[ SURVEILLANCE STUDIES NETWORK  ]

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 2022, 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.

Jessica-Maria Nassif 

At the crossroad of design, art and technology, the works of Jessica-Maria Nassif questions the notions of communication and language in contemporary scenarios.
 

Jessica-Maria Nassif’s work involves the creation of mystical or humorous stories to create new perspectives on reality playing with her different languages, and voices while exploring performance, artificial intelligence, interactive design, sound design, installation and video.  

Currently, Jessica-Maria Nassif is interested in raising awareness on the invisible contemporary surveillance and explores how language and ways of speaking can betray or save the speaker in different contexts, from war to the daily routine thus being used as tools to escape today’s panopticon.

Jessica-Maria Nassif is also one of the four members of the trojans collective.