Lori Hepner, Penn State Greater Allegheny assistant professor of integrative arts, is the artist for December?s 1stfans Twitter Art Feed for the Brooklyn Museum?s blogging community. Using the social networking site, Twitter, Hepner creates abstract portraits of individuals? virtual identity which she has titled, Status Symbols.
According to Hepner?s proposal to the museum, the portraits are created photographically using a spinning LED array that converts the text of the tweets into the ons and offs of binary code in light to make the abstracted portraits. In the course of the project, Hepner will pose questions to the @1stfans members to respond to. The responses will be used to create portraits of the person?s online persona. The questions will be focused around themes of personal digital identity and censorship to have respondents think about their digital personas. The series of portraits featured in December?s blog for the Brooklyn Museum located in New York focuses on politicians, world leaders, student protesters, and citizens personally witnessing digital censorship.
Hepner?s work deals with translations of code through performance, video, and photography. Her previous project, Code Words, is featured in the current issue of the Society for Photographic Education?s Exposure magazine.