Deep Cables — Disruption Network Lab
►http://www.disruptionlab.org/deep-cables
Uncovering the Wiring of the World
June 17-18 · 2016
The 8th event of the #Disruption Network Lab at Kunstquartier Bethanien, Studio 1, Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin. Directed by Tatiana Bazzichelli.
Funded by: Der Regierende Bürgermeister von Berlin, Senatskanzlei, Kulturelle Angelegenheiten / City Tax.
In partnership with: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.
In cooperation with Kunstraum Kreuzberg /Bethanien.
Pre-Lab 1.6 at SPEKTRUM, Bürknerstraße 12, Berlin-Kreuzberg.
In collaboration with: NOME, Wau Holland Stiftung, Copenhagen Center for Disaster Research (COPE), Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG). With the support of the Free Chelsea Manning Initiative Berlin.
Entrance 5€ / day. In English language.
In August 2015 Henrik Moltke and a team of journalists from Pro Publica and the New York Times revealed intimate details of the National Security Agency’s decades-long partnership with the telecom giant AT&T. A seemingly innocuous detail in a random document allowed the team to pin down the elusive collaboration, referred to by codename in the documents leaked by Edward Snowden. A cable severed by the 2011 earthquake in Japan caused an outage, after which NSAs ‘collection’ - or tap - on the cable resumed. The date matched the repair on the northern leg of the Japan-US Cable, one of a handful of main arteries connecting Asia and the US. At the end of the cable is an anonymous looking industrial building, far off on the Mendocino coast of Northern California. The cable station is operated by AT&T. Under the motto “Follow the cables”, Henrik Moltke recounts how he retraces the physical footprint of deep state secrets.
In this presentation, Henrik Moltke and Trevor Paglen will trace a link between the imaginary concept of “The Internet” and the present configuration of geopolitical wired structures, where big data, cloud computing, mass surveillance, and the monopolies of big corporations are intertwined. By disclosing through photography the development of transatlantic and undersea fibre-optic cables, and reconnecting the past with the present by charting the hidden infrastructure of information technology, this event will expose the inner functioning of the modern business of cable infrastructures, showing the global dimension, as well as the invisible sites of the physical Internet.
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