Helena: I'm a new media artist, independent curator, and researcher.
I'm now working on my PhD about LLMs and political
ideology in Angewandte [University of Applied Arts Vienna]
And I work with different technologies like biomedia, the Internet of Things,
and one of my main topics is artificial intelligence.
But today I'm planning to talk about artistic practices at
the intersection of art, technology, and tactical media.
I'm planning to talk about my own artistic practice and
about my curatorial project, including other artists' works.
And all these works, they're dealing with the fundamental
asymmetry of power, which we are facing these days,
when we as citizens are transparent, while states and corporations, they're opaque.
And also these works are artistic prototypes.
We can easily imagine that these projects can be
applied in political context and adapted for activism.
And in the end of my presentation, I'm planning to introduce a new initiative.
I'm currently developing in cooperation with the Wau Holland Foundation.
And we will announce this initiative, which we launch next year.
And when I face this fundamental asymmetry of power as a person coming from Russia,
in this pretty totalitarian country, I'm thinking artistically how
we can deal with these asymmetries and what can we do artistically.
And in my practice, I'm using two approaches.
I'm working with alternative ways of communication.
And I'm approaching this in two ways, mainly.
First of all, I'm hijacking existing infrastructures.
And second way, I'm creating new means of communication.
And, yeah, so my first project I want to present is Deus Ex Machina.
I started this project in 2016.
And in this project, I combined two technologies which were relevant to me back then.
First, artificial neural networks. And second is the Internet of Things.
And I trained neural network with long-short -term memory on a big data of sacred texts.
And then I used another neural network for speech synthesis.
And then I hacked different devices on the Internet of Things, such as IP cameras
with speakers, IP printers, and media servers to spread this AI-generated message.
And while I was asked back then many times if I see this project as activist
project, I always said that this project to me was more like artistic, experimental
way to explore this media and to raise these critical questions about biopolitics
and how these technologies, the Internet of Things and AI, can be used.
How can they be merged to surveil and to use for control.
And, yeah, so that was my first experiment with AI.
And then in 2018, I did this project, Message in a Bottle.
And this project is exploring different directions.
So that was basically alternative means of communication.
And so we used ESP8266 and these solar panels, a small battery.
And we launched this small server on ESP built-in memory.
And when people – so it was like open Wi-Fi spot.
So when people connected to this Wi-Fi spot, they could
see this like captive portal and they could see this forum.
They could leave a message.
And that was this poetic response to, again, like to Internet censorship.
And, yeah, so we spread these bottles in the city and people could
communicate, could send a message and could read this like anonymous forum.
And, yeah, this is how it looked like.
And, yeah, and then in 2022, when the war in Ukraine started, I fled from the country.
And I was super depressed and frustrated, and I
started this practice, which I called hack therapy.
So I started hacking cameras in Russia and spread AI
-generated anti-war, anti-Putin messages all over the country.
And so we can watch documentation of this project.
So, yeah, I'm showing this project as an example of how
some purely artistic project, like Deus ex Machina, which I
showed before, could be repurposed for political activism.
So, basically, that was a reenactment of my old work, which
I used to spread this anti-war, anti-Putin message in Russia.
And now I'm developing a new project, which is called 868 Labs.
And I'm doing this project in collaboration with my colleague, Katerina Kataeva,
and our anonymous collaborators, who are doing a great job developing this hardware.
And this project is about the distributed mesh peer-to-peer
network based on lower technology, lower-range radio waves.
And we are developing our custom electronics to create these lower-based transmitters.
And we saw this project as a response to the situations such as internet
restrictions, network fragmentation, war zones, and high surveillance environments.
And we see it as a series of wearables, wearable transmitters.
And you can connect with your smartphone to the
transmitter and send a message in this alternative network.
And what is great about LoRa, that you can send messages over long distances.
So, world record was around, like, 800 kilometers.
But even in the city, you can send a message from one device to
another up to, like, 10, 15 kilometers, which I think is really good.
And while we saw this project as a critical response to
these, like, situations, like, problematic situations, now we
see it as a technology which can be used for everyday life.
If you're interested in private, secure communication, you can use this technology.
