Hier een interview dat Dirk Kloosterboer afnam met de kunstenaar Hasan Elahi. Een verkorte versie zal binnenkort gepubliceerd worden in het muziekblad Gonzo. Het huidige project van Elahi begon toen de FBI in verband met zijn arabische naam meer over hem wilde weten. Hij besloot dan maar gelijk alles online te gooien, inclusief bankafschriften, locatie van zijn gsm en genuttigde maaltijden. Het interview is in het Engels.

Artist Hasan Elahi decided that the best way to respond to the loss of privacy is to manage you digital identity by flooding the internet with personal information. “In this openness, we literally become transparent and anonymous. We blend right in and no-one cares”.

In 2002, Elahi was questioned by the FBI because someone found his Arab name suspicious. He decided to tell them all they wanted to know. Not much later, he created a website that provides detailed information about his life. Not only does it track his whereabouts through his cell phone; it also features his bank statements, his telephone bills and photos of the meals he has. From Berlin, he explains.

I think it's really both in a way. I don't think it's the only answer. There's a really wide range of information about us on the internet. Someone can take bits and pieces of information that are partially true, and they can contextualise them in a way that can be completely false. This is exactly what happened in my case. People reported me to the FBI. Just because I have an Arab name I automatically become an Arab and then because I'm Arab, I'm automatically assumed to be a terrorist. There's so much information about us floating about; if we don't take control over it, it can go horribly wrong. So I think having a little bit of information out there is very dangerous. But having a lot of information out there about you is wonderful.

You would prefer that to having no information about you on the internet at all?

I'm a bit practical. That's not realistic. We can't wipe out what's happened already. But what we can do, we can try to shape it to our benefit rather than letting someone else shape it. And secondly, when for example blogs first started showing up on the net, people were shocked: I can't believe they're putting such personal information out there. But really, how many of these blogs do we read each day? Almost none. We simply don't care. So in this openness, we literally become transparent and anonymous. We blend right in and no-one cares.

There's a discussion in the Netherlands about young people posting a lot of information about themselves on the internet, not realising that if they for example apply for a job, people might google them and find out things that at that stage, they would prefer to keep secret.

We're in a really unusual cultural and generational clash. There was a generation that would write a letter and another that would make a phone call, and now we have a generation that would send an e-mail, and we have another generation that would just post a message on a MySpace board. When those same teenagers and young adults become political or corporate leaders, we're going to see a change of culture. So right now: yes, it is unfortunate that some of these young folks are not getting jobs because someone is looking them up on Google and finding something they may or may not want everybody to know. This is again an example of how a little bit of information about you might hurt. So I think if that person had actually more information about him on the internet, you would really see that person for what he is.

And then those details wouldn't hurt so much anymore?

Exactly. When those isolated little details are taken out of context, that's when they get dangerous. If someone is turned down because of something that's on the internet, they learn very quickly to start managing their identity.

There are a lot of people who use false names when on the Internet; they try to hide their identities. What do you think of that? It's the opposite of what you're advocating, or is it?

I don't know if it's the opposite. The internet is wonderful in that it does allow someone to create this identity. But at the end of the day, even though you may have a false name, you're going to get found out. We have all these tools to mask our IP addresses and things like that. For example, when I look at my weblog, I know who showed up on my site masked. And that would be like the equivalent of someone walking down the street wearing a mask. You know that person has something to hide; otherwise he would not be wearing a mask in public. So, pseudonyms and false names, sure, there's a place for them. And I think all of us have more than one e-mail address, we identify ourselves in different ways. There are some people that call me professor Elahi, there's some that call me Hasan.

So it's not as black and white as having a false identity and a true one?

No, absolutely not, for there are various degrees of what constitutes an identity.

Governments and corporations collect a lot of information about people. You advocate openness; would you advocate openness on their part as well?

Absolutely. Will they do it? Probably not, because there's too much money at stake. But what's interesting is that generational thing I was talking about. For example, it is very common that the young corporate CEOs post things about the upcoming developments in their corporation on their blogs. This was unthinkable ten, twenty years ago. When a person that does not know a world prior to MySpace goes to government, he will be a lot more open.

At the same time, there's also a development where you see governments becoming more secretive in response to terrorism.

Well, terrorism has become a great mantra that governments use. I blame almost all of that on fear-mongering. And fear is an excellent tool to control. I find it appalling that a few weeks ago, the director of homeland security said he had a gut feeling that terrorists would attack in the summer. What? Now we're making policy decisions based on gut feelings? Come on! The only thing that does is propagate fear.

You think it might be counter-effective?

Yes. The US government has been very good at creating this model of 'us' versus 'them'. And I think that it's actually worse in Europe, for there is a longer history of linking nationality to ethnicity. So if you don't fit into this ethnicity, you'll really have to convince us that you belong.

You're saying this 'us' and 'them' thing is stronger in Europe than in America?

It's hard to say. The American government has screwed things up majorly in the last six, seven years. I wouldn't be surprised right now if it's worse in the US. But there's this idea of assimilation. And what happens if people don't want to assimilate, do they get further ghettoised? The alienation that's taking place in Britain is a good example. And the Netherlands have had this film-maker, what's his name, Theo van Gogh [Van Gogh was murdered by an Islamist, resulting in a rise in anti-Muslim sentiments - dk]. So people get pushed out further and further, to the point they're so far out they actually become dangerous. I think it's very dangerous to operate from a principle of 'us' versus 'them'.

