l̶̩͔̻̔e̵͎͆͂̉͋ą̶̲͓̩͛̇k̴̜̠͆̍͌ is ubiquitous, bursting gas, leaking pipes and oozing tears, and so ubiquitous that its figurative meaning sounds even more native, circulating gossips are leaks, whistleblowers are, too, leaks. Metaphorical leak, inheriting the brokenness from physical leak, is associated with illegality, immorality or at least shamefulness. But, is it?
In the video essay, l̴͓̥̠̼̏̑̃̂̂͘ḛ̷̺̟͓͈̜̓̋̍̄̆ä̸̞̝̳́̾̓̈̾k̷͎̰̓̒͘ in the promiscuous machines and prurient governing entities is brought to the forefront as systemic vulnerabilities. A message you send out to your loved one over the TCP/IP protocol, as Chun noted, is slutty. Audio and video signal cables are constantly radiating RF emanations. Buffer overflows when data overwrites, memory leaks can be used to navigate into forbidden memory, software ages, like human beings, aging leads to more l̷͚̙͋ė̸̺̅ạ̸̇k̴͈̃̑s. In addition to that, our faces are reduced to facial features for machine learning, personal medical records end as image embedding in a training dataset. Our voices leak as analyzable waves, irises leak as unique high-contrast photographs. We, as users and as citizens, are encouraged by the tech giants and governments to leak, while the large language models trained from the data we leaked, refuse to “participate in or encourage any illegal activities, including leaking.”
let yourself l̴͓̥̠̼̏̑̃̂̂͘ḛ̷̺̟͓͈̜̓̋̍̄̆ä̸̞̝̳́̾̓̈̾k̷͎̰̓̒͘ a little leaks through the cracks on the leaking gas pipe, the space station, the express warehouse, into the leaking signals, leaky compression algorithms, leaky network packets, leaking categories, leaked tiny face and tiny activity dataset, to ask who is making it’s not ok to l̵͚̗̠͋̀͘é̴̮̲á̶̜̊k̶̥̎̓̒͊, who is capturing l̴͊̈́ͅe̵̜̞̐ȧ̷͇k̶̫̮̓, how l̸̯̏e̷̙̅a̷̛̗̔͐k̸̫͈̓̀ is weaponized and who is killing ḷ̶̢̓́́e̶̼̅̾a̴̟͆k̸̖͑̎́ to stop solidarity from happening.
