SCIENCE GALLERY DETROIT
DO YOU WANT TO SEE RED?
September - December 2021 Science Gallery Detroit
Visitors to the exhibition were invited to explore the myriad ways surveillance impacts our society and to explore how we can work to enable more ethical and equitable practices of seeing and being seen.
We wanted to respond to the provocation - HOW CAN WE UNDERSTAND AND GAIN CONTROL OVER SURVEILLANCE PRACTICES, UNRAVELLING DYSTOPIAN CONNECTIONS, AND FURTHER DEVELOPING UTOPIAN-LEANING CONNECTIONS?
The interactive app ‘Do you want to see red?’ was deconstructed for the gallery setting. The animations were housed in four separate kiosks. Visitors were prompted to navigate through the survey questions on their smartphones on behalf of a randomly designated avatar, At the end of the questions, visitors were asked to give their consent for their answers to be uploaded onto an evolving spatial map projection on the gallery wall. The work was part of a wider exhibition entitled ‘Tracked and Traced’. Gallery installation image credits Doug Combe.
You can access the app on this website, by clicking on the interactive app page.
tracked and traced.
With the advent of the 21st century, new technologies expedited the ways in which governments, corporations, and individuals surveilled people, places, and things throughout the world and beyond. In fact, many now claim that we live within a surveillance society. Data is collected, stored, analyzed, and applied in ways both known and unknown. The devices and tools we use—search engines, social media, smartphone apps, fitness trackers, retail loyalty programs, to name a few—enable these forms of opaque surveillance.
What does it mean to live in a world where privacy is merely an illusion? How does surveillance benefit us as individuals and as a society? Alternatively, what are the inherent harms inflicted upon those being tracked & monitored?
The exhibition was made possible through the generous support of the Michigan State University Federal Credit Union (MSUFCU).