Market Street is bugged! And you are invited to listen in. EAVESDROP connects visitors to Market Street Prototyping Festival through the act of eavesdropping.

Market Street is bugged! And you are invited to listen in. EAVESDROP connects visitors to Market Street Prototyping Festival through the act of eavesdropping. Using microphones hidden inside the other prototypes, the project invites you to spy on your fellow visitor. EAVESDROP plays on the irresistible impulse to listen, while raising questions about surveillance and privacy in the public realm. How do you feel while you secretly listen to the public lives of others? And how do you feel when you realize you are being listened to?

Step into EAVESDROP and you find yourself in the cockpit of a clandestine listening station. Press the button next to a prototype icon and you hear a live feed of conversations at that location: debates, opinions, secrets and silence. Sound indicator lights beneath each button show you where people are talking, allowing you to choose whose conversation to eavesdrop on.

Feel bad listening to others? Don’t worry, you’re being bugged too. EAVESDROP itself will be equipped with microphones recording not only what you listen to, but also what you say, and will broadcast it on the web. The EAVESDROP feed is delayed five minutes, so you can take out your phone and eavesdrop on yourself.

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