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| quote: | Originally posted by Paulie
old skool... respect  |
Fo real!
But back to the point:
The Age, December 18, 2004
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2...l?oneclick=true
Entering shadowy world of neurocam
Who are they? What do they want? Marc Moncrief tries to solve a Melbourne mystery.
It began with a billboard, then an innocent exploration through cyberspace. Soon Graham Henstock found himself on secret assignment, the agent of a shadowy organisation.
In a bar on Fitzroy's Gertrude Street he awaited the arrival of his contact, an anonymous Kiwi transvestite "supermodel" whose autograph he had been told to collect.
The 27-year-old theatre technician and avid web logger from North Fitzroy has been immersed for the past year in the world of neurocam. He is one of an unknown number of Melburnians who have voluntarily submitted to being pawns for a mysterious organisation whose motivations, methods and aims remain deliberately - some fear dangerously - obscure.
Thousands would have passed neurocam's billboard, displayed in November on Alexandra Parade, one of Melbourne's main commuter thoroughfares. "Get Out of Your Mind", it urged. But the cryptic website it spruiked gave little insight, only the opportunity to register with name and email address. Clearly, however, the organisers had gone to some trouble to get their message out. The billboard would have cost about $10,000. Whether the whole thing is hoax, mind game, artistic experiment, sinister front or clever marketing ploy remains unclear.
The only information on the website was a disclaimer, a long list of things neurocam was not.
"neurocam is not a pyramid marketing scam"
"neurocam is not a cult religion"
"neurocam is not a psychology experiment"
"neurocam is not a terrorist training organisation"
And so on.
Tacked to the foot of the list, was an unattributed quotation: "Some of the most rewarding experiences we have come about through random circumstances of which we have no real understanding. It is sometimes important to commit to something we know very little about if the act of commitment in itself becomes part of an experience."
So what is neurocam? As a first test of Henstock's abilities, neurocam's head of Melbourne operations, a phantom with the alias of Robert Henley, sent Henstock to answer the question as best he could in orange spray paint across one of neurocam's own billboards. Against his better instincts, Henstock climbed the advertisement hoarding one night and responded with the only words he could think of: "neurocam is a matter of perception". Some other devotee had already contributed - more aptly, Henstock later thought - "neurocam is mind control".
Those behind neurocam have gone to great lengths to conceal their identities. The Melbourne branch is said to have been begun by a New Zealander, but operates a website registered to an address in Beverly Hills, California.
Police say they have had no complaints, but a Melbourne psychologist says users could be vulnerable to exploitation.
When I contacted organisers, through Henstock, I had to agree to being taken blindfolded to a secret location before asking any questions.
What is known is that those who follow the instructions on the neurocam website are assigned missions, with the threat of grave consequences should these tasks not be carried out. Individuals prove their mettle by completing progressively more complex, riskier assignments - possibly of questionable legality.
"That's a little worrisome," said University of Sydney lecturer Andrew Campbell after seeing the website. A specialist in cyber-psychology, or the psychology of human behaviour online, Dr Campbell said the original motivation to register with neurocam was like the benign allure of a puzzle.
"It's the sense of gambling. It's that whole intrigue of, 'Well, you know, how could this hurt me? It's on a computer.' "
The reality, he said, could be more disturbing.
"The only things that are similar to this would be gaming societies. But the gaming societies are very clear cut. You know there is an objective, you know what it is about, you know who the people are and you delve into a fantasy realm for a limited period of time. But in this case, no. This is the first I have ever seen it. This is unique."
While neurocam's own website remains deliberately obscure, its activities are best tracked through the websites of bloggers such as Henstock. Web logs including Henstock's "Jumping on the Bandwagon" detail neurocam operations and chronicle how neurocam infiltrates the lives of its recruits. It is, according to one blogger, "the f----d up leading the hypnotised".
Soon after his late-night graffiti adventure, Henstock began to receive more emailed assignments. His willingness to take risks had earned him Henley's respect, it seemed. Items had to be delivered, packages retrieved, events documented - all for reasons Henley would not disclose.
Then, says Henstock, the tone changed. Photographs taken of him at close range and without his knowledge arrived in his inbox. An apparently frantic girl wrote to him that, when she had thought to go to the press with her knowledge of the organisation, she had been abducted, threatened and bribed by a man who hid his face behind a bird mask. She believed the man to be Henley. Henstock had his doubts that the letter was genuine, but worried that it might be.
