OK, I´m a bit late on this. But the chance to get an invitation is outrageously small; in fact it doesn´t exist. For one thing it´s in the past; for the other only 25 people were allowed to attend, "a small intimate discussion group ".
And that is, besides BloggerCon and BlogTalk 2.0, the IWIS 2004, the International Workshop on Inverse Surveillance, which took place April 12th 2004 at the Bahen Centre for Information Technology, University of Toronto.
The workshop was organized by a program commitee consisting of world luminaries such as Joi Ito, the world's first moblogger, and Professor Steve Mann, the world's first cyborg.
The headline of this meeting has been: "Cameraphones, Cyborglogs, and Computational seeing aids; exploring and defining a research agenda." Topics were f.e Camera phones and pocket organizers with sensors; Weblogs ('blogs), Moblogs, Cyborglogs ('glogs); Wearable camera phones and personal imaging systems; etc.
Daniel Chen of the IWIS ("a ground-breaking event")-Program Committee believes that sousveillance will become a major cultural force: "In oppposite to 'surveillance' (something that looks at people or things that surround us and look at us) the word 'sousveillance' implies people looking at something, something being the things around us; sousveillance empowers people to capture the world around us, anytime, anywhere. In fact, sousveillance is inverse surveillance." This April 2004 Workshop, IWIS, will also serve as a planning forum for next year's Symposium ISIS.
To get deeper into this,
Surveillance is about
Sur-veiller is French for "to watch from above"
God's eye view from above (Authority watching from on-high.)
Cameras usually mounted on high poles, up on ceiling, etc.
Recordings made by authorities, emote security staff, etc.
Architecture-centered (e.g. cameras usually mounted on or in structures)
Recordings are usually kept in secret.
etc. (see the full table "summary of surveillance versus inverse surveillance")
Sousveillance is about
Sous-veiller is French for "to watch from below"
Human's eye view ("Down-to-earth.")
Cameras down-to-earth (at (ground level), e.g. at human eye-level
Recordings of an activity made by a participant in the activity
Human-centered (e.g. cameras carried or worn by, or on, people)
Recordings are often made public e.g., on the World Wide Web
etc. (see the full table "summary of surveillance versus inverse surveillance")
or take a lock at the Wikipedia: "Even today's personal sousveillance technologies like cameraphones and weblogs tend to build a sense of community, on contrast to surveillance that some have said is corrosive to community."
Naturally there are other opinions out there, esp. because of the self-perfoming of Mr. Mann. The term "Sousveillance" is on the Wikipedia list for deletion.
To me it seems to be a very interesting background theory, esp. regarding the consequences; obviously it´s tied to the theories of Howard Rheingold (the event was also announced at SmartMobs).
