Public Secrets and Bloodsugar Exhibitions

Sharon Daniel

Opening Reception: Thu, January 29, 5-7pm
Exhibit Dates: January 29 - February 20
UCLA CN(S)I, ART | SCI Lab, Suite 5419

Public Secrets

There are secrets that are kept from the public and there are "public secrets," secrets that the public chooses to keep from itself-"don't ask, don't tell." The trick to the public secret is in knowing what not to know. This is the most powerful form of social knowledge. Such shared secrets sustain social and political institutions. The injustices of the war on drugs, the criminal justice system, and the Prison Industrial Complex are public secrets. Public Secrets provides an interactive interface to an audio archive of hundreds of statements made by current and former prisoners, which unmask the secret injustices of the war on drugs, the criminal justice system, and the prison industrial complex. Visitors navigate a multi-vocal narrative that links individual testimony and public evidence, social theory, and personal statements, in an effort to engage the public in a critical dialogue about crime and punishment.

Project URL: http://publicsecret.net

Bloodsugar

Interactive, database-driven website with audio navigated with Wii controller
Blood Sugar is a "new media documentary" that examines the social and political construction of poverty, alienation, and addiction in American society through the eyes of those who live it. Blood Sugar provides an interactive interface to an audio archive of conversations with 24 current and former injection drug users recorded at the HIV Education and Prevention Program of Alameda County and in California state prisons. Since addicts must fear encounters with regimes of enforcement, they are afraid to be seen-but they do want to be heard. Theirs are the most important voices in the discourse around addiction, public health, poverty and belonging in America. Through the stories of those most affected by addiction, Blood Sugar challenges us to address question such as, what is the social and political status of the addicted? Is the addict considered fully human, diseased, possessed or wholly "other" and thus rendered ideologically appropriate to her status as less than human?

Project URL: http://bloodsugararchives.net

Biography of Sharon Daniel:

Sharon Daniel is an artist whose research involves the use and development of information and communications technologies for social inclusion. Daniel engages in the production of “new media documentaries”-building online archives and interfaces that make the stories of technologically disenfranchised communities available across social, cultural, and economic boundaries. Daniel's work has been exhibited internationally at museums and festivals including Transmediale 08, the ISEA/ZeroOne festival, the Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, Ars Electronica, the Lincoln Center Festival, the Corcoran Biennial and the University of Paris I, as well as on the Internet. Her essays have been published in books and professional journals, such as Database Aesthetics (Minnesota University Press, 2007), the Sarai Reader, and Leonardo. Daniel is a Professor of Film and Digital Media and Chair of the Digital Arts and New Media MFA program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she teaches classes in digital media theory and practice.