i/C/U/: Connection & Control was a home school class led by Hiba Ali July - Aug 2018. In two reading group sessions and one Unity and Blender workshop, i/c/U/ students explored compliance and control in the panoptic state of surveillance, strategies of obfuscation, and how ideas of data ownership on policy.

The class culminated in an exhibition curated by Ali, featuring work from some of the class participants: Matthew Ward, Zachary Nicol, Tim Combs, Parsa Sanjana Sajid, Tabitha Nikolai, Jamondria Harris, and garima thakur in collaboration with Autumn Knight.

Through divergent responses of images, text and video, i/C/U participants have examined authoritarian, racist frameworks as well as their own “networks” of social relations. They posit that networks are not neutral. The networks of surveillance and obfuscation are defined by their relationships and statewide infrastructure, a systems that enables tracking and control of data but also facilitates our connection to one another.

The exhibition is paired with a publication printed by Letra Chueca, available here for sale. The publication features writing by Hiba Ali, manuel arturo abreu, deSolid State, and Maggie Sivit; and visual work by Zachary Nicol, Matthew Ward, garima thakur, Eric Patel, Tabitha Nikolai, Jamondria Harris, and Matthew Henderson.

5.8x8.3", 70 pages. Edition of 50.