Above are three researchers (Chelsea Hash, Katherine Isbister, and Rainey Straus) and their ‘Sim’ avatars (left). Images by Rensselaer/Rainey Straus

Using surveillance cameras and the popular video game The Sims 2™, Katherine Isbister, associate professor of language, literature, and communication at Rensselaer, will create a public art installation called SimVeillance: San Jose as part of The ZeroOne San Jose Festival, taking place Aug. 7-13.

Surveillance cameras focused on the Fairmont Plaza in downtown San Jose will capture images of passersby. Isbister will then use The Sims 2 — a game that allows users to create simulated worlds and fill them with cyber-citizens — to create a virtual version of the plaza, and fill it with avatars (human representations in a shared virtual world) of the people passing through the plaza who’ve been caught on camera. The virtual population will grow throughout the duration of the exhibition.

The final installation will have two displays. One screen will feature the game running, populated with the simulated transients. The other will show live surveillance of the plaza itself.

“SimVeillance brings the local urban population back into the show in a unique way, as locals may be able to see themselves captured via surveillance camera and transposed into the game,” says Isbister. “Even viewers who don’t catch glimpses of themselves in the installation are bound to reconsider the impact of wandering the urban landscape. The project seeks to evoke feelings of curiosity, voyeurism, and a jolt into the perspective typical of city planners or sociologists.”

Isbister collaborated on the project with Rainey Straus, an installation artist and Web designer based in Oakland, Calif., and Chelsea Hash ’06, a recent electronic arts graduate from Rensselaer who is now working at 1st Playable Productions.

ZeroOne is the 2006 incarnation of the International Symposium on Electronic Art, held in various cities worldwide since 1988. According to the festival’s organizers, the event will showcase the world’s most innovative contemporary artists working at the intersection of art and digital culture.

Following the festival, SimVeillance: San Jose will be on display in the San Jose Museum of Art until Nov. 26.

View SIMveillance Video preview.

Published July 31, 2006