Nathan McNinch & Kevin Day - "A Scanner Ubiquity"

Ever wondered where all the personal information that we feed into the Internet ends up? So do Vancouver artists Nathan McNinch and Kevin Day. Their exhibition, A Scanner Ubiquity, on show at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art from January 23 – March 7, collates samples of seemingly useless but readily available public information and turns it into works of art.

Using kinetic sculptures throughout the gallery, their works examine, in various ways, everyday information and the use of that data in common applications. A participatory installation piece takes the form of several machines that retrieve physiological information (such as height and density) from the nearby audience; in real time, the data is then continuously printed on paper, creating something similar to a polygraph using the gathered information.

The exhibition demonstrates the process by which human attributes become privatized and reduced to data and statistics, fully exploited in the information age. Can resistance be accomplished through induced obsolescence - by making the data non-functional through self-erasure, overabundance, translation, and exaggeration?

Visit the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art between January 23 and March 7, 2015 to view the exhibition.