Book of Anonymity
- Edited by Anon Collective
Published on March 4, 2021 by punctum books
- Pages
- 486 pages
- Languages
- English
- Dimensions
- 7⤫10 in.
- ISBN (Paperback)
- ISBN: 978-1-953035-30-1 (Paperback)
- ISBN (PDF)
- ISBN: 978-1-953035-31-8 (PDF)
- LCCN
- LCCN: 2020951163
- BISAC subject codes
- BISAC: COM079000, COM079010, SOC071000
- Thema subject codes
- THEMA: JBCT1, URD, URY
Anonymity is highly contested, marking the limits of civil liberties and legality. Digital technologies of communication, identification, and surveillance put anonymity to the test. They challenge how anonymity can be achieved, and dismantled. Everyday digital practices and claims for transparency shape the ways in which anonymity is desired, done, and undone.
The Book of Anonymity includes contributions by artists, anthropologists, sociologists, media scholars, and art historians. It features ethnographic research, conceptual work, and artistic practices conducted in France, Germany, India, Iran, Switzerland, the UK, and the US. From police to hacking cultures, from Bitcoin to sperm donation, from Yik-Yak to Amazon and IKEA, from DNA to Big Data — thirty essays address how the reconfiguration of anonymity transforms our concepts of privacy, property, self, kin, addiction, currency, and labor.
Contents
Frontmatter (1–5)
Anon Collective
Preface: Writing Anonymity (6–9)
Anon Collective
Toward a Kaleidoscopic Understanding of Anonymity (16–34)
Götz Bachmann, Julien McHardy, Michi Knecht, Nils Zurawski
Artistic Research on Anonymity (35–67)
Daniela Silvestrin, Andreas Broeckmann
Anonymity and Transgression (70–87)
Jacob Copeman, Dwaipayan Banerjee
Anonymity: The Politicisation of a Concept (88–109)
Thorsten Thiel
USAE (110–115)
Heath Bunting
Big Data’s End Run around Anonymity and Consent (116–141)
Solon Barocas, Helen Nissenbaum
A List of Famous Artists Who Used to Be Invigilators (142–150)
Simon Farid
Anonymity as Everyday Phenomenon and as a Topic of Research (151–166)
Gertraud Koch
Anonymity on Demand: The Great Offshore (167–185)
RYBN.ORG
DNA Works! Merging Genetics and the Digital Realm (188–209)
Amelie Baumann
Sanitary Policy and the Policy of Anonymity: Notes about a Game on Endocrine Disruptors (210–225)
Bureau d'études
Where Do the Data Live? (226–254)
Randi Heinrichs
Fraught Platform Governmentality: Anonymity, Content Moderation and Regulatory Strategies over Yik Yak (255–274)
Abigail Curlew
Anonymity: Obsolescence and Desire (275–285)
Aram Bartholl
Policing Normality: Police Work, Anonymity and a Sociology of the Mundane (286–290)
Nils Zurawski
Amazonian Flesh: How to Hang in Trees during Strike? (294–305)
knowbotiq, Nina Bandi
Proximity, Distance and State Powers: Policing Practices and the Regulation of Anonymity (306–325)
Nils Zurawski
Dual Reality: (Un)Observed Magic in the Workplace (326–335)
Paula Bialski, Simon Farid
A Provisional Manifesto for Invigilator-Friendly Artworks, or Your Artwork Is an Invigilator’s Labor Conditions (336–339)
Simon Farid
Care or Control? Police, Youth and Mutual Anonymity (340–345)
Nils Zurawski
She Remembers (346–353)
Parastou Forouhar
Collective Pleasures of Anonymity: From Public Restrooms to 4chan and Chatroulette (356–378)
Daniël de Zeeuw
Transformella Malor Ikeae: InnerCity Ikeality [4.4.6.11] (379–393)
Transformella Malor Ikeae (cared for by JP Raether)
Authenticity (394–400)
Amelie Baumann
Longing for a Selfless Self and other Ambivalences of Anonymity (401–423)
Anon
Speak their Endless Names (424–432)
Gerald Raunig
Bitcoin Anonymous? Of Trust in Code and Paper (433–446)
Anna Henke
Anonymity Workshop (447–462)
Stéphane Degoutin, Vadim Bernard, Martin De Bie
Backmatter (466–486)
Anon Collective
Endorsements
Gary T. Marx
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Book of Anonymity is a stunning achievement! It is luxuriantly interdisciplinary, highly original, and deeply reflective. […] It should be in the library of anyone concerned with information control and revelation issues, as these touch anonymity and identifiability, privacy and publicity and secrecy and transparency. Whether involving scholarship, activism or art, the varied articles strike at the very core of contemporary new technology communication issues such as trust, legitimacy, access, authority and power, and the principled reciprocity central to the social bond and a decent (or, when these are lacking) indecent society.
Reviews
Review of Anon Collective. 2021. Book of Anonymity. Earth: punctum books.(opens in new tab)
Robert Thornton-Lee
Leeds Trinity University
Re-thinking the datafied society through the anonymity kaleidoscope(opens in new tab)
Philip Di Salvo
Universita della Svizzera Italiana
Usage metrics
Funding
Genres
- Cultural Studies+Critical Theory
- Media+Technology
Keywords
- Anonymity
- Art-Science Collaboration
- Data Security,
- Digital Cultures
- Personhood
- Privacy
- Surveillance