Jessica-Maria Nassif’s performance raises consciousness on audio surveillance. Oblivious in global awereness, audio surveillance is just as much a threat as visual and data surveillance. It might actually be an even bigger threat, because it is invisible. We’re surrounded by microphones in our daily lives: all our conversations, our voices, even the way we speak can be collected, analysed and retained. In her performance, Nassif brings you the year 2020, where she speculates that this phenomenon has already happened: Our phones and all our smart devices have created a new intelligence listening landscape, and every word has consequences.

It also highlights humans’ dependent relationship with algorithmic governance technology. Nassif’s performance is dismantling the mechanism, tearing off the decor and revealing the machinery to find ways of tricking it. In the space, the unavoidable disembodied intelligence is represented by the phone, always present and recording every audio source, projecting on the screens. Using an app called “speechy”, every word of the performance is converted to text in real time, by working with Apple’s artificial intelligence, Siri.  ︎ Performance Appendix  ︎ Ask for Press Kit