The Bureau of Inverse Technology Has More....
New York, May, 1998
TAKE ONE.....(1)
One of the members of the all female political art collective known
as the
Bureau of Inverse Technology fills me in on some of the finer
points of the groups
aims and objectives.
Seeking to blur the distinction between science and art, between self/other,
and
between body and architecture, BIT, now six years old have been sailing
very close
to the winds of the cyberpunk zietgiest.
ACCESS ALL AREAS - friends in high places
The group can claim as supporters some of the brightest stars in the
movement’s universe: Bruce Sterling and William Gibson.
BEING GLISSILE - Geographic spread
Members of BIT are spread across three different cities - Melbourne,
San
Francisco and New York. Convening on occasion to collaborate on
interventionist artworks of specialised technological refinement
and sociological
wit, the group enjoy almost total anonymity - a matter of deliberate
choice to them
all. When appearing in public the group don face masks, black
lycra paramilitary
bodywear and an array of technological apparatus. To this extent, the
group
bear some similarity to the Geurrilla Girls, whose characteristic
gorrilla outfits mask
a serious agenda of female representation in the New York art world.
JOBS IN SPACE - the promise of better living through technology.
Among BIT’s most memorable aesthetic hallmarks is the notion of using
technology in ways which defy the intentions of their manufacturers.
This
is a variant on the familiar ‘street finds its own uses for things’
credo of the classical
cyberpunk mileux. The difference with BIT’s technological detournments
however is
the strategy of specifically targeting corperations and organisations
whose activities violate or
challenge the principle of the independence and sanctity of the
female body. The
authoritarianism of the patriarchal medical system, the manufacturers
of silicon implants
all come under fire from BIT’s careful cryptic anonymous faxes
- often which bear
one single phrase or word - such as “UNSAFE”.
NOT TO SCALE
The gigantisism of the corporate imagination is another fitting site
for
critique. The egocentric monumentalism of most office blocks and housing
estates, whose international style rationalist sobriety so offended
the Situationist
International, is dealt a symbolic blow by the bureau. The group often
photograph themselves positioned in front of or atop these
structures so as to emphasise the scale of the buildings. BIT interupt
the
severe linearity of the lines of a hideous corporate headquarters with
thier shapely and
athletic black sillohuettes. BIT photograph these architectural body
interventions and in doing so seek to critique and challenge
head on the primacy of the urban
expression of capital’s bland public face.
Bridges, skyscrapers, plazas, carparks - all become both the site and
subject of direct action by the group, whose guerilla style methods
include
‘tampering’ - that is direct technological re-wiring of security
systems, breaches of
controlled access areas (like rooftops and staiways). In a 1992 video
documentary I
made of the group for SBS television’s “Carpet Burns” in Melbourne
Australia, the group
took me to the rooftops of the Bureau of Meteorology. Here the girls
gleefully sat inside the giant radar dishes which collect data
from low orbiting
satellites, examined the many tiny windmills which detected wind velocity,
and otherwise occupied this most scientifically reasoned and measured
of city
environments.
We also took a car to the peak of the West Gate Bridge - an eleganltly
curved ‘S” shaped suspension structure which spans the Yarra river
in
Melbourne carrying road traffic in both directions. Upon stopping
the BIT car (a funky early
1970s white Ford Falcon) one of the group jumped up onto the
handrail of
the bridge and commenced tightrope walking along it. The event
was captured
on hi 8 video by myself for the documentary.
To fall would have meant certain death, as the distance to the ground below was over 1000 feet. We learned that up to three people suicide from the bridge each week.
BIT have since created a camera which automatically records suicides
off
bridges in San Francisco. A tape made of the results is called "Suicide
Box".
Another invention is a radio controlled model aircraft which records
moving
images in real time called "BIT PLANE".
For more information on the Bureau of Inverse Technology have a look
at
these web sites:
http://www.duke.edu/~lmk2/INTERFACE/BIT.html