So it all started with wondering 
what I could learn about someone
from that little piece of themself, 
that they left behind.
You walk around the city, 
and everywhere you see these genetic artifacts.
Little clues, that could tell you 
something about a person.
And I wanted to create these portraits of total strangers using tools in a community laboratory.
Stranger Visions is meant to provoke questions 
about privacy and surveillance.
A lot of people who have seen the work are concerned.
They wonder: What if I dropped that cigarette butt? Or what if that was my piece of hair?
And now I'm a face on a wall, in a gallery. What else might that mean?
And of course, this piece is meant to provoke these kinds of questions.
People think genetic surveillance is the topic of 
science fiction, but it's actually a problem today.
Personally, I think that we can't just be concerned about whether we, individually have something to hide.
We need to protect those who do have genetic diseases, who do face possible discrimination.
Even though there is technically legislation that prevents genetic discrimination in employment and in insurance,
it's not perfect and I think it's also important to realize that there already is a population of people
who are in a genetic database, who are in a DNA surveillance database.
And these are people who are in the codes database.
You don't have to have done anything wrong, 
you could just be a suspect,
you could be some whose been arrested,
and you end up in this database forever.
Beyond that, there's these major social justice issues of who is in that database.
The database vastly over represents minority populations.
And so there's a lot to unpack here and address.
As genetic surveillance issues become increasingly pervasive,
we're going to need tools of counter surveillance. 
Things to protect us.
You wouldn't just leave your medical records on the subway for anyone to read.
It should be a choice who you share your information with and how.
I hope that Invisible will represent a whole new line of research and developement
into to DNA counter-surveillance.
As far as I know, there's no other DNA counter-surveillance products available today.
But I predict that within the next five years, 
DNA counter-surveillance products like Invisible
will become as commonplace as hand sanitizer.