And I think we will develop our, like, we already developed several
prototypes, but I think we will have, like, fully working prototype by May.
And, yeah, and this is our promo.
We are 868 Labs, a collective developing tactical tools for off-grid communication.
We build systems that opt out of surveillance
infrastructure without opting out of connection.
And now I want to talk about my curatorial project, Digital Resistance.
And I showed this project several times.
And last time I showed it in Amsterdam in August.
And in this project I'm showing other artists' works.
And these works are all working with this asymmetry of
power in terms of information technology and communication.
And these artists are approaching this asymmetry in different ways.
So some of them, they are, again, creating alternative means of communication.
And some of the artists, they are approaching this
in ways of obfuscating data, protecting our data.
And so, like, somehow dealing with these asymmetries.
And the first piece is a work of my ex-student.
And it's called Detail, Raider, Can, Great, Pigeon,
Swap, Prison, Buyer, Game, Quote, Forum, Cake.
Great, great title, I think. And he did this project in 2022.
And he started from research on alternative means of communication in Russia.
So in a situation where all media are controlled by the state and you don't
have any, like, way to spread alternative positions, alternative perspectives.
So he created this application, blockchain-based application.
And this application, in this application, you can
leave anonymously, leave a message in augmented reality.
But this message can only be seen if you go to the same location where it was sent.
So, and he tested with his community, he tested this application on Pushkin
Square, which in Russia became the symbolic place for anti-war protest,
where protest is impossible because there are a lot of police there.
And they were testing and leaving these anti-war messages.
So this says how many people were killed in Ukraine.
And here also, like, they are leaving some anti-war, anti-regime messages.
And here you can see, like, this documentation where also, like, they
were walking around on Pushkin Square, like, reading and leaving messages.
Yeah, it says, like, it was obvious you had to flee.
Also, like, about numbers of people killed in Kharkiv.
Yeah, and this is another project, also a project by my student, Vita Shakhnovich, aCCTV.
She did this project in 2019.
And this is, like, a device, a choker with vibration motor, which can show
you through vibration where you are in the area surveilled by CCTV cameras.
And so she thinks about this device as this, like, a new organ,
which gives you a sixth sense, a sense of being surveilled.
And by, like, this vibration when you are in a surveilled area.
This is another project by a group Gray Cake and it's called Backlash.
And it was done in 2020, commissioned for my exhibition, Datasets vs.
Mindsets, Post-Soviet Explorations of the Digital Control Society.
And these artists, they train neural networks to identify police
officers in videos and photos from protests and cover all protesters,
basically leaving all police officers uncovered, like, on the scene.
And what is interesting here is that they said when they started working on
the project, they realized that there are no datasets with police officers.
Yeah, there are different datasets with different data,
but here they had to collect their own dataset manually.
And this is, I think, it's also a great example of this asymmetry of power.
And I think this is, like, a great response and how we can use technology
creatively to deal with this asymmetry of power and how the same technologies,
which can be used to surveil us, can be used for, like, for civil society.
And, yeah, this is another project by my colleague and friend, ::vtol::, Dmitry Morozov.
It's called The Hot Ninja. And he did it in 2018.
He developed this device which can create this, like, Wi-Fi hotspot.
And you can use, like, any title and you can also spread
political message through this, like, Wi-Fi hotspot title.
And, actually, what is interesting that I, like, back then in 2018 and
2019, I saw, like, people used this for, like, to spread political message.
So, like, they had this, like, Wi-Fi hotspot, Free Navalny and, like, other messages.
But he also used this to create his own server so people, when they
connected to this hotspot, they could, there was no internet, but they
could communicate through a forum or they could send messages or pictures.
And, yeah, let's watch this documentation.
Hot Ninja is a multifunctional network device
for autonomous activity in the city environment.
Its main function is communication and propaganda through the Wi-Fi wireless standard.
This is the hacktivism DIY response to attempts by the
authorities in different countries to control the internet.
The project serves as an example of the possible opposition and decentralization
of networks to ensure communications and provide notifications irrespective of
whether there is access to the global internet or certain restrictions are applied.
The device consists of three standalone Wi-Fi access
points based on the ESP8266 chip and Arduino megaboard.
