The Forgotten #TortureReport
Ongoing research + works

Released on December 9, 2014, The Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, commonly referred to as The Torture Report disclosed details about the CIA’s torture practices to the American public. Documenting the actions of CIA officials, the report shed a light on the realities of US involvement with torture. In addition to providing details as to how the CIA tortured prisoners, the report also exposed that the CIA provided misleading and false information about classified programs to the government as well as media. The report concluded that no actionable intelligence was gathered through the program and torturing of detainees.

The Forgotten #TortureReport tracks the number of tweets using the hashtag across one year as a way to look closer to how social media platforms like Twitter have shifted our relationship to headlines and world events. Over the span of a number of months I worked back through time counting how many times the hashtag #TortureReport was utilized. The hashtag appeared in over 55,000 tweets with the bulk occurring in the first month. This dramatic shift in interest about the report over time is what was most interesting to me. Other discoveries noted included the shift in tone with regard to the report over time – with the most vitriolic tweets against the report (and The Left in general) appearing at the end of the first day and throughout the second leaving only those with genuine concern over the USA’s involvement in torture continuing to use the tag and draw attention to the report after the most critical first few days.

This action of counting tweets over the months has been documented in a limited edition graph (above image). The Forgotten #TortureReport is an ongoing project with a number of planned works as part of my continuing research.

Other works that are part of the series include five videos from the Notes To Self series:

the forgotten #torturereport [January 27, 2015]

George Bush – United Nations International Day in Support of Victims if Torture, 2003 (video 1 of 4) [January 16, 2015]

George Bush – United Nations International Day in Support of Victims if Torture, 2003 (video 2 of 4) [January 16, 2015]

George Bush – United Nations International Day in Support of Victims if Torture, 2003 (video 3 of 4) [January 16, 2015]

George Bush – United Nations International Day in Support of Victims if Torture, 2003 (video 4 of 4) [January 16, 2015]

* the videos: George Bush – United Nations International Day in Support of Victims if Torture, 2003 are meant to be watched as one 4-screen work presented simultaneously on a loop.