Josh Begley

Josh Begley
Born	1984 (age 30–31) San Francisco, California
Nationality	American
Known for	Digital Art

Josh Begley (born 1984) is an American internet artist. He is best known for creating an iPhone app to track every reported United States drone strike.^[1]

In July 2012, Begley developed an iPhone application that would send a push notification every time there was a US drone strike in Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia. Apple rejected the app three times,^[2] calling its content "crude and objectionable".^[3] Begley then created Dronestream, a Twitter account chronicling every reported US drone strike (since the first one in 2002),^[4] for Douglas Rushkoff's Narrative Lab. It gained 16,000 followers in the first week.^[5][6]

In June 2012, Begley and two other New York University graduate students, Mehan Jayasuriya and James Borda, received a cease and desist letter from Invisible Children for their Kony 2012 parody website, Kickstriker.^[7][8]

In 2014, after five rejections, Apple accepted Begley's iPhone app.^[9] It is now known as Metadata+.

A graduate of University of California, Berkeley and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Begley currently works at The Intercept with journalists Jeremy Scahill, Glenn Greenwald, and Laura Poitras.^[10]

Art

Begley is represented by The Robert Koch Gallery in San Francisco.^[11]

Work

• "Dronestream", a Twitter account posting every reported United States drone strike^[12]
• "Officer Involved", a photographic project on police violence, with an introduction by the novelist Teju Cole^[13]
• "Kickstriker", a parody site purporting to crowdfund military interventions in global conflicts^[14]
• "Prison Map", a site using aerial photography to provide a visual representation of the US prison system^[15]
• "The Listserve", a listserv-like email list where one randomly selected list member per day can send an email the entire list^[16]
• "Subject of the Dream", a collage of excerpts from the work of Toni Morrison^[17]
• "Racebox", a website showing the race section of the United States Census through history^[18]
• "Empire.is", an interactive map showing the location of known United States military installations around the world^[19]
• "Profiling.is", a visual representation of the Associated Press's probe into the New York Police Department's post-9/11 Muslim surveillance program^[20]

References

1. "Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes". Wired.
2. "Apple Rejects App Tracking Drone Strikes". New York Times.
3. "Drone-Tracking App Gets No Traction From Apple". NPR.
4. "Student Tweets Entire History of US Drone Strikes". Mashable.
5. "Josh Begley Tweets Entire History of U.S. Drone Attacks". The Daily Beast.
6. "The NYU Student Tweeting Every Reported US Drone Strike Has Revealed A Disturbing Trend". Business Insider.
7. "Kickstarter of Doom: Hoax Site 'Funds' Torture Bus, Death Drones". Wired.
8. "'Kony 2012' Threatens Lawsuit Against Online Parody". Wired.
9. "After 5 Rejections, Apple Accepts App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes". Mashable.
10. "The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle". The Intercept.
11. "Robert Koch Gallery Artists".
12. "Dronestream".
13. "Officer Involved".
14. "Kickstriker".
15. "Aerial Photos Expose the American Prison System's Staggering Scale". Wired.
16. "The Listserve".
17. "Subject of the Dream".
18. "Racebox".
19. "Empire.is".
20. "Profiling.is".

External links

• Josh Begley's official website
• New York Magazine Interview with Josh Begley from January 2013.
• MSNBC Interview - Tracking US Drone Strikes with Tech from February 2013.