The picture shows a purple figure with tusks and a trunk coming out of soap bubbles. She has a light green mohawk with sideburns and is wearing a dark blue sailor jacket with gold buttons. A baby crocodile with a red pacifier and green cat ears is sleeping on her lap. Next to the crocodile is a laptop with a fishbone sticker. Two red and white striped chimneys are enthroned on the monitor.

39C3 – Creature ChroniCles Update

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TL;DR

What has changed, in short: In response to the very clear reactions to the exception, the project “Creature ChroniCles” will now be governed by the photo policy in its familiar form. Before every photo, everyone involved will be asked for their consent.

Creature ChroniCles reloaded

In the pre-Congress stress, some things and details unfortunately get lost that seem natural for the people involved, while for others they are far from clear and unambiguous. That did happen to us with the blog article on the “Creature ChroniCles” project. We were too much trapped in our inside view. Most of us know Stella well, and from that perspective we did not see a problem with her project. Sadly, though, we forgot about the view of others who do not know Stella so well.

Therefore, we would first like to thank you for your feedback. It enabled us to learn about the perspectives and problems that can arise in the course of the project – including those that we had not thought of at all.

The last days, full of discussions about the photo policy, have made clear to us how much this policy is appreciated. The photo policy creates a safe space that makes it possible to move anonymously, without chilling effects, and also try oneself out in new ways, in a world that is more and more under surveillance. This diversity, for which there are many more reasons, is what we want to preserve.

The initial wording that said the project was in accordance with the photo policy was incorrect. We regret that. It was, of course, an exception to the photo policy, but one that we thought to be compatible. With this exception we wanted to enable creative freedom to a degree that seemed justifiable. The reactions have shown us that we massively underestimated your discomfort with this, and that we did not sufficiently consider the potentials for abuse. These risks can not be outweighed by the positive effects of pictures being taken preemptively.

The thinking behind asking for retrospective agreement was to avoid a loss of spontaneity and to preserve the originality of a picture. It did become clear, though, that the negative effects weigh stronger and also that the goal can be achieved in other ways. The original concern was that a fleeting moment, for example during the buildup, would be impossible to recreate.

Therefore, and this is probably the most important message to convey, Stella will do without this exception. As you are accustomed to, she will ask all people in a picture if they agree before proceeding. Only under this condition will the picture be taken. After all persons have been drawn over, the first photo will be deleted. No original photo will ever leave Stella’s device. There will be no storing in the cloud or similar. At the end, only the altered pictures will remain. These will be accessible for everyone in an official online picture gallery.

As a rule, skin, hair, clothing, laptops and conspicuous “accessories” will be drawn over. If there are certain aspects that need to be taken care of to ensure your wellbeing, Stella will be happy if you let her know. With regard to assistive devices that might contribute to identification, there will be a clear conversation with the concerned person before any changes or retouching because we are aware that this is a sensitive issue for many that we want to treat with the appropriate respect. In this way we want to maintain the balance between diversity of the participants and anonymity.

If you have never heard of Stella before: She created the designs for the 33C3, 35C3 and the 2023 Camp, and you can find her on Mastodon if you have any further questions: @VeithYaeger@aipi.social. During the project she will be discernible by a pink, fluffy vest.

Perhaps this discussion and this 2.0 announcement can give participants the authority and backing to intervene in a confident but friendly way if they observe that a photo is being taken, and to draw attention to the photo policy. In that case, the whole debate will even have had a positive effect.

Having said all this, we would like to point out that photos are taken at Congress despite the rules, and that not everyone adheres to these rules. Given the number of participants, sadly there is no effective way of preventing that. It is precisely for that reason that we wanted to communicate the exception transparently in order to do better. Unfortunately, we did not manage that very well. Therefore, we would like to use this occasion to ask all participants to respect the photo policy.

Since there also were a few hurtful comments in the discussion, we would like to encourage everyone to communicate in an honest, factual, but also considerate way at any time in the future. We hope that now after this stimulating exchange we have managed to find a good solution for everyone. Because there is so much work on our hands, it can sometimes take a few hours or even days until we react, but be assured: We take your feedback seriously.

Image CC BY-SA 4.0 stella