item details
NameModded Server-Rack Display with Some Interpretations of Imagery from NSA MYSTIC, FOXACID, QUANTUMTHEORY, and Other SSO/TAO Slides
ProductionSimon Denny; artist; 2015; Berlin
Classificationsculpture, installations (visual works)
Materials SummaryUV prints on Revostage platforms, powder coated 19" server racks, Cisco Systems WS-C2948G switches, LAN cables, Bachmann power strips, HP Proliant 380DL G5 server, steel trays, vinyl and brushed aluminium on coloured plexiglas, laser cut plexiglas letters, UV prints on Aludibond, Fisso stainless steel spacers, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, stuffed white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), ropes, aluminium poles, painted fibre glass globe, UV prints on plexiglas, Hormel Foods SPAM can in plexiglas box, painting and play card in plexiglas case, Shadowfist card game boxes and cards, powder coated steel and aluminium components, UV print on sandblasted laminated safety glass, LED strips
Techniquesassemblage
DimensionsOverall: 3000mm (width), 2900mm (height), 1000mm (depth)
Registration Number2015-0052-1/AA-KO to KO-KO
Credit linePurchased 2015
Overview
A bald eagle, the national bird of the United States, bears the world in its talons. This work makes visible, and monumentalises, the secret emblems of global surveillance programmes linked to the US National Security Agency (NSA).
According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013, MYSTIC is a telecommunications tracking programme, and FOXACID is the code name for a series of computer servers used to attack computers. QUANTUMTHEORY is a computer-hacking toolbox, and SSO stands for ‘Special Source Operations’, described by Snowden as the NSA’s ‘crown jewel’.