Mark Farid Conceptual Art Talk
Mark Farid Conceptual Art Talk VIDEOS
Mark Farid Conceptual Art Talk PHOTOS
Mark offers a selection of intriguing projects to discuss in his TedX-style talks.
Seeing-I Project
Collaborating with clinical psychologists, neuroscientists, and professors from MIT and the University of Cambridge, Mark initiated an exceptional psychological experiment where he views the world solely through other individuals’ eyes.
Enabled by cutting-edge VR technology, this psychological art project explored the impacts of surveillance technologies on personal perception, questioning how much of our identity is innate versus shaped by cultural experiences.
Each morning, Mark would don a virtual reality headset to observe the first-person perspective of a different individual (the ‘Other’), from their morning routine until bedtime. Every day, Mark shared the life experiences of diverse individuals, ranging from an asylum seeker to a teenager to a 72-year-old woman.
Each night, after the Other went to sleep, Mark would remove the VR headset and confer with the project's clinical psychologist.
Data Privacy Project
Exploring the extent of data legally harvested and its effect on digital anonymity and privacy, Mark surrendered his entire digital identity by sharing his login details for all online accounts after a panel discussion. Within minutes, strangers had altered most of his passwords, from his online banking to his Apple ID, effectively making the accounts inaccessible to him. The goal was to 'corrupt' or 'erase' the stored data by blending Mark's identity with that of others using his accounts, rendering the data useless.
From that moment and for the next six months, Mark lived without a digital footprint. Constantly using and replacing pay-as-you-go phones and SIM cards, changing bank accounts, using cash only, purchasing weekly travel cards, and avoiding online platforms, Mark highlighted our reliance on data-storing social platforms for a standard existence. This disconnection led to social isolation and significantly impacted his cultural and financial life, as well as his mental well-being.
