While at the Creative Capital retreat this summer I met the L.A.-based French artist Marie Sester, who does fascinating work dealing with technology and the interstice of the individual and the social.

From her website:

“I was trained as an architect, then chose the visual and multimedia fields to examine the way that a civilization originates and creates its forms. These forms are both tangible — such as signals, buildings, and cities — and intangible, such as the aspects of values, laws and culture.

My work questions the perspective of the West, and the meta-state of a New World Order. I employ archetypes and referents as starting points. For several years I have been committed to working with already-existing data or phenomena, in order to propose a connection between individuals and wider forces, or larger scales, or longer time-bases. And thus reconsider what a society or a community is engaged in, and therefore the individuals, in their everyday life.”

She recently sent an email announcing the opening on November 19 of her installation “Access,” which is a permanent installation at the ZKM/Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany. Sester writes, “ACCESS is a public art installation that applies web and surveillance technologies, allowing web users to track individuals in public spaces with a unique robotic spotlight and acoustic beam system, without people wearing any gear, exploring the ambiguities among surveillance, control, visibility and celebrity.”

The web component of the installation invites you, gentle surfer, to participate in the installation by guiding the robotic spotlight and acoustic beam system. Visit the the Access Project for the “tracking hours” when online participation is allowed. Though “beware,” Sester warns. “Some individuals may not like the idea of being under surveillance.”