Disrupting surveillance: critical software design-led practice to obfuscate and reveal surveillance economies and knowledge monopolies. Hadi Mehrpouya Thesis submitted to the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Edinburgh Edinburgh College of Art 2021 1 | P a g e 2 | P a g e 4 | P a g e PhD Abstract Big data collection, behavioural economics and targeted advertisement are changing the dynamics and notions of our individuality and societies. By mobilising critical design methods, I made a series of critical design works to reveal and disrupt surveillance and knowledge monopolies. The aim of this practice-led investigation is to challenge surveillance and knowledge practices within internet search and advertising industries and through this contribute to surveillance debates and critical design practice. The four critical design practices that I developed during the course of this investigation namely Zaytoun, Philodox, Maladox and Open Bubble all interrogate humans’ relations to technology and more specifically their transformations as objects and subjects of surveillance capitalism. Zaytoun challenges notions of data consumption, quantification and distancing. Philodox reveals and critiques some trust issues and algorithmic biases of internet search engines. Maladox, is an anatomical engine of fictional speculative cyborg dis-eases, creating a critical space to reconsider our relationship to technology. Finally, Open Bubble is a counter surveillance browser extension that obfuscates and challenges knowledge enclosures imposed by search engines. Based on a review of philosophy of technology and especially as it relates to Science and Technology Studies (STS), I reflect on some of the underlying conditions that made possible the existence of modern technology in its current form. I analyse the contextual background of this body of work and its take on technology as a central lever for governance and for shaping of human subjects. This thesis investigates the taken for granted ways our interactions with surveillance capitalism infrastructures are transforming our individual and collective beings and in turn the new cyborg ontologies that we are being integrated into. The four critical design works included in this investigation offer alternative possibilities for critical engagement with, and interpretation of, big data and the algorithmic manipulations we are subjected to. This thesis attempts to take the below contributions to the theoretical developments around governmentality, surveillance capitalism, but also to critical design and design informatics. I develop ideas aiming at moving from humans and subjectivity as the nexus for governance towards attention to the cyborg as the emerging central 5 | P a g e site for both governance and resistance. Furthermore, through my practices I illustrate the importance of non-visual relations to audiences be it through touch or hearing in opening up spaces for questioning and resistance. I believe attention to the sensory dynamics of the experience and resistance have strong potentials for contributing to the debates around resistance within governance regimes. Furthermore, this thesis brings attention to the micro processes & software codes and algorithms that enable surveillance capitalism and engages in exercises aiming at disrupting them. I believe such detailed work focused on the ways humans interact with internet-based regimes of surveillance is a much-needed complement to the already well-developed critiques of institutions and structures of surveillance capitalism. Concerning critical design, my works bring attention to the role of spatial configuration of the works in conditioning the users’ rhythm, intensity and span of engagement with the work. In addition, I believe my practices and my theoretical developments around them open possibilities for new reflections on different forms of satire and laughter and how they can be situated in users’ experiences with critical design work. 6 | P a g e 7 | P a g e Lay summary Science and technology whilst having brought many opportunities and positive developments into our lives, they have also created many challenges that both us and the future generations face. For example climate change, threats against our democracy, human rights, privacy and liberty, but also societal challenges such as increasing inequalities and injustices. These challenges are not because of science and technology, but because of the ways, we understand, develop and use them. The boundary between science and technology have become blurry, because they reinforce and shape each other. Our world is immersed in science and technology, this includes how we access the news, find jobs, socialise, entertain, capture special moments of our lives, our manufacturing industries and how we organise and automate them; these are all one way or another managed and developed through science and technology. This means it is almost impossible to see our lives and our relationships with science and technology with sufficient distance. They are increasingly ubiquitous and taken for granted. One of the important aspects of technology is its ability to record and monitor our interactions with it. For example, when we visit anything on the internet, the websites will remember what we looked at, when, from which location, the device we used and many more. Over the past two decades, capitalism has developed new ways to make profit out of this data that technologies capture about our lives. Governments also use this to monitor and in some cases manipulate their citizens for both good and bad reasons. These approaches have led to further control of our access to knowledge but also control of our behaviours resulting in a new form of capitalism commonly referred to as surveillance capitalism. In this investigation, I developed four critical design projects to reveal, challenge and disrupt certain aspects of surveillance capitalism and to create a space for reflection and interpretation of these technological constructs. The four critical design practices that I developed are; Zaytoun, Philodox, Maladox and Open Bubble. They all question our relationship with technology and it’s effects on us. Zaytoun challenges how we consume information and how our lives are managed by numbers. Philodox examines how we blindly trust internet search 8 | P a g e engines. Maladox, is a fictional work that imagines future diseases created by the fusion of technology and us. Finally, Open Bubble is an anti-surveillance browser extension. 9 | P a g e 10 | P a g e Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge the people who have supported me throughout my PhD and who have helped so much to make this possible. I am extremely grateful to each one of you. First of all thank you to my supervisors and friends, Chris Speed and Craig Martin, for guiding me throughout the process and for always being open to change and redirection over the years. Thank you also to my colleagues at Abertay University, especially my manager Ruth Falconer, for always being so understanding and supportive. I would also like to thank my family and wonderful friends for all of your love and support. Thank you especially to Paul Philips, Jacob Dobson, Laura Mehrpouya, Robert Powell and Diego Zamora for reading and commenting on my work and to Jerem Bretin for distracting me from the stress. Thank you to Sophie and Cora. You were born into a PhD whirlwind and, with mummy’s help; you have given me so much energy and inspiration. So much thanks to my Mum and Dad for giving me such a lot of love and encouragement throughout my education and for supporting me to move to Scotland and pursue my passions here. I am especially grateful to my brother Afshin, for your unending support and guidance with this project and beyond. I could not have completed this project without you. Thank you to Richard Shilcock for all the Marxist talks and conversations and being always available. Thank you to Simon Biggs for giving me my first academic job at University of Edinburgh, supporting me and guiding me in the beginning of my journey to becoming a researcher, for introducing me to many inspiring people at the University including my supervisor Chris. Thank you to Chris for all the research opportunities you gave me. 11 | P a g e Contents Declaration page...................................................................................................... 3 PhD Abstract ........................................................................................................... 5 Lay summary ........................................................................................................... 8 Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................11 Table of Figures ......................................................................................................17 Chapter 1. Introduction ...........................................................................................20 1.1 What we already know ..................................................................................20 1.2 Know to knot know or critical design as an affective endeavour ....................25 1.3 My journey back home or Odyssey and I .......................................................27 1.4 The layout of the rest of my thesis .................................................................28 Chapter 2. Governmentality: surveillance and capitalism ........................................32