Do you see what I see ?

A game of phone calls, privacy and surveillance.

DATE

2015

CONTEXT

This was made as part of a MFA thesis project for DMA.

MEDIUM

Custom Software

PEOPLE

Tyler Stefanich  :  Game Designer

In January 2014 the targeting of so-called “leaky” apps by the National Security Agency (NSA) was made public. These apps included many games, specifically Angry Birds, which often upload to the company’s databases details about the players, such as age, gender, and location. This was revealed in an NSA slide from 2010 with the title “Golden Nugget,” which described it as a “Perfect Scenario.” These slides were the impetus for creating Do you see what I see?, a cell phone game that is a physical adaptation of the asymmetrical relationship we knowingly or unknowingly experience in our digitally networked society.

Do you see what I see? explores the mechanisms of our technological experiences. Mixed elements of performance and game, Do you see what I see? Is a game built on call center software and played via a cell calls. The calls consist of instruction guiding the player through the environment in search of a small booklet. Once the booklet is acquired you are asked to identify someone to surveil. By participating, the player learns about another person. When the player is done she or he is asked to go somewhere private, call the game back and tell it everything that was observed. This project unpacks our relationship to technologic platforms by employing methods to control, surveil, and manipulate the player, while suggesting the daunting nature of a digitally networked society.