSA's search results. If enough people install ScareMail and begin utilizing the extension, it would clutter the NSA's searches with useless information and hopefully cause them to abandon that overused search term that they will then associate with silly emails.

Another piece exhibited in the show that provides an inside look on how people are being surveilled is a video piece called Scanning, http://home1.arts.ohio-state.edu/derr34//scanning.html created by Robert Ladislas Derr. Scanning is a documentation piece that gives a first-hand view of what it is like being involuntarily scanned and assessed. Both ScareMail and Scanning share a unique connection and show how mundane activities, such as sending an email and going through the airport subject people to surveillance that is done without personal recognition.

While these pieces relate in such a unique way, there are many other connections to be made between the other artworks displayed at the Terms of Service exhibition. Terms of Service will also be participating in the Art.Downtown event on April 10 at the UICA.

For more information visit our Tumblr at http://termsofservice2015.tumblr.com/.

Or visit Facebook at Terms of Service Exhibit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Terms-of-Service-Exhibit/1562068620745199.