I walked around Seattle with a video camera recording people on the streets. Fragments is a digital collage project where I combined the faces of many people into composite images. I took each face, chopped it up into tiny fragments, and reassembled the pieces into composite frames. This work was inspired by the way technology companies create mathematical models of human behavior from millions of individuals, creating composites that only have a fuzzy connection with reality.

Additionally, in the "framed" version of Fragments a hidden camera captures pictures of viewers' faces. These new pictures are then added to the composites, meaning that whoever looks at this picture has their data incorporated into it.

The act of viewing is usually thought of as involving data moving in only one direction: from a source of light, to the object being viewed, into our eyes, and ultimately into our minds. However, the act of viewing a website or phone app involves information moving in two directions: you are peering into the website as much as the website is peering back into you.

If a solitary artist can collect and analyze the data of strangers, what can a technology company with 100,000 software engineers do?

Female-presenting faces:

Billioniare faces (from Forbes):

These images exist both as stills and as videos displayed inside portraits"

Static images: