Screened For

Are we our diseases? Is the world a petri dish incubating the source of its ultimate destruction? Screened For is an algorithm-based video that displays fear of the viral, of the microbial and of impending pandemics in a new light. The artist is depicted wearing protective mouth and nose masks painted with an array of microbial infectious diseases such as Malaria, Tuberculosis, SARS and West Nile Virus. With eyes peering out tentatively, the viewer is confronted with questions: are the very devices we employ to protect ourselves providing the safety we need when faced with the rampant spread of infections and disease? What constitutes true protection? Can disease be truly beautiful? Ultimately, Screened For asks viewers to consider that fear and beauty reside in an uncomfortable dialectic, in this precarious time of contagions, epidemics and bioterrors.