This n' That: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Photo by Ethan Hoover on Unsplash

By Chloe Tai

Artists ban together with the future of the USPS at stake

It is no secret that the hyper-politicization of America has affected many governmental departments’ leadership structures and modus operandi.  Yet, the United States Postal Service might have been the last place one would expect something drastic to happen to.  During the pandemic, the plan is for people to mail-in ballots so as to avoid any contact during the voting process.  However, USPS advocates and Democrats are calling foul at USPS postmaster general and Trump mega-donor, Louis DeJoy, who has implemented policies that seem to want to tamper with the election process in November.

In the last three months, the USPS has reportedly lost more than $2 billion, and first-class mail lost revenue over the first few months of the pandemic.  Democrats proposed $25 billion in aid to be given as part of the second coronavirus relief package, but Trump staunchly opposed the plan.  He believes that if the USPS were to handle mail-in ballots, there would be more voter fraud, a theory that has been proven wrong.  Slashed hours and late delivery on mail have agitated and concerned many of the USPS employees who have long been hailed as essential workers and heroes during this pandemic.

Large support has rolled out in favor of the USPS in the art community, with Brooklyn-based artist Christina Massey pioneering the USPS Art Project.  During the pandemic, it became hard for artists to collaborate on projects together when they were forced to quarantine and social distance.  Massey describes how she started by just texting a friend to work on finishing a sculpture together and then, “Our cluster of friends started doing [that], and it grew quickly and organically after that.”

More than 600 pieces of art have been passed around through the USPS and are displayed in Art Centers across the nation.  Amidst the threat to thousands of USPS personnel and the mail system that has survived two World Wars, art has found a way to support those most in need.

Photo by Aditya Vyas on Unsplash

New York City museums are set to reopen as COVID-19 numbers continue to decrease

On Friday, August 15, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that New York City museums are scheduled to open again beginning August 24.  He said, “New York City's world-class cultural institutions have long provided comfort and creativity for generations of people in one of the world's most vibrant places, and when the COVID-19 pandemic began to threaten the city and this nation, it was especially heartbreaking to see them close their doors.”  The original, more hopeful plan was to open museums during Phase 4, which began on July 20, but because of the cases at the time, these plans were put on hold.  However, after eight straight days of having a below 1% positive rate of new coronavirus cases, the city is more hopeful than ever that opening up museums will not risk a second wave.

Museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History have already announced their plans to reopen.  The usual requirements, such as face masks and requiring social distancing, have been put in place.  To that effect, Daniel H. Weiss, President and CEO of The Met, stated, “The safety of our staff and visitors remains our greatest concern.”  The Met will be unveiling three new exhibitions upon reopening, Making the Met, 1870-2020, The Roof Garden Commission: Héctor Zamora, Lattice Detour, and Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle.

Photo by Matteo Catanese on Unsplash

9/11 Tribute in Light saved

On Thursday, August 13, the 9/11 “Tribute in Light” installation, featuring eighty-eight 7,000-watt, xenon light bulbs, was canceled.  The installation typically featured two beams that reach four miles into the sky and can be seen from anywhere in Manhattan. Officials of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum stated concerns over the coronavirus pandemic and the toll it would take on the city to host this event.  However, many people were upset with the decision to cancel the art installation that has been put on every year since March 2002.

News of the reinstatement of the installation came on August 15 when Governor Cuomo announced via Twitter, “NYS will provide health personnel & supervision so that @Sept11Memorial can mount the Tribute in Light safely.”  Due to a partnership with former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Cuomo said, “I am glad that we can continue this powerful tribute to those we lost on 9/11 and to the heroism of all New Yorkers.”

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Canon data breach leads to lost photos and mistrust

“You cannot access the files right now. But do not worry. You can get it back! It is easy to recover in a few steps. We have also downloaded a lot of private data from your network, so in case of not contacting us as soon as possible this data will be released.”  As of August 6, 2020, Canon has told its employees that they were targeted by a ransomware attack.  The message above was allegedly taken from a screenshot of the attack.  Maze, human-operated ransomware that commits cybercrimes for profit, has claimed responsibility.  Several Canon domains have been affected by this outage.  Ransomware has been a trend that has increased in recent years with the ransomer demanding payment or else threatening to release the data they have acquired.  Unfortunately for Canon, they are now another victim in a long line of ransomees.  Worse still, Canon recently failed its customers with a power outage in its cloud sharing platform.

In early April, Canon launched image.canon.  The website was intended to move photography into the future in a similar way to Google and Amazon.  With Google Photos and Prime Photos, the intention is that once a photo is taken, it can be shared and uploaded to the cloud instantaneously.  However, on August 4, Canon experienced a power outage that affected image.canon, causing the service to be down for a few days.  Once image.canon was back up and running, customers of the service noticed that some of their pictures were missing.  In an official statement, Canon said, “When Canon switched over to a new version of the software to control these services on July 30, the code to control the short-term storage operated on both of the short-term storage and the long-term storage functions, causing the loss of some images stored for more than 30 days.”

It’s a disappointment for many photographers who were expecting image.canon to bring convenience and ease of sharing to their lives.  With these two incidents back-to-back, Canon has experienced a troubling couple of months.