We Serve In Silence, 2006 (Clevelander-Z)

Surveillance is now a way of life. Everywhere in our living spaces, cameras provide a myriad of eyes to watch our every move. To paraphrase philosopher Paul Virilio, “There are eyes everywhere… There is no blind spot left.” Even at home, spyware and illicit government data mining tracks our activities, including every click. 

Everywhere, control seeks to inscribe its agendas on the individual, regardless of whether they are private or public. We are sought for opinion polls, tracked for marketing statistics, and even profiled for potential threats to the established cycles of capital and power.

We Serve In Silence is the second interactive installation developed by Clevelander-Z (Patrick Lichty and Laura M. Rusnak). This project seeks to make visible these agendas and abuses of power, while using client-side surveillance techniques to give the user a sense of re-empowerment. While the user will be watched by the installation, the piece will also monitor net activity. The data obtained from the data mining will then determine textual and graphic elements in the piece, revealing the forces seeking to paralyze the individual in a grid of total control. In this way, we hope that the participant will be abstracted by the installation, but also re-humanized by the gesture of their presence.

This project entails elements of surveillance and counter-surveillance through the use of the Teleo board (Surv.) and Carnivore (C-Surv). Formal elements of the projection are defined by the motion/position sensing of the Teleo video module, while visual/textual elements are defined by the captured network data via CarnivorePE.

Tech: Real-Time data extraction with RSG's CarnivorePE application and Real-Time video surveillance of the installation space. Programmed with ActionScript.

Equipment: MAC mini, Teleo board with video module, one dome surveillance camera, and projector.