Author: Tim

  • Resistant Systems: Spring 2022

    Resistant Systems: Spring 2022

    A solo exhibition at the Center for Book Arts in New York City. April 21 – June 25, 2022 Read my conversation with Kristine Khouri about this body of work. Resistant Systems is a Los Angeles–based, digital-focused wellness brand. We have products to purify your digital life — not simply your body and mind. Originally […]

  • Conversation on Resistant Systems

    Conversation on Resistant Systems

    For the exhibition Resistant Systems: Spring 2022 at the Center for Book Arts in April 2022, Kristine Khouri sat down with me for an afternoon to discuss this body of work. This was originally published in the exhibition brochure. Kristine Khouri is a researcher whose interests span the history of art collecting, exhibiting, and infrastructure […]

  • Password Cleanse

    Password Cleanse

    A collection of tools for manifesting strong passphrases while helping you release the toxins of your past security habits. Through a process of focused meditation, dice rolling, and memorization mantras, you will cleanse your security. A collaboration with Demerritt Pauwels Editions. Handmade paper by Heather Peters. Kit includes Word List, five red dice, custom brass […]

  • Coin Collector

    Coin Collector

    Coin Collector helps you on your journey of giving up on desires associated with money. Find freedom in the release of your associations with paper money, fiat currency, government control, and even precious metals. Once you start your crypto collection, you will see economic value and exchange through a whole new lens. The materiality of […]

  • Increasing Tips and Protecting Sources

    Increasing Tips and Protecting Sources

    In 2020 there were a tremendous number of tips that came to newsrooms directly from whistleblowers. From the FinCen files, Trump’s taxes, continued revelations of sexual harrasment, discrimination and unequitable treatment within organizations, and many in the healthcare fields speaking up. But, how can a newsroom make sure that they are the one that a source turns […]

  • How to Protect Yourself From Retaliation When Filming Police Brutality

    How to Protect Yourself From Retaliation When Filming Police Brutality

    As protesters continue to occupy the streets around the U.S., many are filming police brutality. If you are in a situation with the cops or witnessing one that has the potential to turn violent, whether at a protest or simply while out in your community, you should be prepared to take video and document events […]

  • A Public Service

    A Public Service

    In January 2020, my book A Public Service: Whistleblowing, Disclosure, and Anonymity was released. It was published by OR Books and edited by Tim Harper with a great deal of help by Margaret Schneider. You can buy it right now here on my site or from OR Books’ site. This is a book for anyone who has thought about disclosing information, those who […]

  • Whistleblowers Serve Veterans

    Whistleblowers Serve Veterans

    Today is Veterans Day in the United States and as the nation honors its veterans, it is important to remember that whistleblowing is a public service and one that can be a catalyst for change to better protect individuals and families that have served their country. In 2014, a number of whistleblowers began disclosing to the press […]

  • Resistant Systems: Welcome

    Resistant Systems: Welcome

    A solo show at The Muted Horn gallery in Cleveland, OHDecember 1, 2018 – January 3, 2019 Resistant Systems: Welcome is the launch of a new digital-focused wellness lifestyle brand. Resistant Systems provides the tools, books, products, and looks needed to become secure. This unveiling includes the release of Digital Resistance Kit and the Manual […]

  • Digital Resistance Kit

    Digital Resistance Kit

    Digital Resistance Kit provides you with the tools for a true identity detox. Let go of your digital profile and find clarity in anonymously browsing the web and pseudonymously communicating with others. Everyone knows who you are online — release your true inner strength through anonymity. A collaboration with Demerritt Pauwels Editions. Kit includes the […]

  • A Man and A Woman

    A Man and A Woman

    This piece simply documents a moment. Hillary Clinton speaks to a nation and concedes victory to Donald Trump. At the same time Americans — or at least identities on social media — activate the digital moment around her.

  • Residency at SPACES

    Residency at SPACES

    I had the good fortune of doing a residency at SPACES in Cleveland, OH in the summer of 2016. During my 6 weeks at SPACES, I helped protesters at the RNC protect themselves against cellphone tracking, led a dark web treasure hunt, and made two new artworks: Echoings and Data Transmissions. Below is a video […]

  • Guide to Becoming Anonymous

    Guide to Becoming Anonymous

    The LA Crypto Crew wrote a new article for Hyperallergic. The guide goes after some low hanging fruit with locking down your phone, but really dives into setting up an alternative identity and dropping off the digital norm grid.

