On 2 October 2013 at 3:15pm the FBI arrested Ross Ulbricht, the alleged kingpin of the Silk Road, a narcotics marketplace on the deep web using Bitcoin to conduct transactions. SR / DPR is a data portrait of Ulbricht, meshing the immaterial dreams of free markets and cryptocurrencies with the net footprint of an eagle scout from Austin, Texas. The core work uses the computer desktop as a presentation mechanism, a display cycling through chat windows, blockchain visualisations, leaky captchas and stretched audio based on Ulbricht’s mediated identity. This piece is supplemented with textiles based on seized currency and a reader exploring the wider context of this story.
Screen Recording (extract)
https://vimeo.com/121497580
SR / DPR Reader (pdf)
http://lukemunn.com/sr_dpr_reader_web.pdf
