Anti-surveillance tool_ Jasmin Liang

Description

In Anti-surveillence tool, I created a meme with a Anaglyph secret message. The secret message contains a specific location and time for an upcoming flash mob event. However, to get the correct secret message, one must be able to identify the correct text for the message. In other words, one must know which combination is the real meme. There will be three meme captions, each with its own anaglyph secret message (But only one of them is the correct time and location.). By pressing on the mouse, the message will be revealed easily. However, it depends on the viewer’s meme knowledge whether they will be able to find the right secrete message.

There is also a digital lifespan to this meme. After 5 minutes of its activation, the meme will start a self-erasure process and creates a black pixelated screen on top of itself, forever obscuring the Anaglyph message. For demonstration purpose here, I have changed the lifespan to 30 seconds. After 30 seconds of display(that is, approximately two arounds of the text selection), the self-erasure will begin.

Design Process & Reflection

As mentioned above, the design is intended for the organization of a flash mob event at a specific location and time. In my brainstorming process, I was searching for a vehicle that is both highly public but also implicit at the same time. I was immediately very drawn to memes because while it is a very common object on the internet, the precise understanding of a meme requires a very specific niche of knowledge. In other words, unless you have personally been exposed to the one specific meme, it is very difficult to guess what would be the “correct” meme caption for it, because there is none. By the nature of meme, there is always a million ways to caption it, unless it has been established in one community that this one combination is the most known, hence the “correct” one. A good comparison would be an inside joke – if you are not part of the group, you cannot get the joke. One’s understanding of a meme usually depends on one’s political leaning, sense of humor, and most importantly, the sub-community one is in. Another realization I had, which motivated me to pursue this design, is that no machine can crack the experience and understanding unique to a human. For me, humor becomes the best password that makes an object only readable to an exclusive group of people.

For this project I chose this following meme. A caricature of supporters of trickle-down economy, it was at one point very popular among several left-leaning meme groups. Considering the anti-capitalistic nature of a flash mob event, as the format of flash-mobbing stems from surrealist performance and celebrates power of the masses.

I also chose this because visually it shows a group of people who dresses the same and performs the same action. In a way, it is a very tongue-in-cheek call for a gathering. For the sequence of the three texts, I set up a timer with an “if” statement. Each of the meme caption would display for about 8 seconds. When the mouse is pressed, it would trigger the blendMode(DARKEST), allowing the anaglyph message to be readable.

I also gave the meme a digital lifespan because I found it a very interesting concept to apply here. Because the nature of a flash mob event is ephemeral, I found fitting to give the meme a limited life span too, in that case, a 15 minutes period of display until a black grid that would permanently obscure the image. This short life-span also helps prevent the authority to access such message after its release, due to the subversive character of a flash mob event. For the grid, I used a nested “for” loop to create an animated grid, its visual effect similar to television noise or a broken led panel.