Please Empty Your Pockets

Is it art or is it an airport screening machine?  And with so much memory in the cloud, how much of your daily life could the computers record?

Please Empty your Pockets is an installation that consists of a conveyor belt with a computerized scanner that records and accumulates everything that passes under it. The public may place any small item on the conveyor belt, for example keys, ID cards, wallets, worry beads, condoms, notepads, phones, coins, dolls, credit cards, etc. Once they pass under the scanner, the objects reappear on the other side of the conveyor belt beside projected objects from the memory of the installation. As a real item is removed from the conveyor belt, it leaves behind a projected image of itself, which is then used to accompany future objects. The piece remembers up to 600,000 objects which are displayed beside new ones that are added to the installation. The piece intends to blend presence and absence using traditional techniques of augmented reality, such as those described by Adolfo Bioy Casares’ 1940 novel “La Invención de Morel”.