Conor McGarrigle: Spook…

Artist(s):

• Conor McGarrigle

Title:

Spook...

Exhibition:

• SIGGRAPH 2000: Art Gallery

Medium:

Web site

Size:

2000

Category:

• Internet Art

Keywords:

• connection
• movement
• surveillance
• website

Artist Statement:

Spook… is a distributed net.art project that explores issues of surveillance, tracking, and covert activity on the Web in an interactive Web site based on the conventions of computer games.

On 1 June 1999, an unusual pattern of hits from military servers was noticed on the Stunned ArtZine site. A high level of activity was noticed from one server in particular. In an attempt to find out the reason for this, we decided to find out where else this server had been and who else they were looking at. It was time to watch the watchers…

A server trace was initiated using the Stunned Spook-Bot, which tracked the military server’s path through the net, mapping and logging its activities. The resulting data form the basis of Spook …

Spook… goes behind or underneath the Web to use as its raw material the traces of movement through the Web. It discovers paths and tracks