How do you measure collective fear in a society obsessed with security and preparedness?
kanarinka proposes to measure fear in the individual breaths that it takes to traverse these new geographies of insecurity. How many breaths does it take to evacuate Boston? 154,000 is only an estimate.
For the Boston Cyberarts Festival 2007, kanarinka will run the newly installed evacuation route system in Boston, MA. She broadcasts her breath into public space via a speaker system on her back. She records each breath. She counts each breath. She tracks her body with GPS technology. On the website, www.evacuateboston.com, we see the data, statistics and results of this measurement of fear.
Our fear is measured in the breaths of a single person - running, training, measuring, tracking, breathing.
Public 1: Running performances in public space (Spring 2007)
Public 2: Website & podcast online (Spring 2007)
Public 3: Gallery Installation (Fall 2008)
In Spring 2007, kanarinka will run the entire evacuation route system in Boston. While running, she amplifies and broadcasts the sound of her repetitive, labored breathing into public around her body. People in the vicinity are temporarily interrupted by the sound of repetitive loud panting and the sight of a runner dressed all in white with too much gear on her body.
Listen to how this would sound
The individual breaths are counted and filed on this site [see Runs] along with statistics about each run: total breaths, breaths per run, GPS location/map, date and time. Visitors can subscribe to the podcast of breaths, which will automatically download a new set of breaths as it becomes available.
Small speakers sit inside of a large glass jar. They broadcast, in a single continuous loop, the entire collection of breaths from the City of Boston. They are attached to a small, analog, mechanical counter that sits outside the jar. The counter is made from cold-war era digital clock parts, left exposed to resemble an improvised explosive device. As each breath plays, the counter increments its count by 1. People in the gallery may remove and replace the lid of the jar. Evacuation route maps of Boston are also provided in the space as a courtesy takeaway.
Watch video sketch of gallery installation
“It takes 154,000 breaths to evacuate Boston” is an attempt to measure our collective fear. In post-9/11 society, citizens are increasingly asked to police their everyday environments for things like “unattended bags” and “suspicious behavior”, to “say something” if they “see something”. Emergency preparedness, evacuation plans, readiness kits and risk management are becoming familiar aspects of our everyday lives.
But with all of our readiness, all of our training, all of our equipment and gear – with all of this – are we really more prepared for the unknown? Or are we just more scared? Our collective fear is palpable, embodied and distributed throughout the landscape.
Measuring this collective fear is a project that can only be done idiosyncratically, through performance and metaphor. This project uses Boston’s evacuation routes, a newly installed geography of insecurity marked by blue signs, as a carrier of these powerful emotions: risk, fear, preparedness, safety, terror, disaster, escape. I measure the evacuation routes not in distance traveled or time taken, but in the individual, panting, fearful breaths that it takes to traverse them, running. These breaths become an archive of a single evacuee, trying to leave over and over again. At the same time, they serve as a single quantitative figure to locate, track and measure our collective fear - 154,000 breaths is only an estimate.
Catherine D'Ignazio (kanarinka) is a new media artist. She has a BA in International Relations from Tufts University and an MFA in Studio Art from Maine College of Art. Her research interests include the politics of digital information, site-specific and locative media, feminist performance art, participatory culture and the emotional landscape of Homeland Insecurity. She works collaboratively to create drawings, performances, software, and experimental social gatherings both online and off. She is Co-Director of the non-profit collective iKatun, Director of the Institute for Infinitely Small Things, and teaches at RISD’s Digital+Media Graduate Program and Emerson College.
Contact: kanarinka AT ikatun DOT com
Thanks: Sasha Rasovic, Ryan Sciano, Rob Coshow, iKatun, LEF Foundation, Boston Cyberarts Festival