The device is also equipped with a keyboard for
typing text and OLED screen for convenience of use.
Operating principle.
When typing the text on the keyboard, I can at any moment create or
change network names using the Latin alphabet or Cyrillic script.
This makes it possible for the actual network names to serve as
a way of transmitting specific information, personal messages,
calls for action, mottos, notifications, or any other statement.
As all state-of-the-art smartphones, tablets and computers are equipped
with Wi-Fi modules, it is highly likely that such a message could be read.
In crowded places, for example, the metro, numerous users constantly
look for networks, and as there are usually precious few external
networks, it is highly likely that numerous people will see the message.
If the user is connected to one of the networks,
then the captive page jumps out at the user.
This page may have any deliberately assigned content, and inter
alia, led to other pages located on my standalone servers.
This will make it possible to deliver vast volumes of information,
constituting an autonomous internet to all intents and purposes.
The text of a cyberpunk manifesto by Christian Kirchhev is
placed on the demo page used in this video documentation.
If I create network names which repeat in full popular
city networks, for example MT -Free, Moscow Transport Wi-Fi,
then the devices of a large number of people will be automatically
connected to my device, as they recognize networks based on the name.
Accordingly, the captive page leaps out to them by
default, thereby forcing them to communicate information.
In popular spaces similar to a cafe, I can create networks that
are very similar to the original networks of these institutions.
This will make it possible to compromise these networks
and attract people instead to my standalone networks,
where they will be offered an opportunity to view specific information.
On one of the versions of the captive page I created a form for sending a message,
which makes it possible to obtain feedback from people connected to my networks.
I see the messages in the log file of the server and
can respond to them, with changing the network name.
In another version I redirected all the incoming messages from the log file
to a special page that the user accesses as soon as he or she sends a message,
thereby making it possible to establish a fully-fledged autonomous and anonymous chat.
Consequently, the device hidden in the pocket represents my small wireless pocket internet.
The only possible way of closing access to the device is to
physically smother the radio frequencies of the Wi-Fi standard.
The field tests of the device demonstrated the high
level of activity of users looking for free Wi-Fi
and also successful hunting for devices that remember
network names that I simulate with an identical name.
While these projects are artistic projects, you can imagine that
they can be used in political contexts for political activism.
And now I want to announce a new project which we are
developing together with the Wau Holland Foundation.
And we are launching this project next year.
And we will support projects, functional tools, practical tools, addressing digital fascism,
surveillance capitalism, propaganda infrastructures, and platform power,
not through critique or speculation, but in a practical way, developing practical tools.
And, yeah, so we will support tools, devices, systems,
experimental software, strategic interventions,
creative methods of technology, and critical research practices.
And some example areas include resilient communication
systems for high surveillance or restricted environments,
open source tools to address censorship, misinformation, and media manipulation,
critical AI applications, such as bias detection,
data set forensics, and model interrogation,
wearable and embedded devices as experimental or socially engaged tools,
DIY privacy infrastructures, and decentralized data management.
And we welcome media artists, hackers, engineers,
scientists, creative technologists, and media investigators.
So if you have some project which is too political
or too experimental for traditional funding,
you can apply to our open call next year.
Please subscribe for updates about the platform.
And if you have questions, please ask. Thank you very much for the talk.
We now have time for a QA session.
So if you have a question, please approach one of the microphones.
And we can also ask the Internet for questions.
Yes, we have a question from the Internet.
Does your 8.6.8 labs use a MeshCore or Meshtastic standard,
so that it's an open standard, or is it a self-protocol?
Yeah, we are planning to collaborate with Meshtastic.
They are very interested, because now they're using Chinese solutions,
but they are very interested in our development.
Yes, but we are also exploring Reticulum, actually.
We are interested in Reticulum as well. Excellent. Microphone number two, please.
Thanks for the great insight. It's impressive to see that.
Do you have experience on how authorities are trying to track down such devices?
Which devices exactly?
I mean, broadly, honestly, I haven't seen the first ten minutes of the talk,
but for everything that sends signals,
they could try to catch the people having, for example,
such a server that hosts Wi-Fi and then spreads counter-propaganda.
Yeah, actually, I have to say that my friend had some problems,
but I don't think I can tell you the details. Thank you.