  • Data Transmissions

    Data Transmissions

    Data Transmissions is a series of letterpress prints of cell-phone screenshots, collected through an open call on Facebook, that reflects on the value of data and its processing. The screenshots were translated into letterpress prints through an arduous process of hand-setting metal type, cutting linoleum blocks, and using a Vandercook mechanical press. The personal data […]

  • Echoings

    Echoings

    Society has reached a new plateau in the continuous snowballing of technological progress; we stand at a place where we need devices on our bodies or in our homes. The Echo is an internet-connected device produced by Amazon to be a voice-first virtual assistant that lives in your home, much like Siri on an iPhone. […]

  • Cell Phone Safe!

    Cell Phone Safe!

    I am going to be at SPACES in Cleveland representing the LA Cryptoparty Crew. I’ll be helping activists, protestors, and anyone that wants to protect their digital devices and digital footprint during the Republican National Convention. I’ll be holding office hours from 1-4pm Monday, July 18 – Wednesday, July 20. More info on protecting your […]

  • Cryptotherapy

    Cryptotherapy

    An installation shown at Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art from May 16 to May 22, 2016. The text below is by Mardee Goff, Curator of BMoCA. CryptoTherapy is an installation by Los Angeles-based artist Tim Schwartz that utilizes the front windows of BMoCA. Covering each windowpane with a white sheet, Schwartz has created an opaque layer […]

  • Escapism

    Escapism

    Solo exhibition at Leon Gallery in Denver, CO, March 12th – April 24th, 2016. Escapism explores the spaces between worlds. It asks us, as viewers, to place ourselves somewhere between the analogue and the digital, between the physical and the virtual, challenging us to consider the ways in which these seemingly disparate worlds interact and overlap. […]

  • Developing a Missing Persons System

    Developing a Missing Persons System

    This post was written with Willow Brugh to summarize our advice for coders wanting to create a new reunification application.  When a disaster occurs, whether fast like an earthquake or slow like a drought or war, people go missing. As outsiders wishing to contribute to restoring the stability of our worlds, the desire to reunite […]

  • Bookends

    Bookends

    A show at the Visual Arts Gallery at the University of California, San Diego. Shown from December 2014 – January 2015.  

  • Patents: Team Work

    Patents: Team Work

    While at a residency at Provisions Library, I built a system for analyzing the United States patent database. Basically creating a system where I can create a family tree of patents either starting with a recent patent or a historical one. I used this software and combined it with a new drawing technique, one where I […]

  • The Right to Be Let Alone: Privacy in the United States

    The Right to Be Let Alone: Privacy in the United States

    Based on other books that I had encountered in the Reanimation Library, I expected Gerald S. Snyder’s The Right to Be Let Alone: Privacy in the United States, to be an off-the-grid, back-to-nature, survivalists musings on privacy, brimming with paranoid attitudes such as “get off my land” and “don’t trust the banks.” To my surprise The Right […]

  • Book Futures

    Book Futures

    A two person show with Brigita Ozolins at the SASA Gallery in Adelaide, Australia. The show was curated by Daniel Chaffee and Jennifer Rutherford. I had two pieces in the show: Playing the Library and eScape 50. Book Futures Catalog Text by Jennifer Rutherford Run your finger down a spine and remember where you were when you first touched that body. What desire kindled in […]

  • Playing the Library

    Playing the Library

    The piece Playing the Library attempts to actively document how people browse library books, where the library is treated as an instrument that can be played. A custom book scanner was built that could be moved around and deployed at a library quickly, this gives performers complete flexibility in choosing a library location to explore. The performer […]

  • L.A.’s First Crytoparty

    L.A.’s First Crytoparty

    On Friday, October 24th I hosted (along with a few others) LA’s first Cryptoparty in my trailer STAT-US. The event brought together individuals with various backgrounds to learn how to browse the web anonymously and send encrypted email.  After such a successful event we will try to host one every few months with some more […]

