Page 6 - 06 - 2009

BLOOD SUGAR PUBLIC SECRETS

29 JANUARY 2009 29 JANUARY 2009
UCLA ART|SCI CENTER + LAB UCLA ART|SCI CENTER + LAB

Interactive, database-driven website There are secrets that are kept from the
with audio navigated with Wii public and there are “public secrets,”
controller Blood Sugar is a “new secrets that the public chooses to
media documentary” that examines the keep from itself - “don’t ask, don’t
social and political construction of tell.” The trick to the public secret
poverty, alienation, and addiction is in knowing what not to know. This
in American society through the eyes is the most powerful form of social
of those who live it. Blood Sugar knowledge. Such shared secrets sustain
provides an interactive interface to social and political institutions. The
an audio archive of conversations with injustices of the war on drugs, the
24 current and former injection drug criminal justice system, and the Prison
users recorded at the HIV Education Industrial Complex are public secrets.
and Prevention Program of Alameda Public Secrets provides an interactive
County and in California state prisons. interface to an audio archive of
Since addicts must fear encounters hundreds of statements made by current
with regimes of enforcement, they are and former prisoners, which unmask the
afraid to be seen-but they do want to secret injustices of the war on drugs,
be heard. Theirs are the most important the criminal justice system, and the
voices in the discourse around prison industrial complex. Visitors
addiction, public health, poverty and navigate a multi-vocal narrative that
belonging in America. Through the links individual testimony and public
stories of those most affected by evidence, social theory, and personal
addiction, Blood Sugar challenges us statements, in an effort to engage the
to address question such as, what is public in a critical dialogue about
the social and political status of crime and punishment.
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?

Images courtesy of Sharon Daniel.

ARTIST ART+ACTIVISM COLLABORATION COMMUNITY EDUCATION LECTURE PUBLICATION RESEARCH RESIDENCY ROBOTICS MIXER SYMPOSIUM |||| ARTIST ART+ACTIVISM COLLABORATION COMMUNITY EDUCATION LECTURE PUBLICATION RESEARCH RESIDENCY ROBOTICS MIXER SYMPOSIUM ||||
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