Yeah, he was acccu[sed], yeah, my friend was accu[sed], yeah, anyway,
I don't think I can tell you this. Thank you for the question.
Microphone two, please. Hello. Thanks very much for the presentation.
I was really surprised by the reactions of the people with the hacked cameras,
and I was wondering if you have any kind of comment or explanation
of why they were reacting in this way.
I was kind of thinking, would they be afraid?
Would they be, like, really defensive or, like, attacking the cameras?
I had different types of reactions.
I think many people were afraid because in Russia for, like, these kind of things,
like, you can go to jail for 15 years, so you're basically an extremist.
So they were very scared, and I think many of them, they were confused
because they didn't know who is talking, like, what is happening.
They were thinking maybe, like, who is testing them?
Like, who wants to see their reaction? So I think many people were very scared.
If you have a question, please feel free to approach one of the microphones
so that we can hear it. And at this stage, question from the Internet, please.
Yes. Sometimes during raids, especially ICE in the U.S.,
but probably also our state shutdown ISP networks and also cellular networks,
do you have any plans on resisting that,
or can your device actually resist those shutdowns? Can you please repeat?
So sometimes during raids or political anti-protest,
police shuts down cellular networks and also open Wi-Fi networks,
ISP networks, so that local Wi-Fi doesn't work anymore.
Do you have any plans to resist those measures,
or can your networks resist those measures?
But I think, like, our technology is a response to this.
This, like, LoRa-based mesh network is a response to these, like, shutdowns, actually.
This is what we had in mind when we started developing the project.
I see, but can it resist jammers, actually, like frequency jammers? I don't know.
We have to test. Thank you. Thank you. Microphone number one.
Hey, thank you for your work in this area.
I was curious, how do you see the difference between producing conceptual pieces and ideas,
and then actually building technological working entities?
And, yeah, what do you see you can learn from both? And what is their role?
I think I'm interested in both, in conceptual work,
but also, like, in this, like, creating new ways of communication,
creating new devices and some innovative approaches.
I don't want to say innovation,
but I think many artists, like, many of my favorite artists,
they use this kind of, like, non -conventional approaches to technology
to develop something, like, mind-blowing or, like, something completely, like, new.
Did I respond to your question? Almost.
It's, like, because we can imagine ideas and concepts, right? Yeah.
Like, how things would work, but then what happens when we actually build those?
Yeah, we face a lot of challenges when we build things.
Yeah, like, when we want to make something, like, kind of functional,
yeah, it's sometimes very challenging. Yeah.
That's why it's different from, like, having some speculative art
when you have some, like, idea, and then you can do a video, right?
You don't have to develop a device,
but when you're developing something functional,
yeah, you're facing a lot of challenges. Yeah, this is, like... Thank you.
Thank you. Microphone number two, please. Thank you.
Regarding the question of the jamming, I mean, it's satellite network,
and as you don't know the answer, maybe someone knows the answer,
can you jam the satellite networks from down here? Okay. No one knows. Yeah? Okay.
I think lower technology is pretty resilient, so it might sustain this.
And microphone two again, please. Thank you for your presentation.
I would like to ask about the camera project you did as well.
Do you know of anything that came of it, so to speak?
I mean, we saw the direct contact with the people,
but do you know if there was any action taken by the government?
Do you know if anything happened to the people who were listening to your messages?
Did anything in this way substantial that you could point to exactly this happened?
Because it was very fascinating to watch it,
but I'm just curious if there was anything, like, yeah, you know.
I actually don't know. And to me, it was more like, I didn't see it as a project.
To me, it was more like a way to support myself, to cheer up myself,
but also to support these people,
because they don't have access to alternative perspectives. They are very scared.
Even if they're against the war against Putin's regime,
they don't have this perspective. They don't see it on media,
and they're even, like, scared to express this in even, like,
not in public context, even, like, privately.
So to me, it was also a way to support these people. And when you watch a video,
you can definitely see that some of these people, they're against the war, right?
Against Putin. And to me, that was very, yeah,
like, I was very happy to see this, like, and supporting these people.
So it was actually a very personal project to me. Thank you.
Thank you very much for the talk.