Digital Gas Mask consists of a real soviet gas mask that has been retrofitted to accept ethernet, visualing any passing network traffic on a heads-up LED display. Swappable firmware enables it to display relative volume of encrypted vs. unencrypted traffic, to detect and display keywords, and to actively hack and shut down any network activity.

The interaction with the piece is wearing it. However, since the mask was actually used in combat and contains unidentified residual gas, tension is created in the conflict between wanting to fully experience the piece and the danger associated with doing so. The choice and risk is left to the viewer.

Digital Gas Mask undermines a user's feeling of privacy, as the mask has the ability to intercept and display all intra-network traffic. It uses the huge volume of unencrypted information constantly being shuttled around networks everywhere as its input. Issues of privacy are addressed and related to issues of digital warfare. Current conventions of interactivity are questioned by attaching a real physical consequence to the interaction.

This work can be installed any place with ethernet access. Laboratories, Athena clusters, even wired classrooms serve as nodes of interaction. The easily portable gas mask will make many tours of the MIT campus. The issues that it addresses are pertinent to anybody conducting their daily business online, to those working in industry or government, and to anyone wishing to understand and participate in our future global climate.

Made possible by the MIT Council for the Arts.
Huge thanks to Kevin McCormick for the genius tech.