Mary Corey March

Mixed Media Interactive Installation: including projection, wifi detectors, and laser-cut acrylic pedestal. Dimensions variable (pedestal is 14.5" x 14.5" x 38"). This iteration included eight wifi detection nodes placed around the room. (2015)

This piece was a collaboration with programmers Christopher Saari and Rob Powers

About

Digital Breadcrumbs (M.I.S.S.T.) was created for a show entitled Bearing Witness: Surveillance in the Drone Age. While many of us are concerned with large organizations spying on us via illicit means, I was more interested in the complicity we have in our own surveillance- in this case the fact that we essentially walk around with tracking devices. I wanted to raise a visceral awareness about our everyday interactions and how we think about them, in this case with technology and privacy.

Process

Visitors to the gallery were warned on entry that they may be monitored (appropriate for a show about surveillance). Nodes were placed around the gallery to find and track different wifi and bluetooth signals in the space (mostly people's phones). The piece was located at the furthest corner of the gallery from the entrance. This meant that by the time a person reached the piece, they had already left a trail of their movement around the gallery.

By default the projection showed the path of everyone currently in the space as tracked by their phones. A pedistal with glowing text invited visitors to place there phone there to see their own path through the space. A button, if pressed, showed the entire record of visitors to the gallery for that day.