Reliquary - Personal Identifiers as Sacred Objects
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In 2018, I learned that 911 calls are captured by police scanner cell phone apps allowing the public to have a direct access to conversations between police and dispatcher. Noting that the shared information being broadcast included citizen’s personal identifiers—names, social security numbers, dates of birth, phone numbers—I became concerned about the public’s accessibility to a private citizen’s information, whether suspects or victims of crimes. From February 2019 to July 2019, I randomly documented instances in which this information was shared over 911 dispatch, and subsequently the police dispatch phone app. My objective in this piece is to document these precious personal identifiers and encase them in or on these felted orbs, or within weaving patterns - obscuring and encasing these pieces of identifying language in the way that sacred reliquaries hold the bones of saints.
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