Creators: Damion Bailey (Interaction Designer) and Bjørn Saunes (industrial designer).

This video outlines the issues of surveillance for which our exhibition facilitated debate and demonstrates the experience through the users interaction (25 MB MPEG movie).

OFF STANDBY VIDEO (04:22 min)

Concept

(The viewers interaction)
The viewers meet an interactive installation without instruction, information or any guidelines to prepare them for the experience. This is an important element in the first step of the experience. The viewers enter a “private” area of minimal but definite seclusion in which he/she interacts with a rectangular semi-transparent surface. The interactive element has a clean, but interesting appearance. Once you get closer to this surface it will begin to light up in colors. The distance from the surface (measured by a ultrasound sensor) determines which colored light bulbs that will be turned on. For a while the viewers loses themselves in the playful interaction, and forget about the world around them.
The next step in the interaction is when the viewers enter further in to a more open “public” area of the exhibition. The viewers are confronted with projected commercials on the wall. The commercials are nonsensical, and are exclusively profit related towards private persons. The surprise moment in this are the background video image of the running commercials, which were previously recorded of the viewers with a hidden camera in the “private” area.
The viewers leave the exhibition area and are left alone with their experience.

Background

(The Exhibition)
Over a period of six weeks, six cross-disciplinary teams of 3rd and 4th year students of Graphic Design and Interactive Media will exhibit six separate concepts at Danish Design Center in Copenhagen. Bearing the title ‘Surveillance DK:UK’ the projects attempt to exemplify the nature of surveillance in Denmark and London. The exhibits incorporate elements of sociological fieldwork as well as narration and interaction as complementary tools.

(SURVEILLANCE DK:UK)
In Britain and Denmark surveillance is woven into the very fabric of society.For every fifth British citizen there is one camera and London is now the most visually observed city in the world. The number plate of every car entering the city centre is recorded. In Denmark the state is less visible but nonetheless all-pervasive; the personal number is the key to health care and social services - even some video shops demand it to open an account!