Research | Queen’s University Canada

Coded, I Am

"Coded, I Am" is part of a larger research creation project that looks at preemptive surveillance strategies in North America. It is a self-portrait of an artist immersed in tattoo QR codes. The QR codes – when scanned – direct the viewer to Google Earth images of CSIS and NSA intelligence sites. The photograph not only shows an artist absorbed by her research, but it is a representation of how users rely on third party sites such as Google Earth in their everyday lives, regardless of the risk of data mining and surveillance. The codes shift the surveillance gaze by giving viewers the tools to look at the institutions that are normally doing the ‘surveilling’.
Submission Year: 
2015-16
Photographer's affiliation: 
Graduate student
Academic areas: 
Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs
Photo: 
Coded, I Am
Categories: 
Grad student
School of Graduate Studies
Creative Production and Expression
Securing Successful and Just Societies through Scholarship, Governance and Policy
Surveillance Studies Centre (SSC)
Location of photograph: 
Kingston, Ontario
Prize name: 
Keywords: 
Photographer's name: 
Stéfy McKnight
Display Photographers Affiltion + Faculty or Department: 
Graduate Student, Cultural Studies