This responsive sculpture draws on the tradition of dowsing, a historical method for determining the location of subterranean deposits of metal, minerals, or water with paired rods. As a dowser moved through a landscape, crossed rods would indicate the supposed location of a desired resource. Dowsing has also long served as a method of divination, in which crossed rods represent affirmative answers to a seeker's question.
In Flag + Channel, the role of the seeker is played by a camera-driven digital algorithm. As embedded cameras track bodies moving through the gallery, the viewer becomes the sought-after resource. Responding to the algorithm's calculations, a pair of rods swivel and cross to trace each visitor's path.
Traditionally, dowsing searches the physical subterranean for buried materials. In a culture of far-reaching and capital driven surveillance, an emerging digital underground has been identified for its extractive potential. Flag + Channel gives physical form to these shadowy practices, confronting viewers with the realities of contemporary surveillance culture.