Sound weapons :: Architectures of Control

Mosquito controversy goes high-profile

Published February 13th, 2008 in Arbitrary, Architectures of Control, Audio, Britain, Built Environment, Children, Civil rights, Creeping erosion of norms, Crime, Design, Design philosophy, Designed to be unpleasant, Discrimination, Discriminatory Architecture, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, Dystopia, Erosion of liberty, Exclusion, Intrusive technology, Liberty, Mosquito, Non-lethal weapons, Oppression, Orwellian, Philosophy of control, Political design, Ringtones, Social engineering, Sound weapons, Technology policy, Teenagers, Underclass and Urban. 10 Comments

The Mosquito anti-teenager sound device, which we’ve covered on this site a few times, was yesterday heavily criticised by the Children’s Commissioner for England, Sir Albert Aynsley-Green, launching the BUZZ OFF campaign in conjunction with Liberty and the National Youth Agency:

Makers and users of ultra-sonic dispersal devices are being told to “Buzz Off” today by campaigners who say the device, which emits a high-pitched sound that targets under 25 year olds, is not a fair or reasonable solution for tackling anti-social behaviour. The campaign… is calling for the end to the use of ultra-sonic dispersal device. There are estimated to be 3,500 used across the country.

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‘Secret alarm becomes dance track’

Published September 28th, 2006 in 1984, Architectures of Control, Audio, Bad design, Britain, Built Environment, Bureaucracy, Business model, Cell phones, Civil rights, Consumer rights, Control, Creeping erosion of norms, Crime, Deleuze, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Designed to be unpleasant, Discrimination, Discriminatory Architecture, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, Dystopia, Embedding code, Entertainment, Erosion of liberty, Foucault, Health and safety, Innovation, Intrusive technology, Killjoy technology, Liberty, MP3, Mobile phones, Mosquito, Music, Orwellian, Philosophy of control, Political design, Product design, Propaganda, Punishment, Retail, Ringtones, Sneaky, Social engineering, Sound weapons, Spatial, Specious arguments, Surveillance, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology policy, Technology underclass, Teenagers, Underclass, Urban, User Psychology, User experience and Vague rhetoric. 0 Comments

The Mosquito sound has been mixed (sort of) into a dance track:

“…the sound is being used in a dance track, Buzzin’, with secret melodies only young ears can hear.

…

Simon Morris from Compound Security said: “Following the success of the ringtone, a lot of people were asking us to do a bit more, so we got together with the producers Melodi and they came up with a full-length track.

“It has two harmonies - one that everyone can hear and one that only young people can hear.

“But it works well together or separate,” he added.”

There’s a clip linked from the BBC story, or here directly (WMV format). Can’t say the “secret melodies” are especially exciting (and yes, I can hear it!) but I suppose it’s a clever idea. There could be some interesting steganographic possibilities, and indeed it could be used for ‘cheating in tests’ as Jason Thomas puts it here.

This is the same Simon Morris who’s quoted in an earlier BBC story as saying that teenagers (in general) don’t have a right “to congregate for no specific purpose”, so it’s interesting to see him getting involved with young peoples’ music. Nevertheless, I can see the dilemma that Compound Security are in: they’ve created something designed to be unpleasant for teenagers, but are also capitalising on its potential appeal to teenagers. It’s clever, if rather inconsistent branding practice.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation

Published September 7th, 2006 in 1984, Architectures of Control, Built Environment, Civil rights, Consumer rights, Control, Creeping erosion of norms, Crime, Deleuze, Democracy of innovation, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Designed to be unpleasant, Designed to injure, Designers, Discrimination, Discriminatory Architecture, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, Dystopia, Embedding code, Engineering, Engineering design, Erosion of liberty, Everyware, Exclusion, External Control, Foucault, Future, Gadgets, Health and safety, Hidden persuaders, Indoctrination, Innovation, Interaction design, Intrusive technology, Invention, Killjoy technology, Law, Legislation, Liberty, Norms, Open source, Oppression, Orwellian, Panopticon, Patents, Pervasive computing, Philosophy of control, Political design, Privacy, Product design, Propaganda, Prophecy, Punishment, Restriction, Sneaky, Social engineering, Sound weapons, Spatial, Surveillance, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology policy, Ubiquitous computing, Urban, User Psychology, User experience, Vague rhetoric and Worldwide. 3 Comments

An image from Hendricus Loos’s 2001 US patent, ‘Remote Magnetic Manipulation of Nervous Systems’

In my review of Adam Greenfield’s Everyware a couple of months ago, I mentioned - briefly - the work of Hendricus Loos, whose series of patents cover subjects including “Manipulation of nervous systems by electric fields”, “Subliminal acoustic manipulation of nervous systems”, “Magnetic excitation of sensory resonances” and “Remote magnetic manipulation of nervous systems”. A theme emerges, of which this post by Tom Coates at Plasticbag.org reminded me:

“There was one speaker at FOO this year that would literally have blown my brain away if he’d happened to have had his equipment with him. Ed Boyden talked about transcranial magnetic stimulation - basically how to use focused magnetic fields to stimulate sections of the brain and hence change behaviour. He talked about how you could use this kind of stimulation to improve mood and fight depression, to induce visual phenomena or reduce schizophrenic symptoms, hallucinations and dreams, speed up language processing, improve attention, break habits and improve creativity.

