In a society where CCTV cameras are increasingly being used at all scales ranging from private security, policing surveillance to governmental monitoring, we can no longer escape the eyes behind the lens of those watching us. This project explores the notion of surveillance and questions its impact in our culture today. At the same time, CCTV cameras draw upon one’s paronoia but it also instigates a fascination and narcissism of the subject being watched evident in the popularity of ‘Big Brother’. (I)-yclops was created as a whimsical creature. The Edwardian sculpture metamorphosized into a technological eye which pans 360 degrees watching you in all directions. Its intense gaze from the pupil looks at you left and right, up and down. It blinks and sometimes falls asleep with its eyelids shut when there is nothing interesting to look at. (I)-yclop’s home is on UCL’s quadrangle where Jeremy Bentham’s auto-icon is preserved in the South Cloisters since 1850. (I)-yclops pays respect to Bentham as a translation of Bentham’s notion of the panopticon in a contemporary computerized society.

Project by:
Ami Kito, Ana Maria Moutinho, Hiromi Mikuriya, Martin Traunmueller, Norraniti Prougestaporn, Ryan Mehanna, Young Jin Sunwoo.

Workdshop Leaders:
Ruairi Glynn, John Nussey, Ollie Palmer

Bartlett School
University College London
2012

This is my “Body as Interface” -project for the MSc Adatpive Architecture and Computation course at the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies (UCL). (aac.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/).

The project investigates the relationship between a human and a digital dancer – Tina – and resulting tension-fields that occur within space, as a continuation of a workshop from nov2011 at the Bartlett, UCL. It shows the process and parts of the workflow, leading to an interactive spatial installation, presented to the public on December, 16th 2011.

performance dancer: katja nyqvist [roehampton university]
installation set up & coding: martin traunmueller
tool: processing 1.5.1.
music: oceansize – unravel stephan mathieu – flimmer