178 Degrees East — Another Ocean Region

Project by Marko Peljhan, Australia, 1997

"The title indicates the position of a satellite from the INMARSAT constellation over the Pacific whose telecommunications traffic served as the basis of that project. (...)

The project was set in the Performance Space gallery in Sydney, in November and December 1997, and was concerned with the Australian telecommunications legislation which, because of the UKUSA Pact amongst other things, pays much attention to the possibility of interception of telecommunications. (...) The system is said to have two stations in Australia, reportedly at the Pine Gap base and at Woomeri. From the standpoint of international law Echelon is illegal, of course, as is the entire system judging by the majority of national legislations except the Australian ...This was the subject of the project for which I had made a comparative study of telecommunications laws in all the UKUSA signatories and found out that with the exception of Australia, no legislation allows anybody, be it a private person or the state, to listen surreptitiously to private conversations without court authorisation. (...) We found out that one of such legalised channels in the Australian legislation enables civilians to do the same...There is a small detail, of course, that you must not record or disclose what you've heard, and what you are listening to must not be transmitted from Australia or intended for Australia. But the legal possibility to do it exists, so I decided to demonstrate, not to use, that possibility and to warn of it. This is how the project which turned its antenna towards the Inmarsat satellite over the Pacific came to be.

We prepared the reception system and every visitor to the gallery signed the Confidentiality and Non Disclosure Agreement form made in accordance with Australian legislation through the intermediary of a large firm which had confirmed our interpretation. We drew up the form together, and all visitors who wanted to use earphones and the reception system to listen to that satellite communication - mainly telephone conversations - had to sign it.

The installation of the satellite reception system itself was very simple and both the laws, which I named "the attackers", i.e. the Telecommunications Interception Act and the Australian Security Intelligence Act, were available. These are the two books that made the project possible. Above them is the map of the Inmarsat constellation, which I named "the attacked", and on the walls were materials about Echelon and UKUSA and the protection of privacy - in short, the entire context.

If I were to describe the project in a single sentence I would say that the essential thing about it is the demonstration of the possibility of the legal use of means for research on the telecommunications spectrum. Telecommunications are the most regulated part of legislation in all the countries of the world, and are crucial to projects which act to open and not close the problems."

Sources:
Marko Peljhan: Strategies of Minimal Resistance - Analysis of Tactical Work in the Surveillance Society, talk at SCCA (Ljubljana Center for Contemporary Arts), 1999:
http://www.worldofart.org/english/99/99peljhantxang.htm
http://www.rezoweb.com/forum/technologie/aaaroskoforum/939.shtml

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