News/Research

Experience Kevin Lo's Return the Eye

20 Feb, 2021

Experience Kevin Lo's Return the Eye

DROUGHT SPA, composed of BCNM graduate student Kevin Lo and alex cruse, recently launched Return the Eye, an online exhibit exploring artistic labor and viewing behavior during quarantine and investigating how optical technologies interact with policing and state violence.

Hosted by San Francisco's Cloaca Projects, Return the Eye runs online through February 2021. This exhibit consists of work installed in the gallery itself, which is then accessible to online viewers from the website via user controllable cameras. This surveillant viewing experience contrasts with the more standard Matterport or VR-esque "3D gallery" formats. There is also a generative sound component that is also viewer controllable. As a user, one can influence the synthesizer output using one’s mouse movements and different mouse click/drags on various parts of the web interface. The team hopes that people can synchronize their visits to the website to experience the full potential of the sonic output and networked synthesizer that results from multiple people shaping different parts of the sound simultaneously.

Check out the exhibit here! For a how-to, check out this tour here!

Learn more about Cloaca Projects here!