White Space Conflict

Through the prism of big data, psychometrics, advanced techniques of persuasion and micro-targeted surveillance, White Space Conflict contemplates Donald Trump's US Presidential election victory and a dystopian, 'big-brothery' future. The film's central voice is that of Alexander Nix, CEO of data mining and strategic communications firm Cambridge Analytica, notorious for its role in Trump's Electoral College victory. A broad range of images related to surveillance systems, from eye tracking to facial recognition, are juxtaposed with the observations of Mr. Nix, a blithe 21st century confidence man. Interspersed are additional comments from a range of others, including, in order: Steve Bannon, White House chief strategist for the Trump Administration and former executive of Breitbart News and former board member of Cambridge Analytica; Julian Assange, the computer programmer who founded Wikileaks in 2006; Jared Lanier, a pioneer in the field of virtual reality known for charting a humanistic approach to technology; Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President and CEO of IBM, a leader in the company's cloud platform and "cognitive solutions" endeavors; Sebastian Gorka, the Hungarian-born American military intelligence analyst, currently a member of the National Security Advisory staff and Deputy Assistant to President Trump; and Tristan Harris, the former Design Ethicist at Google who now leads Time Well Spent, a non-profit movement dedicated to aligning technology with our humanity.