Walls have Ears

I learnt about something new today, or at least a different context for the often espionage associated term of "Dead Drops".

It relates to the inspired actions of a Berlin based artist, Aram Bartholl.

His particular discipline has involved, in a series of projects, the mixing of features of the digital and information technology world with the physical world. Previous art installations have included what he has termed urban interventions where he placed objects from the digital space in the street. His core interest for many years has been an interest in architecture, street art, web development and DIY culture.

The Dead Drops initiative is a logical continuation whereby Bartholl has been embedding USB sticks in walls of buildings to create an offline filesharing network.

His first work was in  New York, USA with mortar joints carefully drilled out and a stripped down USB wrapped in plumbers tape and fixed in position in cement. All that protrudes from the elevation of the host building is the connection piece.

The locations of all Dead Drops are posted online on a dedicated web site to enable prospective users to get busy.

There is a definite spy theme to the process of searching out the fixed sticks and in the awkward style needed by users to hold up their laptops to the wall surface to make that all important insertion into the USB port surrounded by concrete.

In these days of super-connectivity there must be something quite fundamental about this method of passing items between users without them ever having the need to meet.

In some respects the Dead Drop is as naked and basic as you can get and in an urban location which is shared public space. There is no data storage to The Cloud and no reliance on the internet through this passively powered USB technology. It is a representation of freedom of distribution of information that many feel is an essential return to technological utopianism.

The project has been received well but with others expressing real concerns about mis-use. The medium is very exposed to viruses but the crux of the project is that it is open to the public and as such cannot be controlled.

The fact that the USB is out in the street does engender fears that something dangerous is involved.
Those taking the project in its true spirit have shared music files and family photographs. The projecting sheath of the USB has been described by others as being more sexual than technological but there can also be a humbling aspect where users with expensive, top of the range laptops can be seen in different poses which are required to connect to the wall fitting.

A practical guide is available on the official web site on how to establish a Dead Drop and in addition to architectural sites there have been USB's in kerbs and in natural settings in tree trunks and boulders.

The origin of Dead Drops is of course more sinister in covert operations and the passing of secret information. In 2006 the Russian Secret Service accused Britain of using wireless Dead Drops concealed inside hollowed out rocks in order to collect espionage information from agents in Russia.

To date the Dead Drops web site lists 1470 sites worldwide, not a great number and density but perhaps the beginnings of a movement very much counter to the dominance of and reliance on the internet in everyday life.