Ian Hatcher’s online and kinetic poem ⌰ [Total Runout] (2015) critiques corporate and governmental black boxing, at the level of its code, text, visual output and live sound performance. The poem is part of the series Drone Pilot, and it is presented in different versions: a Web-based work, a sound piece and a performance. It remixes appropriated text from a WikiLeaked manual by the UK Ministry of Defense, essays on artificial intelligence, and Hatcher’s own text. The overall versions of the work, understood as variable events, boldly problematize communication and cognitive processes in networks—whether they are implemented in computer systems by secret agencies or corporations. Hatcher’s critique to black boxes entails recreating issues of security, control and surveillance, as controlled systems are increasingly paving the way for less privacy and less knowledge about their inner workings. As a result, the poem questions the essence of privacy, redaction, and systemic violence, when access is a privileged asset of agents with security clearances or those with a deep knowledge of programming.
(Source: Álvaro Seiça)
