Loca is an artist-led project on grass-roots, pervasive surveillance by John Evans (UK/Finland), Drew Hemment (UK), Theo Humphries (UK), Mike Raento (Finland). "In the inverted logic of the post-Orwellian city, Loca agents, software and human, decrypt the hertzian passages of its own inhabitants. For better or for worse?" Steve Dietz, Artistic Director, ZeroOne Click here to read more an article about Loca   Loca: Set To Discoverable Loca exposes the disconnect between people and the trails of digital identities they leave behind, and enables people to explore pervasive surveillance environments in a performative way. A person walking through the city centre hears a beep on their phone and glances at the screen. Instead of an SMS alert they see a message reading: "We are currently experiencing difficulties monitoring your position: please wave your network device in the air." Loca engages people by responding to urban semantics, the social meanings of particular places: "You walked past a flower shop and spent 30 minutes in the park, are you in love?" At the premier full presentation of Loca: Set To Discoverable at ISEA2006 and ZeroOne in August 2006 the Loca art group were able to track and communicate with the residents of San Jose via their cellphone without their permission or knowledge, so long as they have a Bluetooth device set to discoverable. Over 7 days more than two thousand five hundred people were detected more than half a million (500,000) times, enabling the team to build up a detailed picture of their movements. People were sent messages from a stranger with intimate knowledge of their movements. Over the course of the week the messages became gradually more sinister, the would-be friend mutating into stalker, "coffee later?" changing to "r u ignoring me?". For participants the experience of Loca is intangible, it is to do with what is not seen. Stickers are provided to make visible the traces of digital identities. The Loca stickers enable people to record the presence of a uniquely named device, and so become a small piece of surveillance code, introducing an element of participatory, urban play. Loca is an exercise in grass-roots, pervasive surveillance that walks the knife edge of locative media, and aims to equip people to deal with the ambiguity of pervasive media environments. In addition to the Loca node network, other aspects of the Loca project include maps that illustrate peoples habits as inferred by data collected by the Loca network, strap-on devices that alert users to detect otherwise anonymous bluetooth scans, stickers that allow people to record the presence of digital identities in their physical environment, and the surveillance/counter-surveillance ‘Loca pack’. As pervasive surveillance is potentially both sinister and positive at the same time, Loca’s intent is both playful and serious. It aims to raise awareness of the networks we inhabit, and provoke people into questioning them. Loca asks how do people respond to being tracked and observed? How ready are people to observe others? Who is the user, and how? Do we get fear of surveillance, disinterest, scopophobia or scopophilia? How does contextual data relate to people’s everyday experiences? What happens in-between physical, embodied space and the digital space of abstract data? Don’t forget: all you have to do to participate in the loca project is to set bluetooth to ‘discoverable’ on your cell phone. "LOCA ... is a surveillance project that talks back. A crew plans to plant some 30 Bluetooth scanners encased in concrete blocks at bus stations, in shops and at other busy spots in San Jose. Carrying a Bluetooth-discoverable phone within 25 feet of the scanners can trigger the receipt of a surprisingly intimate message like: 'You walked past the flower shop and spent 30 minutes in the park. Are you in love?' Such notes are not sent via text messaging but through a subversive technique called Bluejacking, in which a Bluetooth device's name is replaced with a short message meant to be picked up by neighboring devices. Part of the point is to catch people by surprise, jolting them out of their daily rituals with a Dada-worthy prank. Another goal ... is to show people how much data they may be revealing every time they turn on their phones. 'In an office you can shut the door for privacy,' ... [said Loca team member, Drew Hemment]. ''In conversation you can hide a facial expression. But with the new digital technologies, you may have no idea how much you're giving away.'' If this sounds more like an educational project than a work of art, Mr. Hemment does not seem to mind. He said he doesn't make hard and fast distinctions between the two: he considers LOCA a policy-minded research effort with the art serving as its public face." Jori Finkel, 'An Exhibition Where Paintings Are So Last Century', New York Times, August 6, 2006 Lead participants: John Evans, 3eyes, Finland Drew Hemment, Imagination@Lancaster and FutureEverything, UK Theo Humphries, 3eyes, UK Mika Raento, Jaiku and Context Research Group, University of Helsinki, Finland Loca works independently from cell phone companies and other service providers.