…

He ended by telling the story of one prominent thinker in this field who developed a wand that she could touch against a part of your head and stop you being able to talk. Apparently she used to roam around the laboratories doing this to people. She also apparently had her head shaved and tattooed with all the various areas of the brain and what direct stimulation to them (with a wand) could do to her. She has, apparently, since grown her hair. I’d love to meet her.”

Now, the direct, therapeutic usage of small-range systems such as these is very different to the discipline-at-a-distance proposed in a number of Loos’s patents (where an ‘offender’ can be incapacitated, using, e.g. a magnetic field), but both are architectures of control: systems designed to modify, restrict and control people’s behaviour.

And, I would venture to suggest, a more widespread adoption of magnetic stimulation for therapeutic uses - perhaps, in time, designed into a safe, attractive consumer product for DIY relaxation/stimulation/hallucination - is likely to lead to further experimentation and exploration of ‘control’ applications for law enforcement, crowd ‘management’, and other disciplinary uses. I think we - designers, engineers, tech people, architects, social activists, anyone who values freedom - should be concerned, but the impressive initiative of the Open-rTMS Project will at least ensure that we’re able to understand the technology.

Spiked: When did ‘hanging around’ become a social problem?

Published August 30th, 2006 in 1984, Arbitrary, Architectures of Control, Audio, Bad design, Britain, Built Environment, Bureaucracy, Cargo cult, Civil rights, Consumer rights, Control, Copyright, Creeping erosion of norms, Crime, Deleuze, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Designed to be unpleasant, Designed to injure, Designers, Discrimination, Discriminatory Architecture, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, Dystopia, Embedding code, Engineering, Engineering design, Entropy, Erosion of liberty, Everyware, Exclusion, External Control, Fightback Devices, Foucault, Future, Gravy train, Greasing palms, Health and safety, Hidden persuaders, Indoctrination, Interaction design, Intrusive technology, Killjoy technology, Law, Legislation, Liberty, Lobbying, Mosquito, Nonsense, Norms, Observation, Oppression, Orwellian, Panopticon, Pervasive computing, Philosophy of control, Political design, Privacy, Product design, Propaganda, Prophecy, Protest, Public money, Punishment, Restriction, Retail, Security, Shopping, Sneaky, Social engineering, Sound weapons, Spatial, Specious arguments, Supermarkets, Surveillance, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology policy, Technology underclass, Teenagers, Ubiquitous computing, Underclass, Urban, User Psychology, User experience and Vague rhetoric. 1 Comment

Josie Appleton, at the always-interesting Spiked, takes a look at the increasing systemic hostility towards ‘young people in public places’ in the UK: ‘When did ‘hanging around’ become a social problem?’

As well as the Mosquito, much covered on this site (all posts; try out high frequency sounds for yourself), the article mentions the use of certain music publicly broadcast for the same ‘dispersal’ purpose:
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Dilemma of horns

Published August 25th, 2006 in 1984, Arbitrary, Architectures of Control, Bad design, Britain, Built Environment, Civil rights, Control, Crime, Deleuze, Design, Design engineering, Design philosophy, Designed to be unpleasant, Designers, Discriminatory Architecture, Distasteful corollary, Do artifacts have politics?, Dystopia, Embedding code, Engineering, Engineering design, Entropy, Erosion of liberty, External Control, Feature deletion, Forcing functions, Gadgets, Good design, Health and safety, Interaction design, Intrusive technology, Law, Legislation, Liberty, London, Motoring, Orwellian, Panopticon, Philosophy of control, Political design, Product design, Regulation, Restriction, Social engineering, Sound weapons, Spatial, Speed control, Speeding, Techniques of persuasion, Technology, Technology policy, Traffic calming, Urban, User Psychology, User experience and Vague rhetoric. 0 Comments

I was woken up (along with, I expect, lots of others) at about 5am today by a driver sounding his/her horn in the road outside - an arrogant two-second burst - then another replying (perhaps) with a slightly feeble one-second tone. I don’t know why; there are often a lot of horns during the day as there’s a level crossing which seems to generate a lot of frustration, but there are no trains passing through at 5am. Anyway, I went back to sleep and had various, fitful dreams, but not before thinking that’s where an architecture of control would be useful: a time-related horn interlock function, only allowing use of the horn during hours when it is legal. In the UK, that would be from 7am - 11.30 pm.
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What are Architectures of Control?

Audi A2 : The user cannot open the bonnet; Bench designed to prevent lying down: 'redesigned to face contemporary urban realities'; Some HP printers shut down the cartridges at a pre-determined date regardless of whether they are empty

Increasingly, many products are being designed with features that intentionally restrict the way the user can behave, or enforce certain modes of behaviour. The same intentions are also evident in the design of many systems and environments.

This site aims—with readers’ input—to examine and analyse the ideas and techniques of these architectures of control in design, through examples and anecdotes, and by keeping up-to-date with relevant developments... More