DIGITAL EMPATHY DEVICE

2016

Digital Empathy Device utilizes open source technologies to monitor Liveuamap, an online citizen-run mapping service that correlates live information on bombings, hazards and attacks in war zones around the world. A foreign air raid or bombing triggers a mobile phone activated device mounted on a public statue, causing it to weep every time an attack is reported.

The work has been developed in response to the proliferation and subsequent dehumanization that occurs when we view facts of these bombings online, condoning military retaliation—in this particular case, Syria. Installed in Paris, where the device was fabricated in a hotel room and mounted guerrilla style atop the head of the ‘Marianne’ statue, a symbol of the French Republic and égalité, towering above the civilian memorial of the 2015 Paris Attacks. This project took place during the 2016 Nuit Debout protests.

︎︎︎