Dries Depoorter — Photo © Titus Simoens

Dries Depoorter

Dries Depoorter (1991) lives and works in Ghent. The artist combines technology and art to highlight contemporary matters, such as privacy, artificial intelligence, surveillance and social media. His diverse digital portfolio comprises innovative apps, interactive installations, websites and games.

Depoorter has already exhibited in places such as The Barbican, London; MUTEK Festival, Barcelona; Art Basel; Para Site Hong Kong; Mozilla – The Glass Room, San Francisco; WIRED and IDFA Doclab.

Back home, some of his work has been shown at, among others, Bozar, FOMU and Mundaneum (Mons). Depoorter is also a keynote speaker with passages in e.g. MoMA, TEDx Brussels, Mutek Montreal, KIKK-festival and STRP festival.

Famous pieces are Get Popular Vending Machine (2016); the app Die With Me (2018); and The Flemish Scrollers (2021) in which he uses artificial intelligence to detect which politicians are browsing on their mobile phone in the Flemish Parliament.

On display at COME CLOSER

Middelheimmuseum

Dries Depoorter, Surveillance Speaker — foto © Tom Cornille

Surveillance Speaker V3, 2018-2024

Sculpture, new work

A camera on a high pole focuses on you. Then immediately gives spoken feedback about what it sees using artificial intelligence. The loudspeakers boom: ‘I see …’. Then let the games begin! After all, perhaps you'll act differently because of what the camera sees? From a passive subject, you suddenly become an active actor. In another variant, it is sometimes not the camera with AI but the artist himself who gives a live description of what is happening.

Continuous viewing
Please do not touch