People love a mystery, said Dr Campbell. "If anything, it would appeal to a person's curiosity of what's behind this. Is there a puzzle? Is there a clue to me working this out? Is it a scam? Other people might simply feel, 'Well, this is a game.' "
But he said the information handed over in an online registration could be more dangerous than it seemed. "What are you actually submitting your information to? Even if it is an alias, a person can still be tracked down through an IP address, especially if it's a fixed IP address like a university."
The creators of the neurocam website on the other hand have worked hard to keep themselves hidden.
"They are actually blocking me from looking at the (website's) source code," said Campbell, "so someone is definitely protecting something. And you don't go to that extreme without wanting to get something from someone else."
Waiting in his Gertrude Street bar, Henstock recognised others he had encountered in previous operations. There was "Z", who ordered a beer and fiddled with her camera. "C" sat with another young man near the entrance. The minutes ticked towards 10pm, the deadline for the assignment.
When Henstock's hirsute Kiwi supermodel finally arrived, Henstock obtained the autograph. He was already at his car when he discovered she had signed with the name... Robert Henley.
Who is Robert Henley? In 2001, New Zealand artist Robin Hely, then artist-in-residence at the Victoria College of the Arts, created a video called Who is Robert Henley?. The video was distributed by neurocam during one of its operations. Hely, who still lives in Melbourne, would not comment when The Age contacted him.
But soon after his appearance in Gertrude Street, Henley stopped writing. The assignments ended - for a time - then word came that Henley had been transferred to Brussels and replaced in Melbourne by a man named Charles Hastings.
Earlier this month I arranged to meet Hastings and two others who claim to be top neurocam operatives in Melbourne and use the names Maxwell Knight and Neville Harris.
At precisely 8pm, a sleek black sedan carrying three men in masks pulled into the Queens Wharf parking lot on the corner of Spencer and Flinders streets. The driver's door opened and Harris stepped out looking every inch the neo-fascist. A thin man of medium height, he wore a grey shirt over black pants. A black balaclava pulled askew over his face gave the impression he was speaking from one side of his mouth.
Through a heavy New Zealand accent, he explained the conditions of the interview. He handed over a black mask the eyes of which had been covered with electrical tape that I would have to wear in order to be transported to a secret location.
No one spoke as the car veered off the street and into a gravel lot. Harris guided me by the arm through what sounded like a heavy iron door and down a twisting hallway to an immense space that echoed like an empty theatre. A creaking wooden wheelchair was offered and permission granted to remove the mask. One red lamp stood on a wooden table in the middle of which sat a metal attache case.
From beneath his mask, Harris said neurocam had no association with VCA. Some operatives might be past or current students, but that proved nothing. At any rate, Henley was no longer head of Melbourne operations, he said.
Harris said Henley had begun as a neurocam operative in New Zealand and had gained a series of promotions until he was eventually asked to "facilitate" neurocam's operations in Melbourne.
The recent reappearance of billboards beckoning the curious to join had nothing to do with Henley, he said. Neurocam was preparing for a major operation, for which substantial numbers of new recruits were needed.
What kind of operation?
"I'm sorry, but we can't tell you about that," he said.
Does Melbourne have anything to fear from this operation?
"We have nothing to say about the social benefit or risk associated with neurocam's operations," he said.
"Have you read The Magus?" he asked.
The Magus, originally titled The Godgame, is a novel by British author John Fowles. In it, English teacher Nicholas Urfe travels to a Greek island where he meets the mysterious, androgynous Conchis, who teaches Urfe about himself through a series of illusions - games apparently without purpose - that challenge Urfe's perceptions of reality and ask him to commit himself completely to tasks he does not understand.
"Neurocam is an unveiling," Hastings said. "That is all you need to know."
An unveiling of what? "That depends on the person."
At the end of the interview, Harris gave me a computer disk, on the condition the details not be printed. The disk led me to the base of a Melbourne landmark at which was embedded an electronic safe. Inside was a pile of manila envelopes, each bearing the name, or alias, of one of the dozens of recruits who had recently signed up for neurocam. Whatever that is.
Web links:
neurocam
The Neurocam Files
Who is Robert Henley?
Xade blog
Egotript's neurocam archives
Egotript blog
Delivery Boy's blog
(I find the last three links the most interesting).
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