Seiko Mikami’s large installation “Desire of Codes” demonstrates how the boundaries between the body of data in the virtual world and the physical body in the real world are becoming blurred in the context of Information Society.
The nightmarish setting of this interactive work consists of three parts: a white wall on which 90 insect feeler-like objects with build-in surveillance cameras are mounted (Ninety Wriggling Wall Units); six giant robot arms equipped with video cameras and laser projectors hanging from the ceiling (Six Multi-perspective Search Arms); and a round projection surface 3.5 meters in diameter. This Compound Eye Detector Screen resembles an insect’s multifaceted eyes.

Visitors become cognizant of being in the viewfinder of a perfect piece of surveillance machinery. Highly sensitive cameras and microphones register the slightest movement and sounds beyond the range of human hearing. Whatever is registered is stored in a high-performance databank that is the actual core of “Desire of Codes.” On the large screen, installation visitors experience the real-time projections of their own images; these sequences are interspersed by older footage within the system as well as images from surveillance cameras in public places worldwide.

Desire of Codes is a commissioned work by YCAM//Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (JP) and has been exhibited at ICC Tokyo, Dortmund Center for Art and Creativity, and Künstlerhaus Wien.
Kazunao Abe (Curator, YCAM/Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media / JP); Satoshi Hama, Soichiro Mihara, Richi Owaki ( YCAM InterLab / JP), Norimichi Hirakawa (JP), Ryota Kuwakubo (JP), TAKEGAHARASEKKEI, Tama Art University, Course of Media Art (JP)