TRANSMISSION ART ARCHIVE
Cryptographic Payphone
2008
Seth Weiner. Interactive payphone, chaotic motion system.
Seth Weiner’s work uses technology to elicit awareness of hidden forces and unknown consequences, imputing technology’s transformation of society without a comprehensive organizational or philosophical foundation. Through his cryptographic phonebooth, Weiner contrasts its hermetic space and discretion with “the engrossing exhibitionism of mobile communications, social networks and ubiquitous surveillance. The day is near when the very notion of personal privacy will be viewed as quaintly anachronistic.” Weiner counters with a phonebooth that employs a chaotic motion system to encrypt wireless data transmission, modeled upon the patented use of lava lamps to generate random numbers for the creation of cryptographic codes.