Trevor Embury

“Too Long; Didn’t Read (at all)”

My research and body of work facilitates investigations into paradoxical and asymmetrical relationships between twenty-first-century individuals as both agents of looking and subjects of surveillance. From mass digital surveillance and monitored consumer behavior to big data capture and artificial intelligence, the many forms of modern surveillance are bolstered by capitalist business models that divide populations into two groups: the watchers (hidden, unknown, and unaccountable) and the watched (visible, known, and exposed). This has profound consequences for personal agency and, at large, our democratic process because asymmetry of knowledge translates into asymmetries of power and control. 

My work consists of printed matter and site-specific installations that incorporate irony and draw from the popular visual language associated with the Internet and computer interface culture to call attention to existing cultural forms and their operations. My methods and perspectives engage digital surveillance discourse in fields ranging from cultural studies to information science rendered through the lens of graphic design. 

By exploring personal agency in an age of technological attachment, I hope to foster new ways of considering hidden systems of knowledge—driven by data collection—to inform a wider public and encourage individual action.