YOUR FACE IS SAFE WITH ME

Your face is safe with me is an animation generated in real time from a camera recording live in the gallery and from a database of images the artist collects from Chicago city locations surveilled by private, government, or police security cameras. (View sample images at open-loop.org)

Your face is safe with me is an animation generated in real time using the feed from the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art's closed circuit television network (CCTV). It was first shown in spring of 2004 at the Jean Albano Gallery.

The animation is a humorous yet critical commentary on the increasing number of surveillance cameras in urban and suburban spaces. The large projection portrays the computer playing simple videogames with itself for no purpose—high scores do not exist here. The games parodied refer to the proliferation of surveillance camera networks and their potential to be perceived as hostile intruders in community spaces—as envisioned in the updated Space Invaders™ game. In one videogame, Pacman™ chomps through a single CCTV screenshot to reveal several others—alluding to our culture’s voracious appetite for covert imagery. The new Asteroids® play involves a tiny ship blasting surveillance camera images into ever smaller ones, alluding to the immense amount of banal imagery generated daily by CCTV networks. The computer used in this exhibition deletes all images gathered live within one hour.

YOUR FACE IS SAFE WITH ME
	MAIN \| PROJECTS \| CV \| TEACHING

YOUR FACE IS SAFE WITH ME (2004) Jean Albano Gallery, Chicago, IL	YOUR FACE IS SAFE WITH ME (2005) Delaware Center for Contemporary Art

Your face is safe with me is an animation generated in real time from a camera recording live in the gallery and from a database of images the artist collects from Chicago city locations surveilled by private, government, or police security cameras. (View sample images at open-loop.org) Your face is safe with me is an animation generated in real time using the feed from the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art's closed circuit television network (CCTV). It was first shown in spring of 2004 at the Jean Albano Gallery. The animation is a humorous yet critical commentary on the increasing number of surveillance cameras in urban and suburban spaces. The large projection portrays the computer playing simple videogames with itself for no purpose—high scores do not exist here. The games parodied refer to the proliferation of surveillance camera networks and their potential to be perceived as hostile intruders in community spaces—as envisioned in the updated Space Invaders™ game. In one videogame, Pacman™ chomps through a single CCTV screenshot to reveal several others—alluding to our culture’s voracious appetite for covert imagery. The new Asteroids® play involves a tiny ship blasting surveillance camera images into ever smaller ones, alluding to the immense amount of banal imagery generated daily by CCTV networks. The computer used in this exhibition deletes all images gathered live within one hour.