Scott Fitzgerald

Scott Fitzgerald is an artist and educator working with emerging technologies. He is the co-Director of NYU Tandon's Integrated Digital Media program and working towards a PhD at SUNY Buffalo's Department of Media Study. He's also partner at lightband Studios, creating bespoke glass and dynamic lighting installations. Previously, Scott worked on documentation for the Arduino platform and was the founding head for NYU Abu Dhabi's Interactive Media program.

Exhibiting

Mac Check

Based off a mock RFC that imagines a rejection of DNS by sentient network devices, MAC Check implements an alternate naming system that is designed around consensus across all devices in a network. Taking cues from the human microphone model popularized during Occupy Wall Street, one dissenting voice can grind all network communication to a halt.

As concern about the social ramifications of intelligent machines ramps up, MAC Check explores how machines may push against hierarchical power structures inherent in popular distributed networks like the web, and imagines what sort of conversation and reports they may share with each other. By forming a more egalitarian and efficient model for themselves, the devices render themselves unusable to their human users.

You can access the fictional RFC at http://bit.ly/MAC_check