Artists provide critical counterpoints to the assumptions held by private contractors, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies about dataveillance, i.e. the use of datasets to monitor, predict, and control behavior. Whereas analysts tend to see data as “raw” facts and the analytical process as narrowly empirical, dataveillance artists regard data as constructed artifacts and remain open to a multiplicity of epistemological approaches. This article discusses the work of ten post-Snowden dataveillance artists who enable critical reflection on the capacity of automated dataveillance to represent complex and indeterminate social phenomena while refuting a singular, authoritative story about dataveillance.

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