  • eScape 50

    eScape 50

    For the last two years I have been experimenting with eInk screens, you might have seen these screens in a Kindle. They are matte, grey-scale, and interestingly only require power to change the image on the screen. For the show Book Futures in Australia I created a new piece comprised of fifty of these screens. […]

  • Terms of Service

    Terms of Service

    An edition of 16 books created for the show Pulp Atlas, which brought together 12 artists to each create a new book for the show. Because I did not know most of the other artists, I decided to use their names as the starting point for my piece. I did basic internet searches on their […]

  • Preview: Book Futures

    Preview: Book Futures

    I have a two person show titled Book Futures, opening in September in Adelaide, Australia at the SASA gallery at the University of South Australia with Brigita Ozolins. As a lead up I have been preparing my exhibition statement and images for the catalog. As a preview, here is the text and images. The two […]

  • Announcement: Playing the Library

    Announcement: Playing the Library

    Playing the Library documents and remixes the experience of browsing a library through performances with a book scanner. A scanning system is being created that will digitize books on the fly and simultaneously create print-on-demand books, ebooks, and online editions. Artists, researchers, librarians, collectors, and library patrons will be asked to perform the scanning system […]

  • Failure: Why It’s Hard To Leave Google

    Failure: Why It’s Hard To Leave Google

    So let me begin by saying, I have largely cut Google out of my life, but I can’t get that last 1-2% out! It is really, really hard! I started out this series of posts called Getting Out of Google knowing that it would be technically possible and that it would just be a matter of […]

  • Secure Browsing: Leaving Chrome

    Secure Browsing: Leaving Chrome

    I’ve been pretty happy with Google Chrome for the last year, but with this project I thought I should reevaluate my browser and extensions. The one thing I am excited to get away from is Chrome’s Google account integration, which synchronizes your bookmarks, history, and settings among multiple Chrome instances on different devices. This inherently […]

  • Email Encryption

    Email Encryption

    This blog post was supposed to be really  inspiring about email encryption and would help people realize why it is important to be able to send encrypted messages whenever they wanted. It would also have simple and friendly tutorials that would show people how easy it is to get encryption setup for their emails. Even […]

  • Migrating Gmail Data

    Migrating Gmail Data

    So last we spoke I had chosen to use Neomailbox.com as my new email host. It was a snap to setup my email address with them: I simply had to change two IP addresses where I bought timschwartz.org and the folks at Neomailbox took care of the rest. They have a nice webmail client and […]

  • Choosing An Email Provider

    Choosing An Email Provider

    Today I stumbled on a list of privacy and security conscious email hosting providers. It seems to be up-to-date and well maintained (Lavabit and Silent Circle are gone). I ordered the list by which providers would allow me to host my own domain name and then started removing providers that wouldn’t work for me for […]

  • The Email Hosting Landscape

    The Email Hosting Landscape

    To better understand what the heck I’m getting into with migrating away from Gmail, I spent a few days doing research, reading posts on the interweb, and discussing some technical things with my technical friends. It is now clear to me that if I really wanted the highest degree of privacy and control over my […]

  • Getting Out Of Google

    Getting Out Of Google

    I have been thinking about this for a long time and have finally decided I need to extract myself and my data from Google. This includes: gmail, google analytics, google drive, google chat, google search, google maps, google chrome, and maybe even google calendar (though my wife might not like this one), youtube, and google […]

  • Commodify.us Review

    One of my projects Commodify.us is in a show in D.C.: Cyber in Securities. Also, Marc Garrett wrote a nice write up about the project on furtherfield. This is a cultural shift that demonstrates how contemporary Hacktivists are developing software that promises to start to offer realistic service infrastructures. When I interviewed Charlie Gere in […]

  • Materials On Reserve

    Materials On Reserve

    The Penrose Library at Denver University was recently renovated and now a majority of DU’s books are stored offsite. To checkout a book now, one goes to the library, finds the book on a computer, requests it, and then waits a few days to receive it. Along with this move to offsite storage, the university […]

  • Outtakes

    Outtakes

    Blank pages were removed from the 400+ used books purchased for the show Materials On Reserve. This included colored endsheets, pages stamped “Discarded”, and original checkout card pages. From these pages eight books were created. Each book is unique and is bound to the smallest page in the book, allowing the larger pages to protrude […]

  • Loss Studies

    Loss Studies

    By sifting through the digital Google versions of the 400+ books that were purchased for the show Materials On Reserve, I found four pages that depict anomalies or errors in the scanning and digitization of books into ebooks. The prints are complemented by physical copies of the scanned books.

