Server Map

Juan Pablo Rahal Soto

Every movement we make is tracked on a daily basis. Consciously or unconsciously, we acquire objects that have the inherent ability to surveil us. When we choose to buy a phone or a watch, we are implicitly accepting the inevitability that we’ll be tracked, and elect to be a data generator in this web of surveillance. Server Map is a visualization of seven days in the life of a server in a San Francisco restaurant called Commonwealth. Data is visualized in the form of overlapped text and imagery. It is a record of others’ desires and the physical movements (by miles or human steps) that happen in what is classified as a single pin by the GPS, a satellite-based radio navigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Air Force "for peaceful civil, commercial, and scientific uses worldwide

Capture the Capture

Jenn Jiang

Today, tens of thousands of cameras known as automatic number plate recognition devices are deployed at various public locations. More than 2.5 trillion images are shared or stored on the internet annually. Personal monitoring devices are fast becoming a part of many a city dweller’s everyday arsenals. Are you aware that you are being watched? Even if we wanted to stop the surveillance, could we?

Capture the Capture is a system connecting a laptop camera and a nonfunctional stop button, which imparts the experience of being uncontrollably surveilled. Through the chaotic, dysfunctional interaction between the the camera output and the button input, the audience becomes painfully aware of this dynamic.

WE HAVE NO HISTORY

Yaozheng Wang

In the contemporary world, surveillance has become easier to deploy by corporations, organizations, and even individuals. What are the opportunities and challenges posed by this phenomenon, and how should we face them? We Have No History explores identity, publicity, and privacy in both the physical and digital worlds.

By printing the maker’s browsing history into tangible receipts with a digital signature and an identification code, it centers the conflict between surveillance and individual privacy. If anyone can see or own this information, what is reliable?

HER

Huizhong Zhu

The window is a boundary between private and public space. Floor-to-ceiling windows give apartment residents a good view to the outside, but also give people outside a great view of the inside. This presents a privacy issue.

Why do people fear invasions of privacy? Is it because they fear that the public will piece together fragments of their personal information and figure out who they really are?

A QR code has been placed on my apartment window, viewable to people standing outside. By scanning the QR code, viewers can enter my virtual room. In this room, they are able to identify what kind of person I am, and what my life is like. Different people may find different clues in this room, and may reach different conclusions.

👉 enter HER room