1984x1984

"1984x1984" is the tenth piece in Lozano-Hemmer’s Shadow Box series of interactive displays with a built-in computerized tracking system. The piece shows a grid of thousands of random numbers extracted from addresses photographed by Google Street View. Scanned by Google from the front doors of buildings around the world, the numbers have an immense variety of fonts, colours, textures, and styles. As a viewer walks in front of the piece, his or her silhouette is represented within the display, and within its form, all numbers countdown to show the number 1984 repeated throughout. The piece was made as a homage to George Orwell’s eponymous dystopian novel, 30 years after his predicted date for the collapse of privacy.

The piece exists as a reactive flat screen which can be shown unframed or integrated into an anodized aluminium enclosure. Also, there as an edition of 6 C-prints in Kodak Endura paper and a "treatment" version which can be projected or shown on a display larger than 6 x 3 m.