Institute for Applied Autonomy
From CT4CT: Creative Tools for Critical Times
The Institute for Applied Autonomy (IAA) was founded in 1998 as a technological research and development organization dedicated to the cause of individual and collective self-determination. Their mission is to study the forces and structures which affect self-determination and to provide technologies which extend the autonomy of human activists.
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Projects
GraffitiWriter
The Institute for Applied Autonomy's GraffitiWriter is a programmable robot equipped with spray cans that is designed to write linear text messages on the ground. Similar to a dot matrix printer, it can print at a rate of 15 kilometers per hour and can be controlled from remote locations.
The advent of next generation military/police technologies for urban use has made engaging in active social insurgency an increasingly risky venture. Real-time video surveillance systems, networked databases, urban infiltration robots, and a flurry of "nonviolent" restraint and subjugation technologies threaten to have a chilling effect on traditional methods of cultural resistance, particularly the creation and dissemination of subversive texts. The Robotic GraffitiWriter (GW) was developed in response to the need for a high speed, teleoperated, portable platform that operates beyond the line of sight (BLOS) to disseminate unsanctioned content in the dynamic adversarial urban environment. In repeated testing, this system has proven its effectiveness on such high risk/high profile targets as the U.S. Capital Building as well as numerous urban commercial and municipal spaces in the US and abroad.
See also:
- Institute for Applied Autonomy: Contestational Robotics Video
- Institute for Applied Autonomy: GraffitiWriter
Terminal Air
Trevor Paglen and the Institute for Applied Autonomy's Terminal Air (2007) is a faux travel agency inspired by the CIA's secret extraordinary rendition flights that are used to transport suspected terrorists out of the United States for interrogation (and torture) in foreign countries.
According to the Institute for Applied Autonomy:
Terminal Air is a project that explores complex interconnections between government agencies and private contractors involved with the United States Central Intelligence Agency's extraordinary rendition program. Since the mid-90’s, the CIA has operated the extraordinary rendition program, in which suspected terrorists captured in Western nations are transported to secret locations for torture and interrogation. A thoroughly modern enterprise, the extraordinary rendition program is largely carried out using leased equipment and private contractors. These private charter planes often use civilian airports for refueling, making their movements subject to public record and visible to anyone who knows which tail numbers to look for. However, while these missions are carried out under the guise of protecting the American people, the nature of the program has thus far remained out of reach to both American and International law. With only the knowledge of what these planes have been used for in the past, human rights activists are left to view their movements as a vast “black box” and can only speculate whether any specific plane is currently carrying human cargo en-route to being tortured in a so-called CIA “dark prison”.
See also:
- Art Threat: Follow spies in the skies with Terminal Air
- Institute for Applied Autonomy: Terminal Air
See Also
- Artists and Collectives
- Culture Jamming
- Free Speech
- Public Space
- Research
- Surveillance
- Torture
- War and Terror
