A new touring exhibit called “Spymaker: The Science of Spying” has issued a novel call for participation: they’re looking for ideas for speculative, near-future surveillance and counter-surveillance tech, and they’re paying £250 for every idea they take. The quirk is that all submissions have to be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license, which allows them, you, me or anyone else to re-use them.
I was a consultant on the Science of Spying exhibition and had an amazing time with it — they’ve assembled a terrific gang of creatives and were really pursuing a grand exhibition that would help kids understand what it means to be under surveillance.
We’re looking for ideas that are provocative, plausible (could happen), credible (can be explained) and easily communicable to 8-12 year olds in a museum context. The ideas should be submitted as sketches rather than detailed designs because selected concepts will be developed by leading designers for exhibition. Auger-Loizeau, Dunne & Raby, El Ultimo Grito, Noam Toran, Onkar Singh Kular, and Troika have all agreed to take part.