JasperSince the location where the symposium is being held has a limited seating capacity we take our seats in the tent that is erected in the courtyard of the Kunstuniversität. Though it's nice to be out of the rain, it friggin' cold in here. Within a few minutes some people from the organisation install some kind of generator based heating device, but it doesn't seem to improve the situation much.
Though we missed the introduction of the day we were in time for the first speaker, Beate Rössler. Unfortunately she couldn't be present in person, so we were stuck watching her prerecorded speech on the screen in the tent.
In her talk she focusses on the need for autonomy, from which the need for privacy automatically arises, because of the fact that one can only be completely autonomous, if one has the freedom to make choices which are wholly internally motivated.
Rössler discerns three types of privacy, the ability to make your own descisions, having your own private spehere and informational privacy. I found the third typ to be the most interesting in terms of public awareness and the need to educate children in school about this
The first two types are very much determinede by your cultural background and upbringing. Now, informational privacy is something that people can be made aware of thru education. People immediately feel invaded if their carefully crafted public appearance is taken oout of context, by surveillance systems or people who betray our trust by passing on information about ourselves that we confided in them. Once we're aware of the fact that any of our expressions can be modified, taken out of context, misrepresented - in essence, refering to Joichi Ito,remixed- we can relax, and even play with the systems of surveillance taht occupy our society.