In an interview in NRC Handelsblad you said you called the FBI every time you took a flight. Do you still do that?

Not anymore. That started out years ago. Now, my website is so extensive. The site updates when I'm going somewhere, it does so every few minutes. I'm about to get out off a train in a little bit; you'll see me at a train station. And a few moments later, you'll see me down at my apartment, and then you'll see me heading to some stores...

That's the little red arrow that you see on the site?

Exactly. So I'm not in direct contact with the FBI at this moment. But the FBI does watch me.

Through your website?

Yes. I've got hits from the CIA, from the FBI - they don't show up as FBI but as Department of Justice, usdoj.gov. I got a very cryptic one recently, called eop.gov. If you go to www.eop.gov, there's no website there. But if you do some digging around, you'll realise that it's the Executive Office of the President. A lot of people say: you're just paranoid. But is it paranoia when you have proof they are watching?

But you would expect them to be watching.

Yes, but I really don't know why. Because at the last meeting I had with the FBI, I was told that everything was OK.

You actually have meetings with them?

Oh yes, I met with them for six months from June to about the end of November, December, of 2002. I was coming from the airport and I was taken in. Many people's reaction would be: how dare you do this, this is un-American, this is against the law, but that was not my reaction. I knew that whatever was happening was happening outside the law. So at any moment they could have said: we don't believe you and we're taking you to Guantánamo and we don't have to tell you why. So I've been very careful and my reaction was: well hello, how can I help you?

Were they surprised at that reaction?

Yes, I think they were quite surprised, for they are expecting people to be angry and not saying: hey, what do you guys need to know from me? And then, going back to the 'us' and 'them' issue, I made it very clear to them that this is my culture, this is who I am, I'm not some Middle Eastern Arab terrorist. And the reason I could convince them was that I could talk about college football. I could talk about the pickup truck that I had or about country music. Obviously, Middle Eastern terrorists aren't supposed to know about this.

So you want to be part of 'us'.

It's not that I want to be, it is my culture. I was seven years old when I left Bangladesh. I'm 35 now, so I lived 28 years of my life in the US. I grew up there, went to elementary school, went to high school, so in every way, I'm about as American as they come. We have this horrible misconception of what the American looks like. And I'm sure it's the same way here, there's a very typical conception of a Dutch person. Someone of Surinamese descent could be born in Holland, they could be living there, their grandparents could be living there. But they're not Dutch.

So you have this project where you have much of your life on the Internet. Is this something you're going to be doing for the rest of your life?

I don't know. I've been doing it for a couple years now, and amazingly I have been living a very anonymous life. As long as there's information out there, people simply don't care. In Amsterdam people have curtains, but they're those curtains that don't do anything, you could see right through them, you could see everything that's happening inside. But how many people have you ever seen stop in front of those windows and look into an apartment? No one does it, because everything's up front. No one cares. And that's the beauty of it. So in Amsterdam there's a whole culture where everyone has done this, it's no longer one or two novelty people who are doing this. And really people mind their own business and no one stops on the street to look in and anyone does their thing inside the house.

Would it be true to say that you built your life around your website, or is this a bit of an exaggeration?

It's the other way around. The website is pretty accurate of what I do in my life. But on the other hand I want to be very clear that this art project, or this website, whatever you want to call it, it's not about me. This is about me playing the role of a surrogate, to illustrate a situation that we're in right now. I could be the next person. I could be you right now. Because at any moment, you may have to hand over that information to someone. But I want to take it to such a level of absurdity that people say: this is not right. And maybe ask questions and maybe that will force governments to become more transparent. I'm hopeful it could happen.

And for now you're going to continue this project.

Yes, I just committed to an exhibition that will run to 2010. It's interesting, because I'm seeing more and more people do this. I get several e-mails every week from people asking: how do I do this for myself? On the other hand, I get also beautiful e-mails every now and then, saying, I think you're a total jerk, because if this idea catches on, the government will expect this from everyone. So in a very roundabout way, I think that person understood exactly what I was trying to say!

The government is already doing this; private corporations are already doing this. So it's a matter of: you want to watch me? Fine! But I'll hold up a mirror at the same time. As a matter of fact, if you want to watch, I'll show you everything you want to watch. And you know what, even if you don't want that info from me, I'll give it to you anyway. Because my theory is, if 300 million people in the US were to offer up their private information, you would need to hire another 300 million people to keep up with it.

Well, they do of course have very sophisticated programmes that sieve through information.

Yes, but at the end of the day it's not going to be a programme that drags you out of bed, it's going to have to be another human being. Lawyers do this all the time in the US: it is very common to flood the opponent with thousands and thousands of pages of evidence, in the hope that the real evidence will slip by. It happened in the US when they were passing the Patriot Act [an antiterrorism act - dk]. The Patriot Act was a 900 page law that was passed overnight, that not a single member of Congress read, because it's not possible to read that in the amount of time they took to pass it.

The website tracking Elahi's life is www.trackingtransience.net. Information on other projects of his can be found at www.elahi.org.

Dirk Kloosterboer