  • Reading Between the Lines

    Reading Between the Lines

    A barcode scanner is attached to two receipt printers. The books in the exhibition Materials On Reserve can be scanned and two receipts are printed. Each receipt contains information on the book and a QR code links to the digital version of the book. One receipt is for the viewer, while the others pile up […]

  • Comic Review of Materials On Reserve

    Comic Review of Materials On Reserve

    Sam Spina made a comic about my installation at Denver University, Materials On Reserve. I really love it. It is awesome not only to see yourself in comic form, but to have someone really understand and enjoy your art and then go even further and make a comic about it. Thanks Sam! There is only […]

  • Raspberry Pi Video Looper

    Raspberry Pi Video Looper

    UPDATE: I’ve updated the software and it should be much easier to install and use on any Raspberry PI. It does NOT have a GUI interface any more, but is easier to just plug and play. It is now hosted on github and all updates will be pushed there. https://github.com/timatron/videolooper-raspbian For a show I did in Japan […]

  • Commodify.us

    Commodify.us

    A collaboration with Birgit Bachler, Walter Langelar, and Owen Mundy. Created during a _moddr residency @ WORM in Rotterdam, The Netherlands Commodify.us is a web application that allows people to visualize and license their Facebook data directly to marketers. After exporting their data from Facebook and uploading it to commodify.us, users can choose to license […]

  • Loss, Meaning and Melancholy

    Loss, Meaning and Melancholy

    I recently finished a paper discussing my last series of works in the context of melancholy in the digital age. The abstract is below and the entire paper is available as a pdf: Loss, Meaning, and Melancholy in the Digital Age Abstract As society has absorbed the cornucopia of digital technologies of the late twentieth and […]

  • Botanical Loss

    Botanical Loss

    A series of 11 prints derived from loss in the digitization process of the famous “The Temple of Flora.” In1799 Robert John Thornton released the first installment of the book, it was the first large color floral volume ever produced. Inspired by Linnaeus, the founder of modern botany, Thornton set out to represent the newly […]

  • Reimagining Wild Bill

    Reimagining Wild Bill

    In 1865 Wild Bill killed Dave Tutt in the town square in Springfield, MO. This quick-draw style duel was recorded and portrayed to the public in a Harper’s Monthly article in 1867. Full of tall tales straight from Wild Bill’s mouth, this article played into the creation of the mythology of the wild west, specifically […]

  • Modern Methods of Book Composition

    Modern Methods of Book Composition

    Limited edition book. 6 copies. Includes digital offset book and Amazon Kindle, both hand bound and in slipcase. Theodore Low De Vinne is one of the fathers of book publishing in America. He was one of the nine founders of the Grolier Club, the commissioner of the font Century, and the most prolific writer on book […]

  • STAT-US

    STAT-US

    In 2010, I spent six months traveling the United States in a mobile research lab, visiting over fifty libraries, museums, and archives investigating what is being lost as these institutions transition into collecting and storing digital artifacts. Out of this research I created three new artworks (Botanical Loss, Modern Methods of Book Composition, and Reimagining Wild Bill) and […]

  • Ruin

    Ruin

    Dripping directly out of the structure of the building, this piece is in a continuous state of oxidation. Nozzles at the top of the sculpture spray salt water onto the sculpture which in turn rusts the iron. The piece was first installed at the Oceanside Museum of Art and then shown at compactspace gallery in Los […]

  • World Conspiracy

    World Conspiracy

    World Conspiracy represents an individual’s conception of the world. This piece was constructed through the analysis of over 10,000 documents saved by an anonymous conspiracy theorist from September 19, 2001 to January 15, 2009. The frequency with which a country is mentioned in these documents dictates the size of that country. For example, Israel and […]

  • America’s View of the World

    America’s View of the World

    At the Teen Studio in the New Children’s Museum, visitors participated in “America’s View of the World” by tearing out newspaper articles and pasting them on a map of the world – the resulting mass of pasted articles created a topography that represents which countries and places the news media are writing about. The installation […]