‘Classified’ features Snowden appearance at Honolulu Museum of Art

Edward Snowden, the former Hawaii resident and whistleblower who exposed U.S. government eavesdropping, will make a live video-chat appearance at the Honolulu Museum of Art in “Classified,” a series of talks, films and workshops aimed at exploring “the intersection between art and surveillance.”

Snowden has variously been called a heroic defender of civil liberties and a traitor. He was working for Booz Allen Hamilton in Hawaii as an analyst for the National Security Agency when he discovered the government was monitoring, collecting and storing communications by ordinary U.S. citizens without their knowledge. In 2013 he fled overseas with top-secret documents, releasing them to various news outlets. He remains in hiding in Russia.

“Classified” aims to demystify some of the issues surrounding surveillance, said Taylour Chang, director of the museum’s Doris Duke Theatre and organizer of the series.

“The issue of surveillance can be a very overwhelming one,” she said. “Whether it’s government surveillance or consumer surveillance, it’s everywhere. What art does is that it allows us to approach this topic in a very creative and playful way.”

Snowden will appear as part of a panel discussion at 1 p.m. Jan. 6 at the Doris Duke Theatre; tickets are $30 to $35. Also participating will be Ben Wizner, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who has been representing Snowden; Trevor Paglen, a geographer and artist whose work has involved obtaining images from surveillance satellites; and Kate Crawford, a scholar in the field of data systems and artificial intelligence. Moderating will be artist Hasan Elahi, who blends Google satellite imagery with photos of buildings taken at ground level.

Artists Kyle McDonald and Lauren McCarthy will lead a “Social Hacking Workshop” at noon Jan. 7; cost is $30.

Film screenings include “1984,” an adaption of George Orwell’s famous novel about a society under constant monitoring by Big Brother, at 7 p.m. Jan. 5; “Risk,” a 2016 documentary about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, at 8 p.m. Jan. 6; “Citizenfour,” the 2014 documentary about Snowden, at 6 p.m. Jan. 7; ‘THX 1138,” George Lucas’ futuristic feature about a society where love is forbidden, at 7 p.m. Jan. 7; and “Brazil,” Terry Gilliam’s fantastical 1985 feature about a low-level bureaucrat who gets caught up in his daydreams. All films are $10 to $12.