Introducing: The RAKE Collective

RAKE is a visual research collective using open source data to investigate a variety of unseen and obscured elements in society, business and politics; exploring themes including human rights violations, government censorship, hidden histories, corruption, surveillance and bureaucratic violence. We aim to push the boundaries of traditional photography and reportage, using evolving investigation techniques to inform visual and multimedia projects and develop the interface between art, politics and the internet. Data and research driven stories are at the leading edge of modern journalistic practice and we consciously take an alternative approach to that of Western mass media. We are committed to transparency and believe that truth, however inconvenient, must be accessible and protected. RAKE hopes to bring to light the unseen through a hybrid of art and technology.

Our members are Nancy Hurman, Flora Thomas, Vera Zurbrügg and Nuno Guerreiro de Sousa. We are all visual multimedia artists and include a physicist, a curator, a political activist and a data analyst. We met whilst pursuing an MA in Photojournalism & Documentary Photography at UAL’s London College of Communication in 2018. During the course, we found that we each take a research driven approach to our work, and while we visualised subjects through a wide range of different methods and worked in different ways, our project themes crossed over significantly. Since graduating, we have found that our varied skill sets work well together, allowing us to efficiently divide tasks such as data analytics, design, curation, admin and social media amongst our members. We are also able to provide each other with a valuable exchange of knowledge, constructive criticism and creative ideas.

In February we held a three-day launch exhibition at AMP Gallery in Peckham, showing the first iteration of our project, We May Meet One Day. This visual investigation is centred on Iron March, a now defunct neo-Nazi and white supremacist online message board, subject to an SQL database leak in November 2019. The leaked data contained the entirety of the site’s information, including usernames, registered emails, IP addresses of users, all of the forum’s public posts and even private messages between members. The message board has since been linked with violent worldwide neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division and other far right groups; and notably, a number of Iron March members were serving in military and police forces across the world while active on the site.

Our interests lie not only in investigating the lengths members of Iron March went to to spread their extreme opinions and establish secretive networks worldwide to communicate with people who shared their views, but also in the inherent invisibility of this constructed community to the outside observer. Walking among us, hidden in plain sight, they could be our friends, our neighbours, our employers; anyone and anywhere. Through this project we hope to indirectly reveal this community, encourage our viewers to question their perceptions of what constitutes free speech and highlight the prevalence of extreme and often violent views occupying the internet, just below the surface of our society.

Above image of: ‘Portrait’ created with a generative adversarial network (GAN) using profile images found in the SQL leak.

The second iteration of the project is now in development, and we continue to work with machine generated imagery and data visualization tools, while exploring further lines of open source online investigation and ways of presenting our discoveries through visual imagery, film and virtual installation. This iteration will be presented as an online exhibition during the summer as an alternative to a number of opportunities that have been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Currently we are reviewing innovative ways to hold this showcase, including a ‘private view’ and other possible coinciding virtual events, such as talks and workshops.

Above image of: Possible locations of Iron March users found on Google Street View by tracking IP addresses in the leak.

Working online in this way also acts as a precursor to one of our primary goals for the future of the collective; to build an online platform for collaborative research and investigations that are not limited by individual’s locations. To this end, we invite the public to participate in the investigation and have made available different methods of accessing the data and part of our project from home. We have also been compiling a comprehensive list of external opportunities and resources for artists, freelancers, writers and anyone who may need them during this uncertain time. All the resources can be accessed via our website.