When I was 6 it all changed. People had mobile phones and computers before then, but it was as if something had infected us – suddenly they were cheaper, easier to use and interact with. They became hip across all ages and cultural backgrounds. We became obsessed.

And that obsession grew like a cancer. We didn’t just want them anymore; we needed them like a drug. It became our reason to go to work, to earn money, to perform better at school. Somewhere along the way, we stopped using the machines, and the machines started using us.

God is in the machine. All’s right with the world.

The government’s been in bed with the entire telecommunications industry since the Forties. They’ve infected everything. They can get into your bank statements, your computer files, e-mail, listen to your phone calls, read your texts and voicemail. Every wire, every airwave. The more technology you use, the easier it is for them to keep tabs on you.

It’s a brave new world out there. At least it better be.

I used to work for the N.S.A. I was a communication analyst. Listening to international calls, calls from foreign nationalists. Fort Meade has acres of mainframe computers underground. You’re talking on the phone to your wife and you use the word, “bomb,” “president,” “Allah,” any of a hundred key words, the computer recognizes it, automatically records it, red flags it for analysis; that was thirty years ago.

You know the Hubble Telescope that looks up to the stars? They’ve got over a hundred spy satellites looking down at us. That’s classified.

In the old days, we actually had to tap a wire into your phone line. Now with calls bouncin’ around on satellites and off of cell-phone masts, they just snatch ‘em right out of the air.

Surveillance Footage A-1

Subject enters frame from the right, inspects dishwasher, places half-eaten loaf of bread in cupboard. He then goes to the right, exits outside and smokes a cigarette, periodically spitting. At 2:04 and 2:11 he seems to overhear something from the adjacent yard; he continues smoking.

At 3:22 he shrugs to disentangle himself from a thorny hedge, inspects loose branch before discarding it; smokes throughout.

After disappearing out of view to the left at 4:23 and returning at 4:42, he stubs out his cigarette and returns inside. At 5:03 he runs himself a tall glass of water from the kitchen faucet and drinks it in three long gulps, spitting out the last mouthful in the sink. He exits to the right of frame at 5:22.

I’m supposed to act like they aren’t here.
Assuming there’s a “they” at all.
It may just be my imagination.
Whatever it is that’s watching…
… it’s not human…
It doesn’t ever blink.
What does a scanner see?
Into the head?
Down into the heart?
Does it see into me, into us?
Clearly or darkly?
I hope it sees clearly, because
I can ‘t any longer see into myself.
I see only murk.
I hope for everyone’s sake
the scanners do better.
Because if the scanner sees only darkly,
the way I do…
… then I’m cursed and cursed again.
And we’ll only wind up dead this way…
… knowing very little and getting
that little fragment wrong too.

UPDATE: I really liked what Jack did with the track here; I had an inkling early on that ASD would be an interesting connection for what we’d eventually end up doing. Whilst it doesn’t line up perfectly, the film/book’s depiction of America not only shares alot of the elements we discussed (total surveillance, paranoia), it’s oddly prescient as well – the film was released in 2006, and the opening describes it as taking place “Seven Years in The Future”.

Per Wikipedia:

“The United States has lost the war on drugs. Substance D, a powerfully dangerous drug that causes bizarre hallucinations has swept the country, and approximately 20% of the total population is now addicted. In response, the government has developed an invasive, high-tech surveillance system and a network of undercover officers and informants.

Bob Arctor is one of these undercover agents, assigned to immerse himself in the drug’s underworld and infiltrate the supply chain. Sometime in the past, Arctor was abandoned by his wife and two children, leaving him alone in a now-rundown suburban house in Anaheim, California; the house has since been repopulated by Arctor’s two drug-addicted, layabout housemates: Luckman and Barris. The three spend their days intoxicated and having long, paranoiac conversations. At the police station, Arctor maintains privacy by wearing a “scramble suit” that constantly changes every aspect of his appearance and he is known only by the code name “Fred.” Arctor’s senior officer, “Hank”, and all other undercover officers, also wear scramble suits, protecting their identities even from each other.

Since going undercover, Arctor himself has become addicted to Substance D and he has befriended the main woman he has been spying on: a cocaine addict and Substance D supplier named Donna. Arctor hopes to purchase large enough quantities of Substance D from Donna that she is forced to introduce him to her own supplier, but he has also developed seemingly unrequited romantic feelings towards her.”

For those who want to watch the film themselves, a link to it is below:-

http://putlocker.cz/embed/a-scanner-darkly-tt0405296/

This is a logo/emblem design I had made for Site-Spec last year, with the intention of using it for other stuff too. I refer to it as “Hammerspace”, and whilst I understand if it’s not exactly what you’re all looking for, it’s a good jumping off point. I also have a Illustrator file for it, so it can be resized or tweaked to specification.

For those who don’t know, “hammerspace” is the name that’s used in cartoons and similar media for any pocket dimension from which something is retrieved as if from nowhere, usually hammers, hence the name. When Felix the Cat pulls improbably enormous objects out of his carpet bag, or when Ramona Flowers pulls an oversized mallet from her teeny-tiny purse, they are said to be retrieved from hammerspace. The TARDIS from Doctor Who is similar in terms of its relationship to 3D space, i.e. it is “bigger on the inside” to the point where it is potentially infinite.

The nature of these “notebooks” reminds me a lot of what Burroughs would call “routines” – short stories, anecdotal in nature, that acted like “bits”, or scenes that he’d recite like poetry and would become part of his writing. One famous one is his famous “Talking Asshole” routine, set to music below.