Investigation 1508 "I’m In"

Invited by the curators of 5×5 Participatory Provocations to respond to a contemporary political condition through a physical model, ABA addressed the expanding presence of the National Security Agency, which, the exhibit’s curators insisted, would soon be “Right around the corner on Main St. USA.” The project treats surveillance not as a distant abstraction but as an embedded condition of everyday life.

The work is premised on a systemic approach to built space, where a continuous information network exists beneath the surface of the physical environment. The mobile device is examined as the primary interface with this network, establishing an intimate relationship between the user and an otherwise invisible spatial system. At once a tool of connection and a mechanism of participation, the device both accesses and sustains the network while situating the individual within it.

In the model, the mobile phone’s camera becomes a portal, offering privileged backdoor views into a virtual continuity that overlays and penetrates physical spaces of work, dwelling, commerce, and worship. The networked space exceeds any architectural enclosure, yet is paradoxically contained within the devices we carry. Architecture is reframed as a host for an infinite, layered spatial condition that operates beyond visible form while fundamentally reshaping how space is inhabited and understood.