Cracked: Data, Glass & Surveillant Noise

This article is an excerpt from NCM's publication Instruments of Surveillance.

In early-modern Europe a type of ‘melancholy’ emerged, which came to be known as ‘the glass delusion.’ Sufferers of the glass delusion felt as though they were made out of glass and could not allow themselves to be touched for fear that they would fall and shatter into a thousand pieces.

Glass is of course not only fragile, but also transparent. A modern sufferer of the ‘delusion’ related his experience to the Dutch psychologist Andy Lameijn:

He pointed to the window in the consulting room and asked Lameijn what he could see. Lameijn replied that he could see a street, some cars, more buildings, people walking past, and waited. The patient said, “Ah! You’ve missed the glass in the window. You didn’t see it. But it is there.” He leaned forward and said: “That’s me. I’m there, and I’m not there. Like the glass in the window."

Today, most of us spend many hours of the day staring through the glass screens of our smartphones or laptops, at work and at play. But we mostly don’t think about glass until the horrible moment when we drop our phones and have to deal with the tedium of a smashed screen. When this kind of smash occurs, the bland curves and colour gradients of the various applications on our phones are disturbed and distorted by a bloom of hairline cracks. Sometimes, we learn to live with the cracks. Other times, when we can find the time and money, we get a new screen, or a new phone. Inevitably, we drop the phone again.

Today, most of us spend many hours of the day staring through the glass screens of our smartphones or laptops, at work and at play. But we mostly don’t think about glass until the horrible moment when we drop our phones and have to deal with the tedium of a smashed screen.

Glass, especially silicon glass, is also fundamental to the hardware that processes the data which powers our contemporary information networks. In our current moment, what it means to be either visible or invisible within these networks is increasingly complicated to define.

On the one hand, there is the sense that our every movement and activity, everything that makes us human, is captured and mediated through these ubiquitous screens, lenses and sensors. On the other hand, new technology and social movements are emerging that turn the gaze back on the surveillance matrix by resisting ubiquitous visibility.

The artists behind Project KOVR have designed and produced an anti-surveillance ‘Invisibility Cloak’ that uses next-generation fabrics to block incoming and outgoing digital signals, effectively creating a wearable Faraday cage. They use the term ‘infosphere’ to describe the problem of ubiquitous dataveillance in our current age. They explain that:

It has become impossible to control which information about us is revealed and what stays hidden. We are not in control of our own privacy anymore. And privacy is what makes us human. Clothing has always been a method to protect ourselves against the possible threats of the biosphere, like the cold or extreme heat. Project KOVR is protecting you from the infosphere. It does so by using metalliferous fabrics that shield the computer chips in your cards, clothing and car keys; even making your phone untraceable. It blocks every incoming and outgoing signal, keeping you safe from radio waves and radiation. Project KOVR believes in being able to choose when to be traceable. In people regaining control over their privacy and data. So when preferred, the black pockets allow you to still be reachable with your device of choice.

The mission that Project KOVR outlines here seems like an elegant solution to the modern melancholy of the ‘infosphere.’ The ‘invisibility cloak’ allows you to ‘be there’ when you want to be there and to ‘not be there’ when you want to disappear off the digital grid. But such anti-surveillant strategies raise a number of important questions...

The full version of this article is available in Instruments of Surveillance for sale at the National Communication Museum until March, 2025.

Christopher O’Neill is a Deakin University Postdoctoral Research Fellow and a 2025-26 Fulbright Scholar at the University of Southern California. He researches the history and philosophy of media, with a particular interest in the mediation of the body, facial recognition technologies, and the role of the human-in-the-loop in automated workplaces. His work has appeared in journals including New Media and Society, Science, Technology and Human Values, and Information, Communication and Society.